Treatments in order of decreasing severity range from clipping, in which a signal is passed through normally but sheared off when it would normally exceed a certain threshold soft clipping which squashes peaks instead of shearing them a hard limiter, a type of variable-gain audio level compression, in which the gain of an amplifier is changed very quickly to prevent the signal from going over a certain amplitude or a soft limiter which reduces maximum output through gain compression. Limiting can refer to a range of treatments designed to limit the maximum level of a signal.

Limiters are also used as protective features in some components of sound reinforcement systems (e.g., powered mixing boards and power amplifiers) and in some bass amplifiers, to prevent unwanted distortion or loudspeaker damage. Limiters are common as a safety device in live sound and broadcast applications to prevent sudden volume peaks from occurring. Limiting is any process by which the amplitude of a signal is prevented from exceeding a predetermined value. Clipping is an extreme version of limiting. Limiting is a type of dynamic range compression.

In electronics, a limiter is a circuit that allows signals below a specified input power or level to pass unaffected while attenuating (lowering) the peaks of stronger signals that exceed this threshold.

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