Compressor / Limiter help needed
 

Can anyone explain (in a simple manner) how to make this work? I have some songs that are really quiet, and I want to make them as loud as I can. I have other songs that are way too loud and I'm wanting to tone them down. With a few songs, the quiet parts are too quiet and the loud parts are too loud. It's my understanding that Compressor and/or Limiter changes do what I'm looking for, but I swear I've tried about every combination of things I can think of and I can't seem to make it sound any different. Any help would be greatly appreciated, especially if you can detail how the settings should be for each of the 3 specific scenarios I listed. THANKS!

Like you, I have found that, sometimes, it is impossible to tell if Hoster's Compression/Limiting/Normalization has really made a change.

After all, to tell this you would need a way to measure a before and after to compare.

Since you have stated that you seem to not be able to make a Trk Sound any different after using Hoster’s Compression/Limiting/Normalization, this is an alternate way that I use to Normalize my Karaoke Trks that I, simply, MUST do something with.

I copy the CDG Trk to the Hard Drive as a BIN file, split the BIN into its 2 Components, an MP3, which is the Audio component of a Karaoke Trk, and a CDG, which is the Graphics Component of a Karaoke Trk.

I, then, take the MP3 and add it to PCDJ and have PCDJ NORMALIZE it (any quality DJ program, such as BPM, has the abilty to Normalize MP3s). PCDJ shows you exactly what is taking place in that, you can observe PCDJ adding or subtracting to the db level [db +(x) or -(x)], as the Trk is processed.

Once Processed, I re-combine the 2 Components back to a BIN Trk and Import the, now Normalized, Trk into Hoster.

This Process takes about 10 Minutes. But, you could, just as easily, process 100s of MP3s, in this manner, instead of doing it one Trk at a time.

Most Music Maestro Trks are recorded too low. Many Nikodo/Nutech are recorded too low. Many Pioneer Discs are recorded too low.

Never had a Sound Choice Recorded too low...but many have BASE overdrive.