Producer Joey Sturgis has recently added Finality to his collection of signature audio plugins.
Finality is a limiter designed from the ground up to be both powerful and versatile.
Whether your source is very dynamic like drums and vocals, or more flat like distorted rhythm guitars and synth, Finality can be dialed to masterfully control peak and level dynamics in your mix.
As you can see above, the Advanced version has some more controls, whereas the Lite version only has controls for the input, threshold, output, mix, and a VU meter for input, gain reduction, or output. Note that Lite doesn’t mean that the Advanced version uses much CPU. On the contrary, both plugins use very little CPU.
Finality Advanced features some extras that can help you shape your sound.
- Hard/soft mode that changes the release envelope, resulting in a change in the character of the transients.
- Aggro mode also changes the release envelope, more suitable for drums and transient type content.
- Color to add some saturation to the signal, influenced by the threshold value.
- Lookahead control for controlling loud peaks better.
- HPF Sidechain for controlling how the limiter responds to low end.
- Auto gain for automatically adjusting the makeup gain of the limiter. This can be switched off so you can control the gain manually.
In the video below you can see a demonstration of Finality by Joey.
So what do I think?
I’ve used Finality on single tracks and mix buses with various material, and I think it sounds really good. I was impressed with how hard I could push the limiter before it started to sound “bad”.
Because the plugin doesn’t have a whole lot of controls, it’s quick and easy to dial in a nice sound. On some material I really enjoyed the saturation I got with the color button. The aggro mode works well on drums and percussive sounds. I preferred the hard mode for pretty much everything I tried, ymmv. The highpass filter sidechain is helpful when you have a lot of bass, and the auto gain worked like a charm most the time.
Finality is really the kind of plugin you simply slap on a track or bus, turn threshold knob down, perhaps fiddle a little with the other controls, and you’re good to go.
All in all, Finality is a very handy limiter that works well without a lot of effort.
Finality Advanced is available for Windows and Mac (VST/VST3/AU/RTAS/AAX), priced at $89 USD. This includes the Lite version, which is also sold separately for $59 USD.
A free demo is available if you’d like to check it out!
Finality Advanced Giveaway
Joey Sturgis Tones has generously donated a free copy of Finality Advanced for one lucky rekkerd.org reader to win.
All you need to do is leave a comment below before February 29th, 2016, 11:59pm CET. We’ll pick a random winner shortly after. Note that by entering the giveaway contest, you will subscribe to the JST mailing list.
Good luck!
More information: Finality
