Is there some built-in audio limiter in Windows 7?

[Torniojaws]

It seems strange, but on many occasions there is audible pumping when I playback audio in Windows 7 This is very prominent when, for example, I play music and then start to play some game. Whenever something even slightly louder happens in the game, the music ducks out A LOT. With the exact same hardware and software, this never happened in Windows XP. Now, this is tolerable, but yesterday I discovered a problem with it, related to reamping. I cannot get my reamp signal loud enough anymore (master volume of the amp at 5/10 just to get it to slightly louder home playing level ), even when I boost it to +6.0 dBA within my Fireface Mix settings. It's like after 0.0 dB, it gets limited off, but not by the DAW (Reaper 64) or any plugin within it. And because I boost the signal from inside the Fireface Mix, the OS should theoretically have no say in it

With the same hardware and drivers (below), I never had a problem like this within Windows XP.

Fireface 400 (firmware v1.70, driver v2.9992)
Little Labs Redeye (Reamp level at max, pad disengaged, 30 cm (12") cable from reamp out to amp)
Windows 7 64-bit
Reaper 64 (v3.63), no plugins in use in the project

 

[LosingReality]

Have you tried clicking on the little speaker icon at the lower right side of the screen? And then bring the slider all the way up. Somtimes mine moves without me moving it and it causes the pumping.

 

[if6was9]

This happens on my friends laptop with vista and on my brothers with 7, It's incredibly annoying. We've tried turning it off but can't find the settings to. When we looked it up its apparently some limitation implemented so that people don't listen to music too loud.

 

[Werihukka]

There's a voice communication detection device in Windows 7 which ducks outgoing audio if it detects incoming communication. That might cause glitches with multiple software playing audio at the same time. You can turn that off just in case.

Don't know about the limiting, though. Haven't noticed anything different in my setup, but I always keep my levels way down, so I might have to try to recreate the problem on my setup and report back after that.

 

[Torniojaws]

Oh yeah, just noticed I forgot to set it to "Do nothing". I was thinking of my laptop, where I already changed it Looks like it was on "Reduce others sounds by 80 %". Let's see what happens...

 

[sexan]

There is another thing too,I had the same problem,go to the playback devices,double click on your device and go advance and enhancements,there is "loudness eq" turn that shit off if it's on,its a compressor and.....bla...

 

[Torniojaws]

None like that for me. Probably depends on which audio interface/card you use.

But yeah, I set the voice communication thing to "Do nothing" and it fixed the game issues. And I think my reamp problem was because in haste I put my FX loop cables the wrong way around into my delay pedal That, or not attaching the cables affect the volume in the Powerball...