Audio Peak Limiter / Ceiling

[Harry Bromley-davenport]

Put the FCP audio compressor filter on it.

If the compression isn’t enough at the default setting, increase it to ratio “2:1”.

This will have the immediate effect of apparently lowering the volume of your sound, but if you then raise the volume, you will hear that it is compressed. I believe the default value, from memory is 3:1.

AS I said, if that isn’t enough for you – and it sorta should be – then try 2.5: 1 or 2:1.

Harry.

[Dustin Parsons]

Ahhh, I think I had tried the compressor filter but since it had lowered the volume of the entire clip, and I didn’t try boosting the audio after that, I thought it wasn’t what I was looking for.

Thanks for the clear explanation. I’ll let you know how it works.

——————————————–
Mac Pro | Leopard 10.5.5
2.66GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon | 4GB Ram
Final Cut Pro Studio 2 | Avid Media Composer

[Michael Gissing]

Sorry Harry but you have your compression ratios back to front. 2:1 is mild compression. 3:1 increases the compression. If you want more then increase the ratio further by putting a bigger number in front of the :1 like 6:1

All that said, the audio compression in FCP isn’t good.

[Harry Bromley-davenport]

Oops.

My mistake. I’m glad you corrected me or our poor friend could have been in a mess.

I know that FCP isn’t exactly the standard bearer in audio, but I’ve found that it’s been good enough for three features over the last three years and they all passed Q.C. for sound.

All the best,

Harry.

[Ralph Atkinson]

I’ve found it can generally be “good enough” for touching up reasonably well recorded dialogue, but for more intensive corrective measures, or any music content you will get noticeably better results by taking it into Logic or ProTools.

Ralph