In Cool Edit Pro & Adobe Audition, hard limiting, essentially, shaves the peaks off of a recording at a set level. I used to use hard limiting and normalize on almost everything I edited. I can find no compatible function/effect in Audacity 2.0. Can enyone point me in the right direction?
“Hard” limiting is not generally recommended because it adds distortion.
The “hardness” of a limiter is how abruptly the tops of the waveform are cut off. If the cut-off is totally “hard” then it is likely to cause an unpleasant raspy quality to the sound. The “softer” the limiter, the less noticeable the distortion will be.
“Broadcast Limiter II” provides “hard” limiting, but not totally hard. The limiting is slightly softened to reduce unpleasant distortion.
You can get it here: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Nyquist_Effect_Plug-ins#Broadcast_Limiter_II
Instructions for installing Nyquist plug-ins are here: http://audacityteam.org/download/plugins
Thanks. The Broadcast Limiter II did exactly what I wanted done and was very easy to use.