[Gulliver]

I have a recording of a crackling fire, with very quiet background (flame) sound and crackles that peak very close to the peak limit. I wanted to increase the gain for a website MP3 stream, and did so by boosting the master and boosting the equalizer plug-in I was using.

Questions:

What happends when you bounce when the recording is boosted way into the red (periodic crackles)? I don't hear any distortion, but the increase in gain is still rather small.

Is there a better way of doing this? I tried using a limiter plug-in, but it seems to cause pumping in the flame sound (which is a steady blowing sound).

Thanks in advance.