Realtime compressor/ limiter software

This topic has 8 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated December 1, 2012 at 5:03 pm by Clusterfrog.

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December 22, 2009 at 11:34 am #1048513
damo666
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Basically when i’m having a mix and i run it through my pc, i need a limiter to keep all the levels the same. Does anyone know if theres any software available for this? I’ve tried looking but couldn’t find anything suitable.
December 23, 2009 at 3:15 pm #1221726
cheeseweasel
Participant
You shouldn’t be using a limiter to do the job of your ears and hands, it will most likely sound pretty shit – it’s not what they are designed for.

However, if you do want to go down this route, there are plenty of free compressor/limiter plugins available.

What software are you recording your mixes on? If you’re using Audacity (a basic recording package that’s free to download and ideal for recording mixes on) I believe it has a compressor/limiter (maybe someone who has it can confirm this?) and I know you can download a free add-on for it that will let you run VST plugins (VSTs are the standard format for audio plugins in Windows – and there are tons of these available, just google “free vst compressor”).

If you want to use a limiter to balance your mix, I would at least choose a limiter designed for mastering, as it will tend to be more transparent than a bog-standard functional limiter. I used to have a plugin called Elephant by Voxengo that would do this. Search for it on bit-torrent.

Just remember that any dynamics processing you apply to your mix will have an effect on the sound, and will take the music further away from what the producer intended it to sound like, which is generally a bad thing (a common effect of careless limiting is a pumping or breathing of the overall level, which is very annoying once you notice it).
December 24, 2009 at 12:12 pm #1221725
Raj
Participant
Usually the levels of the mix are determined using the mixer – you are aiming for 0db as the maximum on all tracks so as to prevent distortion.

Compressing tracks which are over 0db will add extra distortion [in addition to that present already because its over 0db in the mix] and its will sound gash on playback especially in MP3 format whereit usually becomes a nasty high frequency distortion [normally will make animals and small children very grumpy]
December 24, 2009 at 10:53 pm #1221729
Clusterfrog
Participant
@damo666 366910 wrote:

Basically when i’m having a mix and i run it through my pc, i need a limiter to keep all the levels the same. Does anyone know if theres any software available for this? I’ve tried looking but couldn’t find anything suitable.

dude.. fucking millions of plugins that do that.. to list a few:

izotope ozone (multiband compression and volume maximiser)
t-rack
wavs diamond bundle (which has more compressors and ultramaximisers than you will know what to do with)
March 4, 2010 at 1:16 am #1221727
damo666
Participant
The compressor/limiter is being used for a radio station and is vital so the transmitter doesn’t over modulate. I would never use one for recording a mix.
March 4, 2010 at 1:38 am #1221722
General Lighting
Moderator
I can guess what you want this for but TBH you’re way better off using stand alone kit for this, rather than runnign it through a PC… I used to work in broadcast engineering myself for places like Anglia and the BBC and the practice was to try to keep computers away from the more critical stuff. computers can go wrong and fuck up in a multitude of unwanted ways especially if you are running multiple audio streams through them.

Keep the computers for just playing out the jingles and audio files, and the chat/shouts etc…

a limiter on band II is critical stuff. even if you get some cheap behringer kit and hide it up in the roofspace of the studio or other inaccesible place so the rest of DJ’s can’t fuck around with it it will do the job and stop the TX getting overmodded – it will probably be cheaper and less of a than a PC getting taken assuming this is something Mr Ofcom ain’t gonna be too chuffed about..

I like my free radio but at the same time my family travel about on them planes so good clean signal is essential IMO 😉 as you may have heard the reason Ofcom gets pissy about overmodulated band II is that aircraft navigations and comms systems are allocated just above FM band so the interference gets into the aircraft radios, not good 🙁 )
March 4, 2010 at 4:14 am #1221724
noname
Participant
Pretty much what GL said – get a hardware comp/limiter and stick it somewhere inaccessible to anyone who isn’t meant to be twiddling with it – doing it with a PC is gonna leave it open to fiddling, and adds an unnecessary double conversion into the signal line (the PC will do an AD on the way in and a DA on the way out – unless you have a good soundcard on the PC which will come with a realtime comp/limiter anyways, you will get lots of unwanted nonsense in the signal that you really needn’t have there).

A behringer or a DBX will do the job perfectly well – a composer pro is only about £70-£80, and a dbx266 is somewhere close to that – both would do the job far better than a PC…
March 4, 2010 at 2:49 pm #1221728
damo666
Participant
Cheers for the response guys, I have been looking at hardware rather then software. Just wanted to get things running quicker. Will just have to wait abit longer.
December 1, 2012 at 5:03 pm #1221723
General Lighting
Moderator
OK, a bit late (especially as Damo didn’t start up the pirate radio station in the end, probably wise as its bait in our area due to the amount of planes and lots of licensed stations on band II) but this is how ICR do it, and its been approved by Ofcom

you cannot get this Behringer sound processor any more unfortunately (I did look last night)

the box above it is our band I transmitter on 48.3 MHZ (not 100% sure on exact frequency must have a look in my notes)

this now has anti-monkey cage to keep people out of it who should not be there.

I did not set up the processor, two other chaps did, who also had extra (and expensive!) kit to check the modulation of the transmitter.

It doesn’t sound too bad, but when there are shows with dance music, I personally think it takes too much of a bite out of the bass frequencies on its current settings, even when the presenters are not redlining the desk (its the morning lot what were doing that anyway, not the dance guys). the first pic was from when it was just set to max output but later on after they had finished setting up the Band I TX the bass level got turned down. OK it sounds “cleaner” on smaller loudspeakers but when you use any decent kit to listen to it its apparent there is way less bass than a 100% dance station. This may have been done for a good reason as they did say the link TX is running flat out because of a inteference source and if we were to push the audio levels too far it could overdeviate then we get hassle from Ofcom..

The processor can however store multiple profiles and the guys who set it up are coming back later to do another studio, and I will speak to them about whether there could be a bit more bass for the weekend dance shows (there and easy it would be to get some kind of embedded MIDI controller connected to something like a Raspberry PI to switch the profiles at different times for different shows.
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