Don't understand Speech volume leveler

Steve's right. And yes, that top slider called "target ... " makes you think you're setting the target result when really it is just part of the selection process of the various options and how they interact. I think it should be named differently.

The practical use is taken from Steve's comments ... use this to give a more 'level' conversation, then use other tools to place it where you want. I've found after using this, I can easily do a simple gain operation to get a pretty tightly controlled output.

Neil

The idea is that it all sounds at the same level, as opposed to all being at any given fixed signal amplitude. That's why the level indications are targets rather than absolute limits. If you want to limit peaks, then use the dynamics processor or the hard limiter - that's what they are there for!