what is a compressor limiter?

Answers:

1Is primarily used for is dynamics control, and the limiter as a guard against signal clipping.

Introduction,
A compressor is a device whose output level can be made to change at a different rate to it's input level; sounds interesting but not very useful you might think. What this means is that in contrast to most pieces of audio equipment which strive for a linear response (i.e. when the input signal doubles in level, so does the output), the compressor can be configured for example so that when the input level rises by say 10dB (over a certain threshold) the corresponding output level might only go up by 5dB. This ratio is configuable from almost unity i.e. 1.5:1 (a 1.5dB increase in input level giving a 1dB increase in output) to 6:1 for a compressor, and say 8:1 to, to 20:1 (a 20dB increase in input giving a 1 dB increase in output) for a limiter. The only difference between the two being the compression ranges over which they operate.

For example when recording a vocal track to the multitrack, the singer might be giving a great performance, but the level of their singing could be wildly different between the verse and the chorus. Aside from doing the obvious and asking them to try and sing at a more consistent level, which you should still do (it will always sound more natural), the compressor can be used to even out the dynamic range and so give a more consistent level on the tape.

The limiter might be used to guard against excessively loud transient peaks when recording say a drum kit.

Fundamentals,
Once the compression level ratio has been set there are a three other main parameters to be set on the compressor.

attack
release
threshold
Attack and release are simply controls for a simple envelope which can be applied to the compressed signal, and affect how the compressor acts. Attack defines how quickly the compressor reacts to an input signal, a fast attack time of say 10 microseconds could be used to prevent signal clipping because any high-level transients will be rapidly controlled. Release defines the speed with which the compressor returns the output signal to it's uncompressed level.

Threshold is the input level at which compression starts to take effect, i.e. all signals above the threshold get compressed while all those below pass through unaltered. However this parameter is affected by the attack and release envelope

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