Audacity Forum

This is what I get when using the clipping settings in the Limiter effect.
The first half is soft clipping at -10 dB, the second half is hard clipping at -10 dB.
To me the change in sound is immediately obvious. Is it not obvious to you?

steve wrote:This is what I get when using the clipping settings in the Limiter effect.
The first half is soft clipping at -10 dB, the second half is hard clipping at -10 dB.
To me the change in sound is immediately obvious. Is it not obvious to you?

That is obvious, but with a sine tone 0.8 or 0.3 amplitude in Windows, default Limiter settings as per Limiter - Audacity Manual, there is no perceptible change in sound between the two halves with normal Hi-Fi Speaker listening.

Can you hear the difference in the attached?


Gale

Thanks for the clarification Gale. I agree that for a very small amount of clipping the difference is negligible, but Franky666 wrote that he was using the Limiter with settings:
"Soft Clip, 0, 0, -10, 25, No"
These setting produce a significant amount of clipping when applied to a tone with an original amplitude of 0.8 (linear), and the difference between "soft" and "hard" clipping is clearly noticeable.

Attached is a plug-in that produces the same effect as the old Hard Limiter effect. The controls are a little different (simpler) than the old version.

The "Threshold level (dB)" control sets the level at which clipping is applied.
The "Mix (%)" control sets the "wet/dry" mix percentage. 0% gives the original unprocessed audio. 50% (default) is a 50/50 mix of unprocessed and processed (clipped) audio. 100% is 100% clipped audio.

This is a "Nyquist Plug-in". Installation instructions are here: http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/ef ... st_effects
Note that, like the original "Hard Limiter" effect, this plug-in creates distortion.

steve wrote:Thanks for the clarification Gale. I agree that for a very small amount of clipping the difference is negligible, but Franky666 wrote that he was using the Limiter with settings:
"Soft Clip, 0, 0, -10, 25, No"
These setting produce a significant amount of clipping when applied to a tone with an original amplitude of 0.8 (linear), and the difference between "soft" and "hard" clipping is clearly noticeable.

Agreed too on Windows starting from 0.8 amplitude tone. Inverting the hard clip and mixing into the soft still only gives a result at about -30 dB, but that is easy to hear.


Gale

I listened to your audio files.

The "soft-hard-clipping.wav" one:
I hear a difference at the half of the length. I think, the last part is the hard one. If I apply the two kinds of clipping, I don't get such high difference....
I can only hear the difference using my headphones. The reason for it may be that my speakers are more for domestic use than professional.

I have multible sound systems at home:

- The stereo system isn't low-end, but also isn't high-end. Somewhere between but stuck somewhere in the late 90's. A classic one with stacked Amplifier, Tuner, CD...
- The 2.1 speakers are homemade and sounds a bit better than most of these systems but aren't high-end. These don't have the common gap between the bass.
- The build-in speakers from the television device. These sounds boomy and more like a bloated sound cloud around the screen. I'm not sure, if these are playing mono or stereo. Somewhat bulky sound which I can't really explain...

No way... All systems ate these differences at all.

BTW: The last kind of devices is, what I target with the tracks where I need this limiter. In most cases, my homemade videos are being watched on televisions with ugly audio playback.
But it also needs to sound good using better systems.
If I don't filter them, there is nothing but noise, klicks (comes from fiddling with the camcorder while recording) and mysterious mumbling somewhere far away.

If I really need to mix something together that must sound good on every audio system, I use headphones for that but I also listen on the two audio systems after finished.

I wrote much....


All in all, I think, a misunderstanding comes up:
- some of you may use audacity in a more professional way using more professional and expensive equipment that provides bigger differences here. You spend a lot of time in mixing and mastering.
- I just want audio tracks for my homemade family videos that even works good using the average internal speakers of television devices without adjusting every second of sound there.

Does the plug-in that I made for you (http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic ... 44#p293844) do what you want?

No. The middle slider which was controlling the hardness (or whatever it exactly did) is missing (and it seems to be missing in the new limiter). A wet/dry mix between a clipped and unclipped version I can do by myself easily.

I exactly need the portion of functionality you have dropped to make it "simpler".

Franky666 wrote:No. The middle slider which was controlling the hardness (or whatever it exactly did) is missing

The middle slider was named "Wet Level" and it controlled the output level of the clipped signal.
The third slider was named "Residual Level" and it controlled the output level of the unprocessed "dry" signal.
In other words, the second and third sliders controlled the Wet/Dry mix, but in a rather confusing way that few users understood (including yourself it would seem).

The processed (clipped) signal in the "Hard Limiter" effect is identical to the effect of "hard clipping" setting in Audacity's new "Limiter" effect. The only thing that is "missing" from the new Limiter effect is a Wet/Dry mix control, which, as you say, is easy enough to do.

If you really want the old Hard Limiter, it can be obtained as one of the plugins in this installer: http://www.fosshub.com/Audacity.html/LA ... 0.4.15.exe. You may want to install to an arbitrary folder, then copy just "hard_limiter_1413.dll" to the Audacity "Plug-Ins" folder.

Finally, use Effect > Manage... then enable Hard Limiter and OK.


Gale