Since it’s more or less guess-work, or at least really hard to create a real-time limiter that handles ISP perfectly, we thought we’d put as many limiters as possible to the test. If you don’t have the tools or knowledge to check how your audio will perform post-encoding I would recommend to stay away from positive True Peaks. Encoding to lossy formats ISP will make it harder for encoders to do a good job.All that extra loudness you gained by letting random equipment create a positive peak (that might distort) will be lost.

This means that if your audio peak at +2dBTP it will be turned down by at least -3dB before reaching the end user. We’ll most probably have a loudness standard for streaming media within a couple of years and that standard will be ISP aware and set at -1dBTP.-Tip: If you want to work with limiters that lack oversampling up-sample your 44.1 or 48KHz projects to a higher sample rate and by that have the limiter react more accurately.This does not mean it will sound bad in any way, just that it doesn’t react as intended. Digital limiters without oversampling (or other ways of detect ISP) will react to the digital waveform, not the true waveform, and thus won’t react as a limiter should react.No, you don’t have to treat or be aware of ISP but: Many of the top mastering business don’t care about ISP so why should I? In some extreme cases, the actual peak can be as much as 3-4dB above the sample peaks detected in the digital domain. Just how bad this distortion depends on the converter used. In that process the newly created waveform may peak above the 0dBFS ceiling which individual samples adhere to, thereby causing distortion. No, Your D/A will create a waveform that continuously moves from one sample point to the next. That is, how your peaks will look after your waveform has been converted from a digital stream within your computer, phone, iPod or CD to electrical impulses that can be amplified and played back through your speakers.Īren’t the waveforms the same as they appear on my screen after the D/A conversion? ISP, Inter Sample Peak or TP, True Peak, refers to peaks in the analog domain.

Audacity limiter