Well a “limiter” will prevent the signal from crossing a certain volume threshold, but it doesn’t necessarily change the sound of things, so you’d expect dynamics to stay the same.
A compressor is taking all the dynamics and ‘puffing them out’ so they sound more equal to each other, which does change the dynamics.
At least that’s my take. Limiter can sometimes use compression to do what it does, and that blurs it a little but in theory thats the main difference.
So i’ll take a live recording and compress it, which makes quieter instruments louder and vice versa, and then I’ll apply limiting so that nothing goes over, say, -1db so the signal never clips.
The way most limiters work, you can easily configure them in a way that the threshold they’re set to happens multiple times per measure (e.g. on every snare hit or bassdrum hit), at which point they function identical to a compressor. Limiter vs. compressor is really more about the available set of options, what ranges the options are tuned to and how they’re presented to the user.
Well a “limiter” will prevent the signal from crossing a certain volume threshold, but it doesn’t necessarily change the sound of things, so you’d expect dynamics to stay the same.
A compressor is taking all the dynamics and ‘puffing them out’ so they sound more equal to each other, which does change the dynamics.
At least that’s my take. Limiter can sometimes use compression to do what it does, and that blurs it a little but in theory thats the main difference.
So i’ll take a live recording and compress it, which makes quieter instruments louder and vice versa, and then I’ll apply limiting so that nothing goes over, say, -1db so the signal never clips.
The way most limiters work, you can easily configure them in a way that the threshold they’re set to happens multiple times per measure (e.g. on every snare hit or bassdrum hit), at which point they function identical to a compressor. Limiter vs. compressor is really more about the available set of options, what ranges the options are tuned to and how they’re presented to the user.