Audio Compressor / Limiter

montage wrote on 5/24/2002, 8:06 AM
Is there a plug in compressor-limiter for video factory?
I have a song with a rather large dynaminc range and for a brief time the orchestration get's very loud and sounds distorted when I play back my rendered video.
If I keep the volume down to avoid this I raise my noise floor more than I'd like.
I don't know if the distortion is coming in when I rip the CD or when I render the project, Limiting it in my rendereing would eliminate this variable.
I've done a search under Audio, Compressor and limiter-I don't find anything in this forum which has addressed this.

Comments

Chienworks wrote on 5/24/2002, 10:20 AM
If you click on the plugin chainer button in the track header (the little rectangle with knobs sticking out left & right), you can choose various audio plugins. Video Factory defaults to having an Equalization plugin. You can Edit Chain and add or remove plugins. While there isn't a specific limiter plugin, there is a Dynamics plug that will let you reduce the dymanic range of the track. This may be sufficient for your needs.
montage wrote on 5/24/2002, 12:15 PM
Is that a plug that I have to download.
My choices are Amplitude Modulation, Chorus, Delay, Distortion, EQ, Flange effects stutter and reverb. Same choices in tracks and output.
No Dynamics plug.
Chienworks wrote on 5/24/2002, 1:29 PM
Hmmm. I'm not sure. I've got many other Sonic Foundry products installed so the Dynamics plugin may have come from one of those. I only have Amplitude Modulation, Chorus, Delay, Distortion, Dymanics, Equalization, Flange/Wah-Wah, Graphic EQ, Noise Gate, Reverb, Stutter, and Time Stretch listed in my Video Factory installation rather than the 40 or so listed in Vegas, so i was assuming i was seeing only those plugins included with VF.

If i click on "Track Optimized FX" folder, then several of them including Dynamics disappear. The list above is from the FX folder.
NinjaGrinch wrote on 5/24/2002, 3:25 PM
>>I don't know if the distortion is coming in when I rip the CD or when I render the >>project, Limiting it in my rendereing would eliminate this variable.
This is not true montage. If the distortion is being introduced during the rip from the CD, no amount of normalization, limiting, of decreasing of dynamic range will fix it. One digital audio has peaked, its ruined, and you have to start over again with the source.
-NinjaGrinch
Chienworks wrote on 5/24/2002, 3:38 PM
NinjaGrinch, actually this can help solve the problem even though it won't fix the clipping. If the output is still clipped after being limited, then we know the problem is in the ripping. If the output isn't clipped after limiting, then we know the problem is in the rendering. We're just trying to track down where in the process the clipping is happening.

Montage, along these lines, what happens if you simply reduce the volume of the track overall before rendering?
NinjaGrinch wrote on 5/24/2002, 11:38 PM
montage, if all you want to do is find the source of the clipping, (which is what I was trying to get at in my earlier post) and you can't tell just by listening to the ripped track, just open the audio file in a wave editor and look for the flat spots. If there aren't any, the clipping is in the final render, otherwise just re-rip the track, and making sure to normalize it this time.

-NinjaGrinch
montage wrote on 5/25/2002, 11:36 PM
I've been offline for a day.
In my experimentation today, I found that if I lower the volume it seems to clear up.
So, It's almost gotta be in the rendering.
The track is Celine Dion's new song "A New Day Has Come" there is only 1 spot where I have trouble, I can lower the volume so it's not clipping anymore-problem somewhat solved, however, Now the rest of the track is lower than I'd like. (Gotta turn the TV way up)
I experimented using the audio envelope to limit the 1 spot where I am having troubles and that seemed to work well in the preview, but, I had lot's o' dropouts in the final rendering where I made the changes.
I would be fine using an envelope to manually lower the level of trouble spots, as long as I can do it without having audio dropouts.
By the way, thanks for the help thus far, I'm still quite a newbie.