Stereo Unlink Feature in Limiter

[FrankJaeger]

Hi everyone,
I have a quick question that you audio scholars might be able to help me with. I bought the iZotope Ozone maximizer for Reason years ago and have only recently been using it and seeing how good it actually is. I'm familiar with all of the controls except for one, the stereo unlink feature. There are a handful of degrees for the the unlink ranging from fully linked to fully unlinked but I have no idea what this feature means for my tracks or how it can be used musically to improve my tracks. Can anyone shed some light on what this even is and why I might want to use it, or not use it for that matter. Thanks.

[ekss]

From the manual:

"Determines how the Maximizer responds to stereo audio. The control defaults to Fully Linked. This setting imposes one limiter across the stereo image. When the control is at the other extreme, the Maximizer does independent limiting on the left and right channels. At values in-between, a gain envelope generated by a ratio of the individual channel and the entire stereo image triggers two independent channel limiters. Values less than 50 favor the independent channels’ gain and values higher than 50 favor the stereo image’s gain."

[FrankJaeger]

From the manual:

"Determines how the Maximizer responds to stereo audio. The control defaults to Fully Linked. This setting imposes one limiter across the stereo image. When the control is at the other extreme, the Maximizer does independent limiting on the left and right channels. At values in-between, a gain envelope generated by a ratio of the individual channel and the entire stereo image triggers two independent channel limiters. Values less than 50 favor the independent channels’ gain and values higher than 50 favor the stereo image’s gain."

Thank you so much. I didn't know there was still a manual as they don't sell this particular RE anymore. Appreciate your help.

[selig]

I’ve asked mastering engineer Bob Olhsson about this years ago, and he said he uses it often but not always. I’ve never used it myself as I find it often causes the center image to move too much (depending on how much ‘work’ the limiter is actually doing). But I trust Bob and I’m guessing for projects with strong center images it probably wouldn’t cause that issue, especially if it tames the occasional spike in one side more than when fully linked.
My suggestion is to first understand the consequences both negative and positive (so you know what you’re listening for), and then compare your options.