Audio compressor: one comfortable volume
A full compressor with live preview: threshold, ratio, attack, release, knee, makeup and a delta mode that plays exactly what is being changed. Processed privately in your browser.
Runs in your browser. Your file never leaves your computer.
- ControlsThreshold, ratio, attack, release, knee, makeup
- MeterLive gain reduction while it plays
- Delta modeListen to only what changes
- PrivacyNo upload, ever
An interview where the guest mumbles and the host booms. A lecture where you ride the volume for an hour. A voice memo taken across the room. These recordings do not need to be louder overall — they need the gap between their quiet and loud moments closed. That is what a compressor does: when the level crosses a threshold it is eased down, then makeup gain brings the whole result back up, which lifts the murmured sentences without letting the laughs blow your ears out. Here you get the real controls — threshold, ratio, attack, release, knee and makeup — with the file playing live and a gain-reduction meter showing how hard it works. The delta switch plays only the difference, the surest way to hear what you are giving up. A sidechain low-cut keeps rumble from triggering false ducking, and your recording never leaves this machine.
Questions
Compressing audio — isn't that about file size?
Different thing with the same name. This is dynamic range compression, which evens out volume. Making the file itself smaller is a format conversion — save the result as MP3 or M4A and you get both.
Where do I start with the settings?
The defaults (threshold −12 dB, ratio 4:1, 30 ms attack, 150 ms release) suit typical speech. Watch the gain-reduction meter: a few dB most of the time is right; constant heavy reduction means raise the threshold or lower the ratio.
What is delta mode for?
It plays only the part of the signal the compressor is removing. If the delta sounds like the peaks you wanted tamed, the settings are right; if you hear whole words in it, the compressor is grabbing too much.
Will it pump or breathe?
The attack and release times are tuned per strength to stay unobtrusive on voice. Strong settings on dense music can become audible — that is the trade for the level control.
Why is there a low-cut in the detector?
Rumble and plosives carry a lot of energy but no meaning. Filtering them out of the detector stops the compressor from ducking the whole recording every time a truck passes.
Related conversions
- Normalize audioIt measures how loud the file really is — the LUFS number streaming services use — and raises or lowers it to a standard target. Every file you run through it comes out at the same level.
- Audio limiterA lookahead limiter, live in your browser: add up to 24 dB of gain while every peak stops at the ceiling you set. In plain words — a volume booster that can't distort. Nothing is uploaded.
- WAV to MP3Turn a large studio recording into a small file that plays anywhere, at a bitrate where almost nobody can hear the difference.
- WAV to FLACFLAC keeps every sample of the recording and still cuts the file roughly in half. The archive format for audio you may need again.
- WAV to M4AAAC at 256 kbps: better sound per megabyte than MP3, native on every Apple device, fine everywhere else.
- WAV to OGGThe most efficient codec in wide use: transparent around 128 kbps, ideal for the web and for apps, weaker on Apple hardware.
Part of convert audio files in your browser. Every other conversion is on the conversions index.