Does Your Podcast Audio Need a Haircut? (Limiting)

By “haircut” I mean Limiting! *See the image above showing a nice straight “haircut”; the loudest peaks have been “tamed”.

Limiters basically chop off any loud sharp pointy peaks in audio, and they do so without causing clipping distortion (unless you’re doing extreme limiting).

Be careful: If a raw audio recording is extremely dynamic, the loudest parts are going to be severely loud and will almost certainly clip and distort when you boost the overall level in post. In these cases you should definitely use some compression before limiting.

Here are some helpful articles:

• Limiter vs. Compressor: One Way to Think About It
• If the “hair is WAY too long” on your audio (meaning it has lots of huge loud peaks), check out this post: If You’re Cutting Off Lots of Peaks in Mastering

Do you fancy yourself an “audio hairdresser”??! Comment below 🙂

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