Compressor and/or limiter

You really want a compressor/limiter/expander.  Many older used units can be found on e-bay, and if you're patient, often for under $50.

Is this what you have in mind, Artisan?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/like/182054904681?lpid=82&chn=ps&ul_noapp=true

As I understand it, an expander is the exact opposite of a compressor, and would not be of any use in driving any transmitter.

But you do noeed compression - lifts low levels up so they are closer to matching higher levels;

And you do need a limiter - sets a top level that cannot be exceeded, so as to prevent over-modulation.

Therefore the first two items you linked (Morningdj) would do the job if you used them both,

and the item on eBay would do the job, except you would never need the expander.

I use an Alesis NanoCompressor here for FM.  They are low cost at auction and work OK for this but make sure they come with the origional power supply wall wart.

Neil

I use the Behringer mini-com which is similar to the Alesis or the RNC mini compressors although the Behringer and the Alesis are not made anymore but the RNC is. Look on EBAY and you will see them there but the Behringer has a plastic case and is very light and also has the compression ratios and other settings in presets and for me the setting "vocal power" #3 works the best and with the Wholehouse 3 transmitter which has no working on board limiting I can get to almost the volume of the other stations with no distortion. The Behringer also has a volume leveling setting also. Although if all your music is in MP3 files you can get for free a volume leveler and just drag all your songs there and set the db setting around 90 or so and all your songs will be put back in your computer at the same volume.

Mark

I neglected to mention a possible downside to the Alesis NanoCompressor is that it uses 1/4 inch phone jacks.  For stereo, four 1/4 inch phone plugs would be needed.  Though these are nice and reliable they are expensive.

Neil

Mornin' DJ,

I like the look of the Rolls, and it looks simple, and I think simple is good if you're new. Ramsey Electronics used to have a simple Stereo Companion that was a limiter for their FM transmitters.

I don't know Carl, could the expander work as a gate, so with audio dropping below a certain level it reduces hiss brought up by the compression?

If you use Windows and the playback computer feeds the transmitter directly, meaning no analog studio, you could use software. If you have Windows I reccommend Sonos Limit. You get a software cables program to connect your media player to Sonos inside the computer (posted here recently), then set Sonos for line out, which goes to the transmitter.

It's simple and will keep the levels of songs tight, and it's free. If you don't need in your face sound like Iheart stations, Sonos Limit would be good. Only one problem, I can't find the download page for it now. I have it if I can upload somewhere.

We had a low power college station that had a real smooth level control. When a piece of music was playing and went to a quiet passage, you could hear the level being slowly brought up over many seconds, it might have taken 30 seconds to come up full, like on a ochestral movie sountrack. When the music came back up, it would drop the level fast, I'd hear it every time.

It was really good sound though, when other stations sounded muddy. I guessed it was because of the compression they could handle a whole lot of dynamic range without distorting.

Thank you all for your input.  Some great ideas--before spending money, I think I'll try the software idea.  My music is all MP3s using Audacity.  The 'normalize' and 'leveler' in Audacity works somewhat, but not totally satisfactorily.

I appreciate the info technical info about limiters and compressors.  This is a great forum for getting using information.

Give MP3Gain a try for just making all your mp3's play at the same level without re-encoding, it's free, simple to use and works well. http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/download.php

However it's not a replacement for leveler/compressor, but it should help out your present situation a little

Candidate Trump keeps telling us he intends to build a wall.

All walls have gates, and Nate Crime asked: "could the expander work as a gate, so with audio dropping below a certain level it reduces hiss brought up by the compression?"

Carl replies... I don't know, but I do know this... one of our other part 15 people will know about expanders and gates.

A big thanks, again, to you all of you for your suggestions.  I checked out MP3 Gain as was suggested by Rich Powers after Mark recommended trying software before buying hardware.

MP3 Gain is simple and it works very well for my purposes.  I used 97db for conversion and it's the same volume as before, but now all the songs are the same level.  No loss of frequency response. 

While going through this process I contacted Gerry at Chez Radio (I also have his Procaster) and asked about his Studio Interface since it has a built in limiter/compressor, which works quite well.  The only problem is that it is mono, not stereo, but I'm thinking maybe that it could be a less expensive limiter/processsor option for the Range Master and/or other AM transmitters.  It's $125 plus $25 for shipping.  Maybe worth checking out for some.

are great stand alone multiband dsp based processing that runs on windows. an old sound card and windows pc along with either of these programs and you have a great multiband processor.

I often bring a laptop to the pier and pavilion where I sometimes work the concessions.. The laptop plays mp3s through amplified dj speakers.. years ago when I first started doing it there was a problem with one song being to loud and the next too quiet.. there was no consistency to the volume level.

MP3 Gain solved the problem easily, without having to hook up additional hardware or re-encode a thousand mp3 files!

Yes, Mp3 Gain, that really works, lots of mp3 rips clip when decoded, or they're too low, like 1980s CDs.

Yes! MBL4, that's also a Sonos product, and comes with the newest version of Sonos Limit, a low resource multiband. I think they're great for budget stations, and can be made to sound quite good, probably because they're simple systems. I don't know where Burnill is going with Sonos 4 though, he's gone kind of mad on that one in my opinion. 🙂

I see you're looking for files to be normalized, not realtime dynamics processsing as much, it seems. I couldn't find the original links to Sonos Limit on the radio station's site like it used to be, but they're on torrent, look up "Radio Tools" on your torrent search, and there's a pack of them, all Freeware radio software.