DPW Design - Limit L-3

The Limit L3 from Swedish manufacturer DPW Design packs three independent analog limiters into one module. Each limiter consists of eight consecutive soft knee stages. While limiting and compression usually might not be the most exciting type of device, the L3 transforms these functions into creative possibilities—from adding weight to kicks, bringing out the tails of plucky sounds, to taming feedback patches that would otherwise spiral out of control.

An interesting aspect of the L3 is the normaling between its channels. Patch nothing into channels 2 or 3, and they automatically receive the output from the channel above, letting you extract three differently compressed versions of the same source. Need more extreme compression? Chain them in series. The AC/DC coupling switches mean you can process audio one moment and wrangle control voltages the next. Push the gain controls harder and the soft limiting becomes a musical waveshaper, adding harmonics to sine waves or creating asymmetric distortions when you offset signals in DC mode. At conservative settings, it's transparent protection for your sound card or mixer. Crank it up, and it becomes a sound design tool in its own right.

Features:

• Three independent soft knee limiters with 8 consecutive knee stages per channel
• AC/DC coupling switchable per channel (channels 1&2 via panel switch, channel 3 via rear jumper)
• Brick wall limiting at +/- 5V in both AC and DC modes
• Gradual compression starting at +8dBu, brick wall limiting at +14dBu
• Normaled connections between channels for series processing or parallel outputs
• Volume control per channel from transparent to 5x gain overdrive
• Suitable for audio processing, CV limiting, waveshaping, and feedback control
• All analog signal path with 20kΩ input impedance, 1kΩ output impedance