Actually I know I probably need a compressor and or a limiter because I keep getting fallout, or blank bits, whenever I sing or play enthusiastically.

My dealer in Montreal tells me that effective or high quality compressors are costly. He quotes a single channel unit at around $1300 -- this one is made by Daking. I'm aware there are other much less costly units from that Really Nice Austin company, are these really good? or are there trade-offs such as high noise.

What are your recommendations here?

Compressors range from the absolute garbage 3630 range ($99 for a stereo pair) to the sensually exquisite (Fairchild 660, approx $35,000)...

I have and use a couple of RNCs and an RNLA...no appreciable noise, great utility pairs, pretty well hold their own against most hardware units retailing for less than a $1000 a channel, and IMO are far superior to all but the most esoteric softwares...

If you are having drop outs, a compressor may not be your solution, though...can you be more specific? Hitting it too hot when "enthusiastic" or actual drop outs?

i did not get what you with the drop outs in relation to the comp needed as well?
i assume you are talking about clipping maybe?
as wireline mentioned you need to be a bit more specific on this.
how-ever i do feel their are some great comps, coming in around a grand or less.
i am a 500 format fan from the word go, so i want to mention, any small project, or bedroom studios, can ( IMHO ), benefit form this format.
pros and cons, we can discuss that in another thread. : )~
their are some absolutely fabulous pres available, as well as compressor, and eqs.
their are a few comps out now, and look for a few others to be announced at the NAMM show : )~

I think that you need a limiter. If you are clipping your converters, then this is the thing.

http://mojopie.ipbhost.com/index.php?showtopic=846

Check out the above thread on the Aphex Dominator.

I concur with the diagnosis and the treatment. Alternative is to set the levels lower--the converters our original poster has are good enough (either device) that there's resolution to spare. Back when it was poor-quality 16 bit 44.1kHz that ran the show, there was a pretty limited sweet spot below the zero dB over point before you would hear diminishing resolution hitting. Unless there are huge dynamic fluctuations, it's probably not a big issue. Unless you insist on a loud CD instead of a good sounding one.

Bear

Bear is right that there is a lot of headroom in newer converters. Even when giving plenty of room I still get some persons who just want to get a littl excited at times and they clip. I'll use a limiter on these people. It can also be a good effect when you want to smash the crap out of something.

I'll probably try to acquire some kind of limiting system in the new year. Thanks guys. I'll surprise you with a posting from north of sixty. In the second week in January I'll be in Whitehorse YT for a kewl job interview -- that will be a great location for an internet radio show or something like that.

I figure one each of that FMR gear from Austin will do the job...I don't want to overdo it, eh? Or dare I fiddle around with the special effects circuits on my Konnekt 24D....

If you want a compressor for a radio show, then the FMR RNC has been used by more than a couple of pirate radio stations. And, you just need one. I don't know about the requirements of internet streaming radio. That's outside my expertise.

If you want a limiter to avoid crapping out your converters, then the RNC is a lousy choice. I don't know anything about the RNLA.

The Aphex Model 700 Dominator comes up on eBay from time to time used under $200 and sometimes even as low as $100. I'm not as familiar with the Model 720 or 722. There is a guy who is going to be listing a bunch of 720 models on eBay after the first of the year from what he put on a prior sale on eBay.

A limiter only adjusts the dynamics when they are heading above a certain level. A "brick-wall limiter" like the Aphex Dominator sets a hard top and prevents transients from exceeding that top. A compressor controls the entire dynamic range, including bumping up quieter parts as well as reducing louder parts. A compressor is unlikely to do the brick-wall-type ceiling unless it's squashing the bejesus out of the dynamic range.

So to avoid "overs" that make A/D converters hiccup, a brick-wall limiter is great. For getting stuff into a confined dynamic range, as is the trend for modern broadcasting, a compressor is very handy. If you are doing stuff for podcast, you actually might like to run through both (probably with the limiter behind the compressor in the chain).

If the Konnekt has an onboard compressor, you could fool with that to see if compression would be useful to you. The limiter application we're talking about really needs to happen in front of the conversion.

Bear

not 100% sure, but i think both a compressor, and limiter as well, push down ( or squeeze ), the top.
i was allays under the impression,
if you have peaks, but are happy with the gain, use a limiter and slam the peaks?
here you are not trying to bring anything up so much, as just limit the peaks.
want to bring up a few part and smooth things out a bit, use the compressor, compress, then make-gain to get your level were you want it?
i could be way off, and as always i am very open to learning anytime i can:)~
i will start a thread if you guys like so as not to could this one to much, and we can chat about comps verses limiters?

Steve mentioned podcasting and that sort of thing -- my impression is they usually are in an MP3 format to decrease the bandwidth. My first priority is to get my Konnekt 24d working properly and the the format would be at least CD quality.

The truth be told most of my recording stuff is packed up right now, and any music-making is mainly just playing guitar without recording. So it's more a future project to perfect this digital audio recording. I think analogue recording was simpler and I was pleased with the results -- stereo recordings of jam sessions with a ceiling-mounted pair of Beyer Soundstar mics (set on an eight inch rail) fed into a Radio Shack (Hitachi) stereo cassette deck (circa 1977-79). Don't ask me why I'm screwing around with this digital hobby.

But I'm definitely open to ideas, but some ebay vendors stipulate they would sell stuff to Canada -- I think they are worried it would get into the wrong hands -- as in another Anne Murray or Celine Dion. http://mojopie.ipbhost.com/style_images/ip...cons/icon12.gif
http://mojopie.ipbhost.com/style_images/ip...cons/icon12.gif

I should also mention that Konnekt 24d comes with Cubase LE -- which seems fairly straight-forward, but not as dead simple as an analogue tape recorder.