DRC (Dynamic Range Compression) for Mac OS?

Question

Level 1

8 points

DRC (Dynamic Range Compression) for Mac OS?

Im really surprised that not too many people are posting about this but does anyone know any way to get system wide Dynamic Range Compression on a Mac? I watch movies and listen to music sometimes late at night and dont want to bother other people. I hate constantly having to ride the volume to control it so I can hear the soft parts and then the volume explodes when the gunfight starts 🙂

Just bought the new MacMini Server so i'm stuck with Lion. I have used Hear and its not really good. It has a very basic Limiter but it seems to not kick in unless you have it up all the way and no way graph or way to see how much compression you are adding. Its not compatible with Lion so I have to look for a new one. I was messing around with Audio Hijack Pro but its really buggy with Lion. VLC seems to have nothing. DVD Player dolby dynamic compression doesnt seem like it does anything either.

Any advice or ideas would be greatly appreciated 🙂

Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.6.8), Apple Certified Tech

Posted on Aug 12, 2011 1:41 PM

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Answer 1

jawsintel Author

Level 1

8 points

Aug 14, 2011 1:53 PM in response to jawsintel

Never mind, I found it!!! Audio Hijack Pro does it beautifully. The AUPeak Limiter does exactly what I wanted.

Just click hijack and the program has to relaunch VLC (instant on not yet supported for Lion). Then click on Effects. Select Audio Unit Effect/Apple/AUPeak Limiter on one of the open spaces. Click on Editor to set your Attack/Release times and the Pre-Gain. I put Attack and Release around 2.5 seconds and PRe-Gain at about -20DB to start.

There is even a level meter on the left of the window and when you turn it on and select Out Peak you can see how much compression you are adding. Also, the program saves your settings so all you have to do is open it and your ready.

Finally a DRC (Dynamic Range Compressor that works on the system outputs for Mac. My Bose speakers don't sound bad either with it on. Last night is the first time in over 2 years that I didn't have to ride the volume at all during an entire movie!!! I don't know why Rogue doesn't advertise this feature more strongly in the description of the software. They make it seem like its only for recording and kinda hide this feature. I wish I knew this a long time ago instead of using that Hear garbage that didn't even really work. I would have bought this a long time ago.

Best $32 I have ever spent.

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Answer 2

Aug 13, 2014 2:38 PM in response to jawsintel

You don't need to spend anything. You can use the free Soundflower and the AULab app (applications/utilities/AULab).

Follow these directions: http://osxdaily.com/2012/05/18/equalizer-for-all-audio-mac-os-x/

Now instead of AUGraphicsEQ chose AUMultibandCompressor.

No need for a $32 product and no need to do some complicated launch process for each app. It works for ALL audio.

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Answer 3

Pigumon

Level 1

4 points

Mar 19, 2015 9:06 AM in response to Pickle Pumpers

Wow, that completely worked. I did both EQ and Compression. The only trouble I had was finding that I needed an older version of AU Lab for Lion. Aside from that, worked perfectly.

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