Audacity Forum

Hello,

I did update my audacity to the latest version recently. Now I've noticed that "hard limiter" has gone.

There is a filter named "limiter" instead. I don't get how it works.

My workflow to audio tracks from videos that I made by myself (these are homemade videos, mostly more lo-fi from smartphones etc.):

1. High and Lowpass to remove fuzzy frequency garbage at the ends of the spectrum.
2. Copy the track.
3. low-passing the one track using a falling line in the equalizer
4. high-passing the other one using the opposite equalizer settings so both tracks being played togheter have the original sound again
5. set the low-passed one to mono
6. cut off the stronger peaks from both tracks using the hard limiter
7. apply "leveler" to the high-passed track
8. mixing the two tracks togheter. And low-passing the mix track again with same settings.
9. set to -6db (this is my standard gain for my homemade video files^^), compress and mux back to the video

This was an every-time-working workflow to kill harsh peaks. This also gave a nice analogue-like old movie sound. Almost every time a quick but good enough result to me.

Now I stuck at step 6 with the new limiter. I tried several settings but it seems to act more like a fast compressor or like recorded at too strong level that a limiter. The sound is pumpy, distorted and more like the results of an record produced for radio stations.

How do I get the old functionality with this new limiter (just rounding the peaks above the threshold without general changes to the dynamics). The upper handle was for threshold and the middle one for soft/hard. I never used the third one and left it to default (i never got what this one does ).

I don't want to use compressors at all here. In best case, these just make a record sounding flat and boring at all.

I think the rational was that one of the types in the new tool should do the same thing, although it doesn't say that in the instructions.

http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/limiter.html

I use more than one Audacity version and you may be able to as well. I'm not sure how it's done on Windows. I'm not a Windows elf, but Audacity 2.1.0 apparently still has the original hard limiter.

...and I'll post when I find it.

Koz

Ok. I read that manual and I think, "Soft Clip" is the one I want but it doesn't work as described.

I used following settings from top to bottom: Soft Clip, 0, 0, -10, 25, No

But soft Clip and Hard Clip do the same to the record (just dumbly cutting off everything above the threshold leaving a flat horizontal line).

Franky666 wrote:Ok. I read that manual and I think, "Soft Clip" is the one I want but it doesn't work as described.

Try generating a 200 Hz tone. then apply the "Soft Clipping" setting to half of the track an the "Hard Clipping" setting to the other half. The difference is clearly audible even though the waveform does not "look" much different.

If you want a softer effect than the Soft Clipping setting, make a duplicate of the track that you want to process and apply the clipping effect to one of the tracks. Then use the track Gain sliders to adjust the relative levels of the two tracks.
The old "Hard Limiter" effect was equivalent to doing this with a "Hard Clipping" setting, but doing it with a "Soft Clipping" setting will produce less distortion than the old effect.

I tried the sinewave of 200Hz. After I never heard any differences by toggling between them, I inverted one of these tracks and mixed them togheter so only the differences between the tracks remain. The result was a silence... Even if I amplify that result, nothing there.

But I played once more with the settings. I get, what I want, if I apply the soft clip-settings with less threshold but multible times.

Maybe the soft clip is still too hard for my needs.

But the new compressor-like hard limit setting is very useful for the final steps before saving and was highly missing before . Thanks for it . No more external VST for that functionality. That damn VST was the last reason to use Windows instead of Ubuntu, because I never found a replacement for that.

Thanks for your help

You can install Audacity 2.1.0 from here:

http://www.oldfoss.com/Audacity.html

Scroll down to the version selector > 2.1.0.

If you install both just right, the older limiter may show up in the newer Audacity. This is part of the Effects Manager. Scroll down to "Manage."

http://manual.audacityteam.org/o/man/in ... yzers.html

I get multiple different versions by installing Audacity in custom-named folders under /Applications. I don't know how it works in Windows.

You might be able to get the older Audacity under Linux and solve all the problems.

Koz

kozikowski wrote:I get multiple different versions by installing Audacity in custom-named folders under /Applications. I don't know how it works in Windows.

Works fine like that in Windows (on 10, 7 and the XP systems I use/used).

WC

Franky666 wrote:I tried the sinewave of 200Hz. After I never heard any differences by toggling between them, I inverted one of these tracks and mixed them togheter so only the differences between the tracks remain. The result was a silence... Even if I amplify that result, nothing there.

I don't see how that can be happening, other than "user error", but then I can't imagine how you could be doing it wrong.
Can anyone reproduce this problem? (I can't).

steve wrote:

Franky666 wrote:I tried the sinewave of 200Hz. After I never heard any differences by toggling between them, I inverted one of these tracks and mixed them togheter so only the differences between the tracks remain. The result was a silence... Even if I amplify that result, nothing there.

I don't see how that can be happening, other than "user error", but then I can't imagine how you could be doing it wrong.
Can anyone reproduce this problem? (I can't).

No but with a tone generated at 0.8 the difference after mix is at -30.96 dB. It's too subtle for me to hear when comparing soft and hard clipping on each tone.

Gale

Ok... if I amplify it in audacity, there is some strange sound that I only hear using headphones. Yesterday I used my speakers and I amplified by turning the volume of these up. That silent sound may have sunk in the silent hum that comes from the power source of the speakers. I expected a big difference.

When there is regular audio instead of the sine wave, the difference is very very little and inaudible .

I'm sure, I did it the right way. I can't imagine, what I may have done wrong. I'm using Audacity for years.