Re: DynamicsCompressorNode

Jean-Marc,


> Well, it depends on the amount of clipping that goes on. Also,
> clipping is unavoidable even with a compressor, so it's probably a
> good idea to to it smoothly anyway.
>

What I was trying to say, is that if a soft-clipper clips just a little at
0 dB FS, it will clip a lot at 6 dB over, and a huge amount at say 24 dB
over.
No matter what your soft-clipping wave-shaper curve is to start with, at
that point the output will be hard-clipped.


>
> Compressors also have their own artefacts, especially full-band ones.
> For example, if there's a low frequency burst, it'll modulate any high
> frequencies present in the signal. So for large excursions,
> compressors may be unavoidable, but it we can avoid those,
> soft-clipping may be a better option. One important advantage of
> (soft-)clipping is that when there are no overflows, it does not cause
> any artefact at all.
>

Compressors can have artifacts, but final-output limiters are designed to
be transparent.
And it is a fact that in professional audio production across a variety of
industries, limiters rather than soft-clippers are primarily used to deal
with overs.

It should be noted that a truly transparent sound can be difficult to
achieve and that is why people can make their living selling better-quality
limiters.
I have no opinion on the relative quality of the current dynamics
processing in the WebAudio implementations.

Sincerely,
   Frederick