On Thu, 8 Mar 2001 14:10:36 0100, D D wrote:

I am to ask in this list since over the years I have asked a lot of people in several www boards with no luck.

I am looking helplessly for a solution to dynamic level limiting during recording via soundcard. It seems MAD's dynamic level limiting is unique worldwide (Rob, you should definitely patent this). I just cannot understand why nobody, repeat nobody, has ever thought about doing the same thing for recording. Why cannot a recording software (or audio editor plugin) implement a scheme for automatic level decreasing when recording in the same manner as MAD ? Is it technically impossible ? I'd appreciate very much any tips (or other places to ask this question) you may have, since I spend a lot of time to adjust the optimal level during recording.

I record a lot of things in and out of professional enviroments. The ground rule is never to push a signal in to digital clipping.

A digital limiter is no good if it comes after a soundcard AD converter. What you'd need is a limiter on the analog side, before it enters the soundcard.

The difference to the MAD plugin is that the plugin actualy calcualtes result with additonal headroom of 3 bits(right?), giving an extra 18 dB of dynamic range , so it knows how much to attenuate the signal to get a non-clipping signal to a soundcard that doesn't have those 18 dB headroom.

This is one reason people use compressors when recording.

If you're recording vocals, buy a little compressor/limiter like one from DBX.($100+). They're pretty good for the money.

Tony