so i recorded some piano and flute material the other day - a modern piece that had extraordinary dynamic changes in it, from very soft to bang-on-the-keyboard LOUD. i managed to track everything with no clipping, though the tracks do get up to -0.4dB in places. but most of the tracks are around -20dB or lower.

i dont usually use any compression or limiting on this kind of material, but this time i am trying to use a limiter to add gain to the lower stuff while not letting the peaks get any higher. i tried three different limiter plugins (in Reaper), and no matter how little gain i try to add, the really loud portions of the tracks distort. i set the max output at -0.4dB, and added 6dB of gain - it all sounded great until the peaks hit and distorted like crazy. i reduced the gain to 3dB, but it still distorted.

so, am i doing something wrong here? why should the limiter be causing such distortion? is there some other approach i should be using to raise the overall gain some without distorting the peaks? thanks.

automate the volume on the track manually. turn up the quiet parts and / or turn down the loud parts. you are not doing anything "wrong" but a limiter really can't control dynamics when the range is as great as what you are describing. when you are setting a limiter and you're trying to get it to level things that are greater than 10db apart, it's probably going to start introducing some undesirable distortion. Also, based on the type of music you are describing, you probably don't want a "brickwalled" sound.

I would start with manual volume automation to bring things closer together. If desired for taste / tone purposes, perhaps use that in conjuction with some compression (rather than limiting) with a slower attack and release times to control dynamics further. Maybe also use a limiter, but have the threshold of the limiter set higher than the threshold for your compressor on the same channel, and try to set it so the limiter is only taking off the topmost 3db or so.

thanks alden. i will give that a shot.

i am attaching a wav file of a short segment of the piece which includes some of the peaks, so you can see/hear what i am dealing with...

sorry - wav file too big. here is an mp3:

You can try using the Volume Envelope feature in Reaper. Select the tracks you want to work with and then click on Track > Envelopes > Toggle Volume active. That will give you a line through the middle of each track that you can click on to add edit points. Drag the points around to create louder or softer sections. I've done this a few times in the past; it seems to work very well and gives extremely precise control over the dynamic level.

have you tried using parallel compression?
sometimes its just what you need to bring up the quiet sections.

Keep the limiter there as well but only use it for the last db or so. At least thats how i approach using limiters.

thumbsupthumbsup
parallel compression works wonders....