Envelope Tool vs. Hard Limiter

[Black Dog Bluez]

When the compressor doesn't seem to bring down all the peaks enough is the hard limiter basically the same as manually using the envelope tool? I'm specifically asking in regards to choosing the less 'distortion-adding' method as possible. Thanks.

[kozikowski]

There's one in the middle. Effect > Leveler. And for an overall broadcast compression effect, Chris' Compressor. I use it at compression of 0.77 instead of the default 0.5.

http://theaudacitytopodcast.com/chriss- ... -audacity/

Koz

[steve]

I'd not use the "Leveller" effect for adjusting dynamics. It adds far too much distortion for normal use (though it can be useful as a distortion effect).
The best choice of limiter depends on the kind of job you're doing, but we don't know what that is.

[Black Dog Bluez]

The best choice of limiter depends on the kind of job you're doing, but we don't know what that is.

I mainly do speech, vocals and acoustic guitar, nothing electric and always with only one mic.

My main objective is to bring peaks down with as little distortion as possible so I can get more volume.

4 examples of my type projects ('jobs') (always recorded mono with one mic):
1) talk [1 track]
2) talk [1 track], acoustic guitar [1 track]
3) vocals [1 track], acoustic guitar [1 track]
4) vocals [1 track], acoustic rhythm guitar [1 track], acoustic lead guitar [1 track]
* sometimes harmonica, and card-board box as a drum (always acoustic)
* and sometimes mixes panned (left or right) resulting in stereo

[kozikowski]

Chris's Compressor is right down your alley. Effortless increase in overall volume and reduction of peaks. It's look-ahead, so you don't get pumping or other volume distortions. It will go looking for audio if you don't say something for a long time, so if you have a dramatic presentation, you can try messing with the threshold, or go with one of the other tools like Effect > Compressor.
Koz

[steve]

The Audacity Compressor effect will probably work quite well with the right settings.

Use "Compress based on peaks".
Try settings similar to this:

compressor.png (39.59 KiB) Viewed 4385 times

[Black Dog Bluez]

The Audacity Compressor effect will probably work quite well with the right settings.

Use "Compress based on peaks".

Okay... I had been staying away from "compress based on peaks", will try! thanks.

The "noise floor" setting I'm not clear on though, your example shows -50dB. Doesn't the noise floor setting limit how deep into the waveform the compressor will reach? and -50 may be too deep? (unless using "compression based on peaks" deactivates that?). I apologize, I know basically nothing about the "noise floor" setting and I read about it in the manual but just couldn't grasp it.

[steve]

The "noise floor" setting I'm not clear on though,

I'm not surprised, it's a bit weird and complicated
Basically, the compressor pushes up the volume of low and medium level audio, and "squashes" the high level audio, so the low and medium level audio gets louder, but the loud peaks don't.

However, the very low level audio will just be background noise, and you don't really want that to get much louder, so the compressor has a "floor" setting that helps to prevent very low level noise from getting too much louder. Note that this is not an "absolute cut-off" type of thing, it just makes a progressive difference according to the level. The Noise Floor setting should be set just a little bit above the level of the background noise level (hiss or other noise that is evident in "silent" parts).

[kozikowski]

And all this stays relative straightforward unless you have a noisy recording environment. Then you're battling dogs barking and the Metrobus starting up outside your window. It gets a lot harder to set the sliders if you have complex background noise.

Heaven is simple, rain in the trees, microphone hiss. Koz

[Black Dog Bluez]

... The Noise Floor setting should be set just a little bit above the level of the background noise level (hiss or other noise that is evident in "silent" parts).

Right, that's what I figured ... but how do you measure the floor/background noise, in terms of decibels so you can set the "noise floor" on the compressor accordingly?