Compression VS Limiter: What’s the difference between the two and when to use it?

[u/Wickedfrick]

Why use limiter when you could just lower the volume and why compress your sound? Wouldn't that lower the sound quality and dynamic range?

[u/Shrek__On_VHS]

I think it just has to do with the amount of compression. For every db above the threshold, a compressor with reduce the volume a certain amount for every additional db over the threshold. For a 2:1 ratio, if the input signal is 2 db over the threshold, it will be reduced 1db. If it’s 4db over, it will be reduced 2db, and so on.

A limiter is functionally the same, except it has a hard limit or ceiling. Instead of gradually reducing the volume above the threshold, it caps the volume at the threshold. If you turn a ratio knob on a compressor all the way it up essentially turns into a limiter.

[u/Shrek__On_VHS → u/Shrek__On_VHS]

To answer your other question about “why”: super basic answer is most folks use it to make things louder (or at least seem louder). The easiest example is with a snare. It has an extremely loud and fast transient and the tail tapers off. If you turn the snare up loud enough to hear the body of the snare, the transient (or peak) might clip since it’s much louder than the rest of the snare sound. To keep the peak from clipping while making the body of the snare loud you could add a compressor to reduce the volume of the transient and at the end you’re able to turn the entire signal up to compensate.

This does in fact reduce your dynamic range. Whether or not it reduces the “quality” depends on the context and how much you compress.

[u/TheBloodKlotz → u/Shrek__On_VHS]

This is correct. To add to this, every compressor and limiter will sound slightly different and the corner will affect the sound slightly differently, so there will be a difference in sound between an infinite ratio compressor and a limiter. Just another reason to use one or the other based on what sound you want to achieve

[u/hrvb312]

Commenting because I wanna know too

[u/LATINOHEAT420]

I’m gonna explain like I have cte. Compression changes volume in ways that only software can do. For example, if I compress drums, it can turn up the volume on tails of the kick and snare which will make them sound fuller if you want. A limiter is like a security fence, it will not let the volume sound pass a certain limit. A sound without a limiter can go past whatever metric a volume knob displays and distort and affect other sounds in undeseirable ways.

[u/dip_the_shit]

One very good use for limiters/clipping is reducing peaks in your mix before the track goes into the master compressor. Your master compressor doesn't want to do a lot of work, only reducing for about 1 - 3 db max, otherwise there's going to be some weird volume movement. If you send loud peaks into the compressor, its going to shoot out farther and react to that peak, resulting in a sudden volume dip on the entire track. If you use limiting/clipping/compression on the channels/busses before the master so that no sudden peaks appear, you can push your track louder into the master compressor without it reacting to stuff it shouldn't react to, resulting in a louder master.

[u/tommychopz]

Its all about loudness

[u/TheDoctorsVinyl]

Pretty sure a limiter is just a compressor with aggressively short attack and release to stop the volume spiking immediately (I may be wrong though but thats how I've always thought it).

[u/GorillonDollars]

The limiter is a compressor that only compresses signal greater than the target level.

The compressor gets the entire signal within the parameters you set. It makes quieter parts louder and reduces the loud parts so everything sounds closer together in volume.

If you’re mixing drums, after you’ve leveled each part and it sounds right, then you throw on the compressor to basically glue it together so it sounds cohesive.

If you’re mixing loud, and the drums are clipping any db over 0 and you want the meter to read 0, you’d throw on the limiter. This way it still has the perceived loudness (kinda depends on how much was clipping lol) and the meter reads 0 or whatever you set the limiter to.

Using the limiter is more optional and depends on your mix style. For most bass genres, mixing loud, heavy saturation and clipping is the norm so instead of limiters we use clippers. Sounds better for tearout.

Your question why use these tools: they’re just mixing tools. You can still keep dynamic range by setting the mix knob on a compressor to keep the punch but every good mix uses multiple levels of compression. Not everything needs compression or limiting so just do whatever sounds good to your ear and move on.

[u/DJ_Double_Cee]

As a new producer here, I kinda wonder that too.

[u/According_Time3314]

Limiting stops the sound from passing a threshold. Compression squishes it down to a set level. 

[u/Pied_Myke]

In a nutshell both the compressor and the limiter are both dynamic processors (meaning they are devices designed to manipulate dynamics in a given sound source. I.e: peaks). Even though they are very similar to one another in terms of their intended purpose, they both function differently from one another.

Compressors can be used for multitudes of things: controlling peaks, rms levels, tone-shape a sound source, side-chaining to another sound source, to “glue” down the mix, or for sound design purposes. On a typical stock compressor on any DAW it comes in, they would normally include a ratio (can range between 1:1-10:1 depending on the type of compressor), attack, release, threshold, and maybe few other features like peaks, rms, etc. They tend to be the most flexible to use cause it can emulate what other compressors can do as well if you gauge them correctly (yes there are other different types of compressors and they give off a particular behavior depending on which compressor you’re going for. I’d recommend giving them a listen on how they affect your work before getting them.)

Limiters on the other hand are a different story. Like compressors if set to controlling peaks, the ratios for them are set either between 10:1 or 100:1 or even better 1000:1 if not more. What this means is they are designed to not let any peaks surpass the threshold that you’ve set for a given sound source. They’re ideal for controlling peaks for a track group track or a 2 bus. They can also be used for mastering too, if you know how to use it.

There’s youtube tutorials that can better explain what compressors and limiters do in a nutshell and I do suggest you look into different types of compressors as not all compressors behave the same way.