Audacity Forum

Is there something better than a Compressor[?] to seamlessly bring down peaks in (dynamic) acoustic music?

Hi, I'm using aud2.2 win7/offline/ and playing with acoustic guitar and vocals (one stereo track take recordings, no over dubbing/no mixing). I record on a portable recorder (not w/audacity) http://www.soundclick.com/LostHere (If this link is inactive see my Audacity Forum profile/interests for current)


I do use audacity to edit/master these recordings and am now starting to become disenchanted with compressors, with their sloppy 'attack' 'delay' approach, so have started manually reducing peaks with the envelope tool.

With envelope you of course adjust the attack/delay per peak ... is there a compressor like this? or some other effect/tool?

I clip (amplify) all unwanted peaks then envelope them down until not clipping which seems superior to any compressor I've seen so far but manually exhaustiing and time consuming.

You'd think limiters would be good but they seem even worse, with their unceremonious 'leveling' of things which seem to damage more than they help ('What are they even for?').

I read about an effect called "automation" but can not find a freeware/free plugin and am not even sure if it would be what I am looking for ... but with computer possibilities you'd think there'd be something less choppy then the compressor or limiter to simply bring the peaks down with out deforming the sound any more than necessary.

My sound is exceptionally delicate as well, often balancing quiet with bursts and I'm trying to keep the dynamics, only bringing down the obvious 'off peaks', which can be numerous at times. Not wanting to raise the volume of the quieter parts either, except by default as the whole track is raised when peaks are reduced.

Any help/recommendations appreciated -thanks.

PS I realize mic placement matters (and room) as well but regardless my problem occurs. Though I am experimenting with various mic placements/positions. My recording device is a hand held portable, Tascam dr-05 which has two built in permanently positioned mics in a Y formation on top. I also use a 5 foot tripod when recording.

Chris's Compressor?? seems to fail me as well, although it may be the closest freebie thing available??
http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic ... or#p297524

Dynamic range compression is, imo, one of the most difficult music production tasks to master. It is particularly difficult with the built-in tools in Audacity because they do not operate in "real time". If you use Windows, I would recommend trying some VST compressors so that you can twiddle the controls with "real-time preview". Try several different ones - they all do 'basically' the same job but compressors have "character" and subtle differences between one compressor and another can make a huge difference to the music.

Black Dog Bluez wrote:... only bringing down the obvious 'off peaks'... Not wanting to raise the volume of the quieter parts ...

Then switch off "make up gain" on the compressor / limiter.

It always depends what you want to achieve and what the characteristics of those defending peaks are.
I've prepared a sample:
I recorded directly from my Fender. It's nice but I don't like the click sounds, thus the second round is after Paul's De-clicker (at about 13 s). That's almost perfect. However, there are some weak notes towards the end, thus I applied (kind of) Compression--reducing The longest RMS sequences and the strongest peaks.
Note that the headroom has increased on every step--about 2 dB for the de-clicker and at least 7 for the compression stage. I didn't fully make up this gain. It is after all always depending on the musical context.

Thanks Steve, yes, have got a few lined up (compressor plugins I'll try).

Trebor/thanks but that's not a problem.

Robert JH - okay a new toy, the de-clicker - thanks. per the sample you sent - i can still detect the compressors effect on the third part creating a very slight waver[?]ingness[?] -slight but as Steve says, hard to get acoustic tones down with out deforming, or in my words anyway.. but the declick was a definite improvement/ the compressor always seems a trade-off --louder but .. less there/more digitized, and I think it's the attack/delay hitting odd places throughout.
Which puts Chris's Compressor at an advantage, I assume, with it not having attack/delay..

Paul's De-clicker plugin/DL
http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic ... 42&t=79278

"Posted by Paul L » Thu May 29, 2014 11:27 am " -- hope this is the latest version?

Is there an Audacity page with these various plugins?
Paul's De-clicker is not here: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/VST_Plug-ins

Black Dog Bluez wrote:Paul's De-clicker plugin/DL
http://forum.audacityteam.org/viewtopic ... 42&t=79278

"Posted by Paul L » Thu May 29, 2014 11:27 am " -- hope this is the latest version?

Is there an Audacity page with these various plugins?
Paul's De-clicker is not here: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/VST_Plug-ins

There's an important feature yet missing, that's the reason.
Namely stereo linking.
Your stereo image will be distorted if you use it as a master plug-in, a vinyl recording for instance.

Black Dog Bluez wrote:... Is there an Audacity page with these various plugins?
Paul's De-clicker is not here: http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/VST_Plug-ins

Paul-L De-clicker is an [experimental?] Nyquist-type plugin , not a VST-type.
Nyquist plugins are here ... http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Downl ... t_Plug-ins

PER PAULS DE-CLICKER:

There's an important feature yet missing, that's the reason.
Namely stereo linking.
Your stereo image will be distorted if you use it as a master plug-in, a vinyl recording for instance.

Paul-L De-clicker is an [experimental?] Nyquist-type plugin , not a VST-type.
Nyquist plugins are here ... http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/Downl ... t_Plug-ins

confused-- does this mean: dont use it on stereo tracks? only mono? or left/right one at a time?

Black Dog Bluez wrote:confused-- does this mean: dont use it on stereo tracks? only mono? or left/right one at a time?

When you apply Paul-L's declicker to a stereo track it De-Clicks left & right as individual tracks. That can cause an unwanted stereo-flutter effect: where the sound moves in the stereo-field where a click has been repaired in one channel only. Brian Davies $tandalone DeClick software will DeClick stereo as a linked pair.