---
title: Limiter
description: "A limiter as a device you can plug in: a gain, a ceiling and a release as a state, a panel that draws its transfer curve with a handle on the ceiling, a Web Audio engine and the tools an agent drives it with."
component: true
base: base
---

<ComponentPreview styleName="base-nova" name="block-limiter" />

Keeps the sound under a ceiling. The panel draws the transfer curve against the straight line of a clean sound: drag the handle up and down for the ceiling and across for the input gain. It is a device like the [compressor](/docs/components/compressor): a state, a panel that draws it, an engine that plays it and tools an agent calls, each its own file.

## Installation

<CodeTabs>

<TabsList>
  <TabsTrigger value="cli">CLI</TabsTrigger>
  <TabsTrigger value="manual">Manual</TabsTrigger>
</TabsList>

<TabsContent value="cli">

```bash component
npx shadcn@latest add @audio-ui/block-limiter
```

</TabsContent>

<TabsContent value="manual">

<Steps>

<Step>Install the packages:</Step>

```bash
npm install @audio-ui/react @audio-ui/core
```

<Step>Add the pieces you want. All of them, or only the state and the panel if your engine is elsewhere:</Step>

```bash
npx shadcn@latest add @audio-ui/limiter-device @audio-ui/limiter-panel @audio-ui/limiter-engine
```

<Step>Copy and paste the demo that wires them, if you want it.</Step>

<ComponentSource
  styleName="base-nova"
  name="block-limiter"
  title="components/examples/block-limiter.tsx"
/>

</Steps>

</TabsContent>

</CodeTabs>

## Usage

```tsx
import { LimiterPanel } from "@/components/audio-ui/devices/limiter/panel";
import { limiterDevice } from "@/components/audio-ui/devices/limiter/device";

const [state, setState] = useState(() => limiterDevice.defaults());

<LimiterPanel onValueChange={setState} value={state} />;
```

The state is a plain object keyed by parameter id, so a host stores it, saves it with its project and sends it where it likes. `limiterCurve(state)` is the curve the panel draws.

## The engine

```ts
import { createLimiterEngine } from "@/components/audio-ui/devices/limiter/engine";

const engine = createLimiterEngine(ctx, state);
source.connect(engine.input);
engine.output.connect(ctx.destination);
engine.update(nextState); // parameters ramp: no click
engine.dispose();
```

It is the browser's compressor node at a ratio of 20 with no knee, then a hard clip. The node adds a make-up gain of its own that cannot be turned off, so the engine takes it back out and a signal under the ceiling is only as loud as the gain makes it. A ratio of 20 is not a wall: measured in Chrome, with a ceiling of -1 dB and +24 dB in, the node alone reaches +0.6 dBFS. The final clip, oversampled 4x, is what keeps the samples at the ceiling: in the conformance page the peak is never more than 0.05 dB over it, for ceilings of -1, -6 and -12 dB and up to +36 dB in (the filter of the oversampling rings a little, so it is not exactly zero). That is a sample peak, not an inter-sample (true) peak, so it is not a substitute for a true-peak limiter on a master that is checked against a loudness standard. `engine.reduction` is the gain being taken off, in dB, to read per frame.

## Latency

Working, it delays the signal by 10 ms in Chrome: 6 ms of look-ahead in the compressor node and 4 ms of the oversampling of the clip. A host that compensates latency should be told.

## The tools

```ts
import { deviceTools } from "@audio-ui/core/device";
import { limiterDevice } from "@/components/audio-ui/devices/limiter/device";

const [set, reset] = deviceTools(limiterDevice);
```

`set` and `reset` change the state, with the ranges the device enforces: a value out of range is brought in and reported, a wrong one is refused by name, and a call never throws.

## Accessibility

Every control is a native input: the knobs are sliders named after their parameter, with the value and unit as the text value, the switches are toggle buttons, and everything takes the keyboard.