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This setting tells the effect to ignore periods of "silence" (low level audio) that are shorter duration than the specified size (measured in seconds). This is important because the level of normal audio frequently drops to very low levels momentarily. Very small gaps in the audio are ignored. If the threshold is set too high, then the effect will treat quiet sounds as if they are silences.
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If this threshold level is set too low, then the effect will not detect any silences.
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Thus -40 dB is quieter than -30 dB, and -20 dB is higher (louder) than -30 dB. As all normal signals are less than the full track height, the threshold will always be a negative number. The dB level is measured relative to "0.0 dB = full scale".
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