Audio Compressor & Limiter
Reduce peaks with a linked peak-envelope compressor, add optional make-up gain, then enforce a sample-peak ceiling before WAV export.
What this tool does
The compressor follows the highest absolute decoded sample across channels and reduces gain above the selected threshold according to the ratio. Attack and release smooth the gain movement. After optional make-up gain, a sample-peak ceiling clamps samples that still exceed the selected limit.
Important limitation
This is a browser foundation compressor, not a mastering-grade look-ahead limiter, true-peak limiter, multiband compressor, LUFS normalizer or broadcast compliance processor. The ceiling is based on decoded sample peaks and does not measure inter-sample true peaks.
This is not LUFS loudness normalization.
When to use it
Use moderate settings to tame uneven peaks in speech or simple audio before further editing. A practical starting point is −18 dBFS, 3:1–4:1 ratio, 10 ms attack, 100–200 ms release and a −1 dBFS ceiling. Heavy compression can pump, dull transients or raise background noise.
Result interpretation
The result reports the strongest compressor gain reduction and how many decoded samples reached the final ceiling. A non-zero limited-sample count means the ceiling stage actively constrained peaks; it does not prove clipping-free playback after later lossy encoding.
Privacy, formats and metadata
Processing stays in the browser. Input decoding depends on your browser codec support. Output is a new 16-bit PCM WAV and does not preserve ID3 tags, cover artwork, chapters or compressed-file metadata.
FAQ
Is this LUFS normalization? No. Is the limiter true-peak? No, it is a sample-peak ceiling. Will it fix distorted audio? No; compression cannot restore information already clipped or damaged.