[brudgers]

A limiter limits the maximum power. Some are hard and will clip. Some are soft and will produce a milder distortion.

A compressor compresses the dynamic range. They reduce the sounds about a selectable threshold with variable ratios and envelopes. Usually they have various other features.

This compressor/limiter/gate/expander/de-esser has more features than you are likely to use soon (side chaining) and will almost certainly sound good enough (despite what people may comment in response) [1].

https://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/MDX2600--behringer-c...

Good luck.

[1] If it doesn't you can spend more later if it solves your problem. The nice thing about these compressors is: they have transparent bypass, a dedicated power button, robust construction, mature design, and are cheap.

[duped]

A limiter is a compressor with an infinite ratio. It does not clip.

[brudgers]

Depends on the limiter.

Hard limiters limit by clipping.

If you look at the output waveform, I mean. It’s why limiters are sometimes used for distortion. The flat top and/or bottom create overtones.

[duped]

I get that terms get overloaded especially when mixing between electronics, signal processing, and commercial products. But in the context of audio signal processing that would not be called a "limiter" - it's a clipper or clamper. You won't see products advertised as a "hard" or "soft" limiter - but you will see "hard clipper" or "soft clipper" used to describe that behavior.

The distinction is that limiters and other dynamic range processors do not use clipper circuits/algorithms directly, they have an amplifier controlled by a feedback or feedforward signal path as the gain computer. The amplifier may create harmonic distortion, or harmonic distortion can be created if an envelope follower in the feedback/forward path is configured in a certain way, but it isn't the design or intention of a limiter to clip.

Limiters can can clip if there's a clipper after the gain reduction which happens in some designs where the limiter is load bearing or uses a feedback path and no lookahead, but those are pretty rare these days since the entire point of a limiter is to avoid distortion.

A good book that covers the design and theory of operation is Zolzer's Digital Audio Signal Processing. It's relevant even for analog designs, since the topology of the designs are the same.

[brudgers]

Sometimes I watch studio porn on Youtube (multiply by a few years).

Studios keep limiters in their racks for exactly the reason I describe.

Just as they keep compressors around to add color.

Your DAW probably doesn't emulate limiters that clip because it is not common practice (not Common Practice, either). But your DAW probably has compressor plugins that do distort because that's what people have heard about.

In theory, an ideal limiter does not distort. Neither does a compressor. Or a mixer. In musical practice, an ideal device is often a bad idea. Musically we might want squelchy TB filters and CR1604 crosstalk.

When you want to hard limit amplitude, clipping is the simplest thing that might work. And clipping is usually better than tinnitus.