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Introducing Signum Audio
I’ve always been somewhat reluctant to invest in a fancy limiter, after all, how much better can it be over my trusty stock limiter? Turns out (spoiler), considerably better. Signum Audio’s “BUTE Limiter” is a comprehensive, immaculately transparent brickwall limiter that houses all the bells and whistles needed for surgical mastering. With the intelligent auto release, featuring five dynamic characterisation options, including “Smooth”, “Transparent” and “Natural”, nailing your master’s dynamic energy becomes trivial. Full manual control over release time can also be enabled for complete control over your dynamics. Although, the best of both worlds is also possible, by adjusting the provided “Reactivity” parameter, to either increase or decrease the strength of the automatic release algorithm, by order of a multiplier value.
Signum’s revolutionary limiter boasts remarkable transparency; my stock limiter’s sound is noticeably more blatant, making no effort to hide unsavory compression artefacts, with the all too typical ‘pumping’ phenomenon being the primary issue. Conversely, “BUTE Limiter”’s brillant processing is so seamless, you completely forget it’s even there; preserving your artistic intentions by minimising unwanted colourisation or intense dynamic alterations.
Consideration over ‘True Peak’ levels is another area where this plugin demonstrates it’s meticulous attention to detail. ‘True Peak’ clipping is an analog audio anomaly that occurs when translating a digital signal to an analog signal, before playing it through an analog output system. The level between two sample data points in your digital waveform may appear to remain at, or below, 0db. However, once converted to an analog signal, the natural curvature between these two points is likely to produce a level slightly above 0db, causing nasty, unwanted distortion. “BUTE Limiter” compensates for this peculiarity effortlessly, with always-active ‘True Peak’ analysis.
Another crucial feature, that should also be noted, is the convenient ‘Max Target’ dial. Available when the Post Gain’s ‘Auto’ mode is enabled, a maximum level value can be defined, which is then compared to the chosen threshold point, to calculate a total gain reduction value. Fundamentally, this addition allows for threshold alterations to be made, without the worry of clipping over your ‘Max Target’ value — an exceptional time saver.
By holding shift when adjusting your threshold level, “BUTE Limiter” features the ability to modify the pre-gain level proportionally to the threshold value. Ultimately, this creates similar, relative amounts of limiting, while adjusting the final output level; yet another sensible and intuitive feature that I’m yet to come across in any other limiter.
Finally, at the forefront of the plugin is an amazingly detailed level and gain reduction monitoring graph, outlining the current ‘True Peak’ level, threshold point and gain reduction level. Practically, this addition is excellent, although, if you benefit from having all of your mastering plugins laid out before you, it’s common for screen real-estate to become limited. Fortunately, “BUTE Limiter” also offers a quick solution to this issue; through the incorporation of a fully resizable window, with full collapsibility, leaving just the key parameter controls visible. With it’s vast array of features, It’s clear to see why countless world-class mastering engineers make Signum Audio their limiter developer of choice.
Signum Audio pride themselves on their loudness analysis plugin being the most complete tool available, for industry standard loudness compliance. The “BUTE Loudness Analyser” is by far the most up-to-date loudness monitoring plugin. Containing presets for every modern major distribution method, including streaming heavyweights like Spotify and Apple Music, along with more traditional services, like national radio, “BUTE Loudness Analyser” helps your track sound great everywhere.
The need for this plugin primarily sprouted from the increasing prevalence of the ‘loudness war’. Originating in the late 1940s, the infamous ‘loudness war’ covered an expansive period in audio mastering history, in which mastering engineers competitively pushed for progressively louder tracks. Although this trend caused tracks to appear increasingly impactful, the dynamic range of the audio eventually took a significant hit. However, the most problematic result of the ‘loudness war’ was the intrinsic inconsistency in track volumes, due to the lack of a loudness standard.
Once online streaming services were popularised in recent years, the ‘LUFS’, or ‘integrated loudness’ of a track was the measurement unit chosen to standardise loudness, service-wide. This particular unit was chosen due to its consistency over previously used standards, such as RMS, as well as it’s observation of entire-track loudness, and it’s similarity to the means by which humans perceive loudness. If the ‘integrated loudness’ of a specific track doesn’t match the standard detailed by the service it’s played on, a potentially harmful ‘loudness penalty’ will be imposed; by which a track’s volume will be either boosted or lowered, in order to comply. Incorporating this idea with that fact that nobody truly knows the process by which the services conduct this volume change, the integrity of your master could, potentially, be compromised.
Signum places the ‘LUFS’ value of your track in the spotlight, right at the top of the plugin, allowing for incredibly efficient monitoring. Beside this, an informative indicator shows how far from the specified platform’s target value, your track’s loudness is.
The completeness of this plugin, which has caused it to become to go-to tool for many engineers, is built upon with the inclusion of multiple other metering standards and values; such as ‘LU Range’, useful for analysing integrated dynamic range, especially after a brickwall limiter; ‘True Peak’, for measuring clipping and distortion; ‘Short Term LUFS’, for monitoring brief periods of perceived loudness; ‘Momentary LUFS’, for immediate, minute loudness analysis, and traditional RMS, to cater for some confidence in familiarity. Taking up the majority of the window’s space is an overall metering and history graph, housing toggleable tracking lines for each measurement. The clear and intuitive chart is both DAW-transport synced, following your playhead as you progress through your track, and automatically updated, enabling you to essentially ‘set and forget’. On the whole, this means you can continue with your work, while the graph and overall measurements are continually being updated and corrected in the background. Hence, removing the need for constant manual re-metering, saving countless hours.
One of the most notable features housed inside of this plugin is Signum’s powerful, fully customisable ‘Alerts and Notification System’. Using red ‘blocks’ above the analysis graph timeline, to highlight dubious areas of your track, makes for exceptionally smooth post-production amendments. The sensitivity of each of the four critical measurements, ‘Short Term’, ‘Momentary’, RMS and ‘True Peak’, can be adjusted to your liking. Also included is a small, handy toggle, found underneath the measurements, that can be utilised for switching between continuous “live” monitoring, and maximum level monitoring — permitting for complete, surgical control over every aspect of your master.
Lastly, in certain stricter industries, evidential proof of loudness metrics may be required. Yet again, the “BUTE Loudness Analyser” handles this comfortably, as final measurements can be exported in the form of a CSV file. With monitoring sessions also possessing the ability to be saved and loaded, Signum have undoubtedly developed an all-encompassing powerhouse of loudness analysis.
The “BUTE Loudness Normaliser” is a little different from the other, previously mentioned, members of the “Loudness Suite”; instead of being a plugin, hosted by your DAW, it’s actually a standalone application. After spending time evaluating each of the collection’s components, I believe this to be the standout tool. It’s innovation, paired with the lack of anything similar, not to mention as effective, is a key attraction.
Being as simple to use as it is impressive, it’s impossible not to get an accurate ‘integrated loudness’ value out of this application. Simply drag and drop a mastered wav file, select one of the multitude of presets, corresponding with the service you intend optimal playback on, then let the application work it’s magic. The intelligent and reliable algorithm will analyse your audio, before employing it’s correctional step, to finalise the now service-compliant ‘integrated loudness’ value of your normalised master.
Handing over control of your master, even if it is just the final average loudness, to an algorithm is a notoriously daunting concept for mastering engineers. Surely the scientific precision of manual tools and ears can’t be matched by rudimentary lines of code, right? Well, yes and no. Signum Audio makes it explicitly evident that the “BUTE Loudness Normaliser” is no substitute to true hands-on mastering processes. However, this requires the tools, the experience and, perhaps most importantly, the time. This is where the application showcases it’s excellence noticeably well; laughing in the face of quickly approaching deadlines, the “BUTE Loudness Normaliser” could be the saving grace for mastering engineers working on several projects at once, with especially high workloads. Ultimately, this simple time saving gem allows for more time to be dedicated to ensuring the sonic qualities of the master itself are perfect.
Focussing on the central graph will show you a detailed report of exactly what alterations the plugin is making on your master, much in the same vein as the “BUTE Loudness Analyser”. To add to this, the same ‘custom alerts’ system has also been integrated; indicating problematic regions of your audio, giving you one last chance to correct any issues, before shipping the output file to clients or distribution services.
This phenomenal standalone application is easily worth every penny of its price, being one of the greatest time savers I have ever come across in modern audio production tools. Not only is this the perfect ace up the sleeve for final song processing, it’s also an invaluable tool for podcast or audiobook mastering, due to it’s more than ten hour audio length limit. Whether you’re a bedroom producer looking to make your tracks sound more professional on a budget, or a top mastering engineer with an extensive workload, “BUTE Loudness Normaliser” is a must have tool for your audio arsenal.
