LIMITING AND COMPRESSING

[JAEPILLA]

im pretty much a beginner to recording mixing and mastering, but my question is basically what are the uses limiting and compressing, i know their used for mixing or mastering but what do they do exactly...

i think.. limiting is basically getting the levels as loud as possible without peaking
and compressing is chaging the clarity of the music...please give me a detailed explanation on both effects and how to use them..... [img]images/icons/confused.gif[/img]

[Dave M.]

check this out

compression defined
another article

[Duardo]

Sorry, I don't have time for a detailed explanation right now...but in a nutshell, compression is a reduction of the dynamic range of a signal. Limiting generally considered to be an extreme type of compression where the compression is so heavy that your signal cannot go above a certain point. However, the term can be used rather loosely...the amount of compression is mainly determined by the "ratio", which is typically expressed as x;1, where an increase of x dB at input results in an increase of 1 dB at output. Usually limiting is compression at a ratio of at least 20:1 or higher, but I've seen it referred to as compression at as low a ratio as 6:1.

-Duardo

[Park Seward]

Read the Waves stuff at
http://www.waves.com/htmls/service/our_tools.htm
They have some good tutorials.

They did have their manuals on-line that had some good explainations on compression but I can't find them now.

Excuse the generalization but compression and limiting will make the music sound "more like a record".

[healer]

Thanks, Dave M. that article on compression/limiting was insightful!

[Mark Staples]

Look here for a variety of topics, including compression and limiting.

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