NEWS: 25th July 2011 - Metropolis Mastering purchase Oxford Limiters and EQs
The Metropolis Group, Europe’s largest independent mastering facility, has purchased 10 Oxford Limiters and 10 Oxford EQs. Asked for the reasoning behind this substantial Sonnox plug-in purchase, Crispin Murray (Technology Development Manager) said, “We test drove a good number of plug-ins , and Sonnox were the ones that everyone seemed to come back to. They seem to be the most transparent of all we tried.”
Mastering engineer Miles Showell comments, “Transparency is important when it comes to loudness. I don’t think we’re mastering any louder than we used to, you know we won’t go down the ‘level at all costs’ route, but you do still have to compete. If you’re stuff isn’t loud enough, clients will just go elsewhere, so it’s better that we do it as clean as we can, rather than just smash the hell out of something, to get it loud. The Oxford Limiter is generally the cleanest one we have. I’ll use it more often than not -probably about 85% of what I do uses it. I’ve come up with a setting that has a slight tape compression feel to it, which makes things sound really nice.
We like the fact that it doesn’t run out of steam quickly. Some other bits of kit we use do, if you push things really hard, specially with vocals, they tend to tear and break up, whereas the Oxford Limiter doesn’t get all crispy and nasty when you push it hard.”
Mastering Engineer Miles Showell at Metropolis.
Murray adds “We’re also impressed that it doesn’t effect stereo imaging – the width and ambience stay the same, so the room doesn’t suddenly get smaller.”
“It’s also respectful of transients,” says Showell. “It tends not to push drums back into the track, so you still get the attack. Occasionally when you’re getting into stupid levels, which sometimes we’re required to do, other limiters will just tuck everything in, pushing the drums back into the mix making it all just sound smaller. The Oxford Limiter doesn’t do that; your transients remain in tact and it doesn’t just crush the whole thing. Which is quite a mean feat - pretty impressive really.”