Loudness Walkthru feat. the Clip-To-Zero (CTZ) Production Strategy
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- Опубліковано 19 жов 2020
- In this video I walk you through a demonstration of the Clip-To-Zero (CTZ) production strategy revolving around single instances of KClip Pro 3 on every track and bus (instead of the "CTZ Pair" that I showed in earlier videos on the CTZ strategy). I show you how I set up the clipping and gain-staging on every track and bus on the way up to the master, demonstrating how loudness is best achieved. This walkthrough clearly shows how CLEAN, PUNCHY loudness is accomplished in the arrangement sequencing and in careful application of hard clippers all across the tracks and busses of a project. Loudness is in the arrangement and mixing--NOT in the mastering.
Wondering what the CTZ Strategy is? Start with this short 17-page written guide. Find it here at docs.google.com/document/d/1O...)
This is NOT paid promotion. I bought KClip and all the other tools shown here. I have no relationship with Kazrog nor ADPTR nor FX23.
If you enjoyed this video, please do me a solid and not only like the video (and subscribe to my channel), but also give me a follow on my TWO different artist accounts on Spotify! Thanks!
Baphometrix: open.spotify.com/artist/6OvuA...
DubSkald: open.spotify.com/artist/5CuK2...
/ baphometrix
your channel is a goldmine for in-depth mixing/mastering information, i don't think i've found any other channel quite like yours
so true
I know a tone of sound engineers who would be upset to see how much knowledge this channel is producing...unbelievable master class in clipping! Thank you 😊
Exactly
I'm here in South Africa clipping and saturating my way to quality songs.
@@ELLIOT8209yes bro this is the way, let’s go my brutha
ive been makin music for 18 years and i rarley use compressors. i always felt naughty but if you know your clipper you know the truth. i love your channel so much!
not many people bother with the basic waveform which is an artform. that why i love this channel so much.
This is like an eye-opener to why my masters sounded insanely squashed when I started out. Really grateful for your work!
Love these videos
I've adapted this method not for loudness, but for anchoring everything to the kick and matching loudness with references. Works great!
What you're teaching is pure gold.
i am so appreciative that i found u
I recently discovered your channel and been binging it. Really top notch videos I really appreciate it. I feel like I learned a year worth of stuff on a single week
Damn! You have changed every way I have looked at mixing things.... I have learned SO much from this Thank You Thank you!!!!!
best video on clipping ! thankssss
Thanks for summing up the topic a bit. I watched all of your other loudness vids and they are really really good :) Maybe now I can finally convince some of my lazy producer friends to take 36 minuits of their time. Even If I knew everything from your long vids I really enjoyed this one again. And you are one of the few YTers where I set my bell on. Looking forward to your mastercompressor one :)
this is the single most helpful loudness tutorial on the internet, ive tried countless others but this one actually works. thank u.
Thanks for sharing!
I am re-discovering your videos and finding them very useful. Oh and I nearly spilled my tea when your dog did that thing at 13:39 LOL
Never thought to use one on each track but that is what im going to mess with this weekend. Thanks for your generous insights fella.
Now this is starting to make sense.
I love your videos
bruh... I stopped using compressors on my master buss because I had no idea how to set them. the visualization combined with actually hearing the difference made it click for me. Thanks again man.
I think even after watching all of your videos on loudness and clippers, they will always seem like magic to me. How you can fundamentally change the waveform and yet have next to no impact on the sound...wizardry.
Yeah, once you understand clipping, it does seem like voodoo black magic at times how much you can get away with. And you understand how all the stern warnings about "clipping BAD" from many well-intentioned educators is just.... theoretically correct but in real-world practice _fundamentally wrong_ . Clipping is happening in LOTS of places. Every modern limiter plugin out there? Clipper hidden at the end. Ableton's "Saturator" device? Clipper hidden at the end. Ableton's "Glue Compressor"? Clipper hidden at the end. Many synth VSTs have a built in limiter stage on the master output, and that means you're clipping on your way out from that synth. UVI's new "Shade" EQ? Built in limiter (optional), which means you're clipping the signal coming out of it. Clippers are nothing to be afraid of. Clippers are your friend. And I'm totally with Steven Slate in the opinion that all the hullaballo about ISPs and True Peak is.... at the end of the day... largely bullshit and unnecessary. Little ultra-short ISPs here and there are 100% inaudible. Trying to bend your sound to avoid _all_ ISPs is just a waste of time and will hurt your sound.
The best !
Freakin Baphy, your the best. Thank you.
I appreciate your advanced content. I will help you with one gem people might be missing. The majority of the masters people could be comparing to are actually released at 44.1k 16bit. While our DAW is running at 32bit or higher. Using a plug-in like tone boosters "bitjuggler" on the master bus set to 44.1k / 16bit right before "Streamliner" or your codec emulation could be a huge piece of the puzzle that's missing for that "polished sound". Surprisingly 16bit actually gels a mix together and removes some of the airiness and dynamic range that 24bit and above have. 16bit also creates a sense of tightness to the track some people might be used to. Believe it or not, most professional masters are bandwith limited. So using bitjuggler before your codec plugin finishes the puzzle. As the streaming service will actually be in encoding a 44/16 master. This solution allows you to monitor that exact chain real time. I hope this helps.
Crazy , I wanted to see this on s1, I tried on some projects tho , appricieate it
I switched form Bitwig to S1 and now this! I use Bitwig more now as a sound design tool. S1 is light I mean freaking LIGHTS years ahead in DAW functionality.
Super informative vid. Thank you! Feel like I heard a slight difference between the kick-snare bus clipper on/off but not enough to be noticeable in a full mix. Also felt like the Spotify codec sounded better than the bypassed signal(?). Question: do you always put a clipper on the master bus before your compressor or is it a case-by-case basis?
It's a good question! Yes, for the engineers who typically work in louder genres and need to keep tight control over the crest factor by the time the signal hits the mastering limiter, it's very common to see them put a clipper right in front of the mastering limiter and use it to shave off _some_ of the thin transient peaks that are sitting above the main RMS of the signal. For example, if you look at any recent videos by Luca Pretolesi, you'll see that he typically puts Standard Clip right in front of his final limiter. That said, "loudness" in general is very much a case-by-case basis. You can't just take any mix of any arrangement of any sounds and toss it through a clipper into a limiter at the end and expect a nice-sounding LOUD result. Every song has a natural point where making it louder also makes it sound better. But eventually you run into a point where making it louder starts making it sound worse. If you need to be _very_ loud to compete in some _very_ loud genre you have to build your song from the ground up to BE that loud and still sound good. And clippers are part of that process in the louder genres.
Awesome as always. Maybe I missed something, but why Pro-L2 instead of Newfangled Elevate like in your previous video? Thanks a lot for your videos!
Pro-L2 is often a better choice for videos like this because it so clearly shows what's happening to the waveform.
*there is something you don't talk about that's important to note* in regards to clipping individual tracks. If the sound is already sculpted and preserved in a rendered audio track with effects already done then most clipping will be transparent. HOWEVER if you clip a track BEFORE it is finished with your effects chain *IT WILL NOT BE TRANSPARENT IN THE LEAST* because the peaks create your color going through effects and that 'effects sound' is low enough to NOT get messed with by a clipper, but if you clip it first then you basically remove your peak transients from your effects chain and consequently from your sound. Just thought I would point that one out for you guys.
Did you get tht you clipper has to be the last at the end of the chain
Very intriguing strategy that might be just what I was looking for. One question: is there an actual use for an additional kick bus if there is only one kick sample in the project, or is this just your go2 template? The snare bus makes perfect sense as there are two snare samples hitting simultaneously, but would I gain anything from clipping my kick (or any other element) twice (in the original channel as well as a bus) in a row if there is only one instance of that instrument hitting at any given time? Thank you very much for a potential answer as well as all these awesome insights!
Great videos. What clipper do you recommend? Kclip, Saturate?
QUESTION: How do you master your tracks since you have so little room? How do you eq it and use some multiband to make it "dance" little more?
Hi, Baphometrix! Thanks for another awesome video! =)
There's something I've been wondering for a while... how do you set your relative balance between percussive and tonal sounds? Do you simply get each sound to its maximum clipped level and consider it done?
No, there's nothing simple and by-the-numbers like that when it comes to your basic mix "leveling" (the relative balance between tracks). What some might call "the static mix". There are several approaches to leveling your mix, but the one I favor is to have an "anchor" sound that is part of a basic "framework" against which you balance everything else. For example, in most dance music genre, the three most important (and prominent) sounds are the kick, the snare, and the sub. These three together are the "framework". And in this framework, the kick is probably the main "anchor", although in some genres you might decide that the snare on the backbeat is actually the most important anchor sound.
So in most dance genres, the kick and the snare have to literally be the loudest sounds in the mix. Not in peak, but in RMS. Literally, the biggest, loudest, most prominent sounds. So being the "anchor", I'll make the kick be as loud as possible while still sounding clean and punchy or knocky or boomy as the song requires. And I'll gain stage that loudest-possible (but clean) kick is peaking right at 0 dBFS. Then I'll never touch that kick again, nor its fader. It's locked in as the "anchor" for the "framework". Then I'll balance the snare against that kick. And then I'll balance the sub against that kick. Once those three "framework" sounds are balanced like that, I'll level every other sound (by using each other sound's fader) into that framework.
So with that approach, how loud should any one sound be balanced relative to that framework? (Such as the two bass loops in this video?) Well, that's where we get into subjective decision-making and creative choice. Do you want the kick and snare pulse outlining the downbeats and backbeats to dominate the mix? If your song is more chill and/or funky, you might make that choice. Or do you want the aggressive mid basses or synth lead melodies to dominate, and the track to be more about your aggressive sound design? Then you might balance those sounds high enough relative to the framework that the kick and snare are still very present and easy to "hear" and "feel", but they're not the obviously loudest, most dominant sounds during a loud drop.
In this video, I used some midtempo bass loops and midtempo drum sounds, so I balanced the bass loops more aggressively, like any good midtempo bass song, which typically features the sound design of the basses so they need to be fairly prominent.
The real question is--given the above style of mix leveling--how much should you clip all those other non-framework sounds? The answer is simple: if you've made your framework a certain loudness level, then all the other sounds you're going to use need to also be loud enough to fit into that already-loud framework. You'll notice I showed what the drums alone measured early in the video. They were hitting roughly -10 LUFS integrated all by themselves. I know from experience that if you're using CTZ style gainstaging and clipping, then you can easily hit a total loudness that is roughly +2 to +3 LU louder than whatever your kick, snare, and sub "framework" is hitting. That's how I knew this simple demo would be hitting somewhere between -7 to -8 LUFS integrated once I brought just one of those dense bass loops into balance with the framework sounds. Looking at it another way, if you bring in a new sound and its too quiet and you'd have to push the fader up past Unity to make it loud enough to "fit" into the framework, then you obviously need to reduce the dynamic range of that sound somehow, so that you can gain it up louder to fit into the framework. That's the essence of "clip-to-zero".
@@Baphometrix Awesome! Thanks for the in-depth explanation! I love the content of your UA-cam channel. Very high quality stuff! =)
I've watched alot of your videos. And this definitely got my mixes louder. But user beware, you can get ridiculously loud mixes, that's not even mixed that well. I took a track Im working on and decided to drive it to hell, I hit -4 lufs in the loudest drop. Which is, as stated in the videos TOO loud and it has tons of downsides. I just wanted to try how far I could push it...
Question, as this will probably change my whole work flow. I usually set all my volume levels early on with a gain plugin (so the fader is set to unity) but not to zero .... And then from there I'll add my necessary eq changes and processing whilst gain staging. As this gaining the dbfs to zero and clipping at zero whilst making the kick the anchor should be added at the end of the chain... Would it be advisable to bother sorting my volumes out first before processing as I'm gonna end up pushing them to zero anyway? Unless I gain to zero and clip then bring the other sounds back down to what I'd originally levelled them at?
As I said this is possibly gonna change my whole work flow and I wanna implement this as I tested this out and can definitely hear the benefits of what this does (made it sound loud without a squashed distortion) but it was a task relevelling everything.
What does using clippers in default settings do? Is it creating more headroom by clipping off the transients? Also if u want loudness, shouldnt u push the input gain a bit?
Fab content , kudos. Which hard clipper would you most recommend for this process , the k3 or new fangled sAturate (which I’ve seen you use in other videos
Check my newest video ua-cam.com/video/5UT42-ur080/v-deo.html , and you'll see that I still recommend and use KClip, but I also use NF Saturate, and TrackLimit too. You can also read the written guide linked in the description and I explain my strategy for choosing among those three.
@@Baphometrix will do thanks ! Keep up the good work
Thanks so much for your incredible videos on CTZ. I've learned so much! I have one small question:
In the actual CTZ tutorials, you use dpMeter4 not only to measure the loudness but to reset the gain to 0 before setting up the clipper on a track or bus. However, in your written guide, you've explained how KClip replaces this process but I don't understand how that works. I know KClip can link the input and output to match the levels to better hear any distortion but how do you adjust the gain before the clipper without dpMeter? In other words, is dpMeter4 part of the CTZ pair mentioned in your guide or do you always use that regardless of whether you are using KClip?
Thanks so much again!
KClip _replaces_ my earlier CTZ Pair approach. By default, KClip's input and output are linked. But notice in the video that I _unlink_ them and leave the output at 0 while I simply drive the input up. So now image a signal that is peaking at -6 dBFS. If I push KClip's input up by +5.9 dB, all I'm doing is making the signal louder, like a gain knob. No clipping is happening yet, because those peaks are still under 0 dBFS. But If I push KClip's input to +6.5 dB, now those original peaks have been pushed to 0.5 dB above 0 dBFS. So that 0.5 dB is getting clipped off like a lazer beam.
@@Baphometrix thanks for the reply!
@@Baphometrix I'm also curious how it translates to the summed bus tracks though.
In the original method, you check to see if the true peak on the drum bus for example is now above 0, and you lower it by that amount effectively getting back headroom for additional processing before a final clipping stage on that bus. How are you doing that now, by ear?
@@J77199 Not quite. I just put clippers (or limiters) on every bus, with their threshold set to 0 dBFS. Any summing that tries to push past 0 will just automatically get clipped back to zero. If you look at my most recent 3 or 4 videos, you'll see a lot more demonstration and talking about how I approach my clipping cascade. I also try to detail all this in the written CTZ guide.
Gee Baphy, I've been watching your clipper videos now for the second night in a row and I feel I've learned more than in the past two years!;-)) What I realized this time, you weren't using dpMeter4 anymore to level out your tracks before clipping, so you now seem to entirely rely on the auto gain function of the clippers, which would obviously also save time, or did I miss something?
And then I was wondering if there is any other way of phase aligning kick & sub other than by time shifting, since I cant find any plugins out there, other than pitch shifters (no real time shifters) and that Ableton track delay solution is a useless option, if your running a monster project that will only run smooth with delay compensation turned on...
and btw, as a passionate Ableton user, I was indeed getting a bit jealous watching your videos.:_) Like I was always wondering why it takes Ableton so fck. long to load or even delete it's own plugins, or why cpu usage only seems to go down effectivley, if you actually delete plugins out of the project, which is soooo annoying.;-)
Nope, you got it right. Using a single instance of KClip the way I show here is much faster/easier than using the "CTZ Pair" (dpMeter4 to first bring the peaks to 0 dBFS, and then using a clipper to gain the peaks above 0 and therefore clip everything that passes 0).
Hi, thank you for your videos! Just wondering if you have any advice. House music is the genre I'm making. When I look at all my reference tracks in Voxengo SPAN. Their kick drum is hitting around 36 in SPAN and in the main drop they are 6Lufs. I'm fine getting to 7LUFS and my kick stays at 36 in SPAN but if I go any higher to 6LUFS to be a similar loudness to a majority of the tracks I'm listening too my kick goes to 33 on SPAN my sub bass also goes above 30(most tracks are sitting under 30 on Span) and if I pull them down I'm back to where I started at 7LUFS.
Also raising most kicks level so the peak is to 0dB in pro-L will usually also be around 36 in SPAN. I set my kick as the highest peak before mixing and clip before limiter to the kicks peak as well so nothing is over where the kick peak is.
Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you.
The short answer is that the peak measurement of a specific frequency range (the sub region or the kick region) have _nothing_ at all to do with _LUFS_. So your question/confusion is based on trying to compare apples to oranges. All a spectrum analyzer tells you is "what is the overall shape of my spectral balance?" That's it. Nothing more. Do you have a good spectral balance in your mix? How much energy is in your sub region version your kick region versus your snare body region versus your low mids, mids, and highs?
I'm not a fan of the videos where they teach you to set your kick or your sub at a specific level in a specific spectrum analyzer. For starters, every spectrum analyzer is different. -36 in SPAN might be -12 in a different spectrum analyzer. And they rarely explain well WHY they are teaching you that technique. The entire point of a technique like that is to give you some simple rules of thumb for achieving a "good" spectral balance. This fairly recent (at the time I made this reply) video by Wytse of "Snake Oil" is one of the better explanations of WHY you might want to use a specific peak level in a spectrum analyzer to help you "see" what a good spectral balance should look like. (And please NOTE that although I use the same FLUX Pure Analyzer as Wytse, I don't balance my spectrum to the same _shape_ as Wytse--I use different rules of thumb for what a good "shape" should look like.)
@@Baphometrix , thanks for the reply. I guess these are really my own theories I've been making up. I can only go by what I'm seeing if I turn sub or kick down my LUFS go down. I definitely think I have got a good balance from looking and listening and using multiple reference tracks to compare to in the same genre, key, style that I'm going for. Sometimes I'm also using track recreations. Yes analyzers are different but I can only go by what I am consistently seeing in this analyzer when comparing it to a lot of other tracks that I'm using as references. So I'm really just basing this on what I'm hearing and what I've been consistently seeing in this analyzer, and also checking LUFS in other meters. Luca Pretolesi was the only mix/master engineer I had seen give tutorials using clipper before limiter, your videos took it to the next level! I will keep at it. Thanks.
Thank you again for this. i just want you to know that there is new clipper on the market form Free clip programmers. V-Clip by Vienn Audio. Check it out. IMO better than Standard Clip.
so if I hang a clipper on all tracks, then on all tracks I will run into 0. how then can I give the trackout for sale if plugins are removed only from the master bus when creating a trackout ??
question, does this replace the peak max method with DPMeter to 0 from previous videos?
Well... yes? Perhaps it's more accurate to say that this _does the same thing with just one plugin_ as using that earlier CTZ pair with DPMeter.
Is there some benefits in using separate clipping plugin vs clipping with compressor and not just using the actual compression?
Compressors are not clippers. They do not work even remotely the same, and they do completely different things to the signal. I explain this in many of my earlier videos about using clippers, or about loudness.
For your KClip settings, do you just have some preset where the in and out are already set? Because you have clipping even though you haven't moved the In or Out knobs at all. Am I missing something or does KClip automatically just start clipping when you put it on a track and leave the settings on default?
The way I'm using it in the video, KClip will simply clip any peak that pushes higher than 0 dBFS. Hence the "clip to zero" name for this method.
I had to buy ozscilloscope use a Mac and I’m trying to find Baphometrix tutorial info on using that plugin. Which video had that info? I’ve watched so many hours of his CTZ series but still haven’t found it. Help?
What do you do with the hats/cymbals in order to stand out? Do you carve out some basses' high-end or do you clip them after layering them on top of the already clipped bass and sub signal?
hats/cymbals live in the high end above 7 Khz. This is why on most of my midrange lead and bass sounds I have an LPF sitting near 7 Khz. This makes room for the cymbals/hats to how that region of the spectrum.
@@Baphometrix Thanks for the promptly response and for uploading high-quality content for free.
You mentioned that your hearing is bad and I'm curious, how do you approach EQ'ing?
Well, to be fair, pretty much anything above 8 Khz is just different colors of "hiss". But top end hearing aid models these days are pretty good at reinforcing the areas where you have a lot of attenuation. Another trick I do is to isolate useful bands above 8 Khz and carefully raise the volume to what would be painfully high levels for a 14 year old with perfect hearing ^.^. (Just temporarily when I need to check for what's happening up in those ranges.)
❤️
Hey there, after comparing limiters and clippers, I noticed that clippers remove effects more than limiters do. I noticed reverb missing the most with clippers vs limiters. Do you recommend clipping before any effects are added? I use nexus and pigments which have effects turned on for almost all sounds.
You can use clippers for coloring your sound (saturation/distortion). You can also use clippers to transparently control the dynamic range of a sound (it's crest factor).That second use case is what this video deals with. In both cases, though, there is nothing inherent about clippers that would "remove effects". They simply control peaks.
@@Baphometrix The only effect that went missing was reverb that I noticed. I did an A/B a limiter and Clipper and the Clipper had little to no trail of reverb. Do you apply effects after the clipping?
@@davidpedroso2160 In the sense of clipping for *loudness* per the CTZ strategy, no. The clipper is always the last bit of actual signal processing on any specific track or bus. All other processing happens in front of the clipping stage at the end.
I'm interested in this -1dBTP rule. When I master my own songs I've used a 128kbps mp3 codec preview and made the resulting audio peak at -0.1 to 0dBTP (no idea if this is good practice or not). Are there any resources you recommend that I could read up on about this topic? Thanks for the vids man, I love the way you really take your time explaining each little bit.
Obviously I turn the codec preview off after (although I have left it on by accident once lmao)
@@jayeff8096 Yeah that's easy to do. Studio One makes it easy to avoid goofs like that because it has a separate "Listen Bus" where nothing happens to the master bus (Main) that you export from. In other DAWs you can often cobble up a listen bus of some sort with some creative routing and use of FX channels.
As for your question about the -1 dBTP "rule", here's just one place. Again there is theoretical soundness to this.... You can often _measure_ ISP clipping in a transcoded file if you don't do this. The question is whether you or anyone can actually HEAR the ISP clipping. ;-) artists.spotify.com/faq/mastering-and-loudness
@@Baphometrix Awesome, thanks man :)
@@jayeff8096 at some places it’s said that Baphy is she.
so now seeing this and viewing the pt 1 and 2 CTZ you were doing tonal things first, is it a CTZ then eq after if needed?
If you're going to clip a signal on a track, you typically do the clipping _last_. Why? Because all the processing you might do will change the RMS and the peaks of the signal. Not much point in clipping a dry signal only to then completely add new/different peaks, different output gain, etc.
@@Baphometrix thanks this helps a ton I'm in pro tools and trying this method into compression, I feel like I got one track right with lufs and such but the few after is uggggh!
- there's always is a slight difference with the clipper (listening with razorsharp AKG701/703) but i actually find KClip most of the times even makes the sounds poke out more, adds some nice kind of dirt to transients, very nice!!
- the low end often lost some oomph, but it's very veery subtle
- also, stop betting on people not hearing any difference, you might end up poor =D
- when you turned on the codec, i was surprised how different it sounds, sorry :S but of course that's just when you A/B, if i would JUST hear the codec, i wouldn't ever notice for sure. i will still keep my masters at -1dB, people will convert files to mp3 by themselves n stuff, so this avoids turning everything to s***
- secretely, you are using spotify codec as a clipper, aren't ya? ;)
- i did some blind test with ADPTR and the Spotify Codec, pushing the master just 0.2/0.3 dB above peak, i noticed 5/5 times, if it was with or without codec. the major difference is that the codec kills the definition of the sound and the depth, and i really noticed it instantly! However! i tried the same thing with the apple Codec, and i was wrong 50% of the times! Then i A/B the spotify codec at -0.1dB Peak, it was much harder finding the difference at first. Before, i listened to the Imaging of the voice, now i had to pay attention to the overall Imaging, but once i found the difference, i heard the spotify codec every time easily. the voice stayed pretty much the same, but the track somehow lost excitement on the sides. with true peak at -1.5 it's still a little harder to spot the difference, but it's there, and you feel it more than you hear it. It's a certain openness that gets lost in the codec. but nobody will ever care =D
50 bucks says you can't do it in a blind test reliably with no tools to analyze waveforms etc. 😉
@@J77199 i didn't use tools, i closed my eyes and clicked a million times until i didn't know if it's bypassed or not, then i listen for the differences. i do that in mixing often as well, very helpful and incredible ear training. i said people shouldn't bet on these things, but if you still wanna lose 50 bucks, dm me please ;)
Thanks for everything you done so far... Why clipper? I think, i can have better results with ozone limiter with transient emphasis on... And after that, sonnox inflator. Give it a try...
And thanks for psyscope. Downloaded the free version and now its my favorite...
If you watch any of my other videos about clippers, loudness, and the CTZ method, you'll see why. In short, Inflator or a brickwall limiter is overkill for most situations and very resource-heavy. You cannot throw an instance of Ozone Maximizer on every single track and bus of a project. Same for Inflator.
@@Baphometrix i watched those videos, but i forgot things...
I should freeze every track when I'm produce and mixing, my pc can't handle... So heaviness of ozone not matter.
But I'm sure you are right about overkilling...
Again thanks, you changed the way of my mix.😊
Hi, is all this clipping part of the gainstaging? I'm struggling to understand how you can clip everything and yet maintain differences in volume.
Yes, it's all about gainstaging around a high RMS/LUFS value as you work. I have an entire playlist explaining the strategy: ua-cam.com/play/PLxik-POfUXY6i_fP0f4qXNwdMxh3PXxJx.html
Ooo - the dog
So clip before compressor?.
Kclip vs NF Saturate?
What oscilloscope do you use in the top right? Seems like every one I find doesn't provide anywhere near the detail I see in the one you use.
Psyscope Pro by FX23. It's for Windows only. If you need a Mac one that can do the same thing, try Ozsillos Mega Scope by Schulz Audio.
@@Baphometrix just picked it up 🤘😎🔥🙏 Thank you!
Hi Baphometrix! I've been working on applying CTZ in my mixes, and although it certainly ups the loudness, I've noticed it's easy to make things sound a little too sharp/harsh, at least for the music I make. Do you have any tips for preserving softness/delicacy in sounds while still upping the loudness?
Well, that's where the rubber meets the road and you have to choose certain sounds and timbres and arrangement/sequencing techniques (up in the arranger timeline) and also mixing techniques like sidechain ducking, EQ de-masking, and careful placement of sounds in the stereo field. IOTW, there's a lot of things that need to happen *before* any type of gain-staging and clipping/compressing/limiting decisions. The best advice I can give is:
A) Pick/make sounds that can BE loud without falling apart. Notice how my drums alone were hitting -9.9 LUFS integrated? And sounded punchy and great? Even with the two clipper stages on the snares and a third clipper stage on the summed Kick and Snares? That's not by accident. That's by designing drum sounds (or picking samples) that can actually BE that loud without sounding soft and rubbery. And notice how much clipping I was doing to those bass loops? Without any noticeable loss in quality? Again, it's because those basses were designed to BE that loud. Not every sound can survive a progressive squash into a smaller dynamic range. Every sound has its own "breaking point" for dynamic range (peak to RMS aka "crest factor").
B) As much as possible, find ways to make more sounds sit side-by-side instead of being layered on top of each other. At the macro level, this is your arrangement of clips and samples and paying attention to making all those elements overlap or layer as little as possible. At the micro level, this is making use of sidechaining to make one sound (mostly/completely) disappear when another sound hits. This is EQ de-masking, where two sounds happening at the same time (layered) each occupy a different general area of the spectrum. This is stereo width and panning decisions, spreading sounds out in (panorama) space so that your brain can distinguish each one separately.
@@Baphometrix Awesome, thanks for detailed reply! much appreciated from a big fan of your videos.
What is we use a limited with some saturation instead of clipper???
Because we'll be able to control the amount of saturation
Also I tried upward compression and then used a clipper, could make even more louder
Any comments sir?
I'm missing something. I follow these steps exactly, and once my kick and snare play together, my stereo buss is peaking at +8.5... how are these high levels of input being kept below 0 there.. adding a kclip squashed it to death and beyond. Thanks to anyone that can help in advance.
Well, adding a clipper is how you keep the peaks below 0. But if the sound is falling apart when you do that, then you have to re-think the kick and snare. It's a lot easier to make loud kicks and loud snares that won't sound over squashed when you get them loud enough to anchor down a loud mix. But it can be a real art--and challenge--to make or find a kick and snare that can be summed together and still not fall apart when they hit that same clip ceiling at 0. It can be done. If you look for my latest two "Loudness is in the Mix, not the Master!" videos, you'll see a snare and kick that can work together like this. When they hit together, they're hitting about +6 before the clipper whacks the peak down. But it sounds fine.
@@Baphometrix First of all, thank you for taking the time out to make these videos teaching us what we'd never find out on our own. Secondly, thank you for the replies and continued to help when we get lost or confused. I actually was missing something (basic) I'm sure... I didn't know to send 100% of the drums to the drum buss. I had them playing twice together making me peak so high. Thanks again.
Hey, I've been watching your videos for a while now. You literally changed my approach to mixing and mastering. I have a question I hope somebody could have an answer to. In this particular video you use clipper on the kick and the snare separately. In case of clipping the kick, you had zero gain reduction, and with the snare you took off everything above zero. But what should I do if I mix on low levels and even my drum bus is always below zero but I want to get rid of the volume change due to kick-snare combined situation? Should I set output on my clipper matching it to the volume of the snare? Or should I raise the clipper's input? Thank you in advance.
One of the nice thing about having every clipper set to clip at 0 dBFS is that you have consistency and predictability across your entire project. If you have a legit need to automate drastic volume changes for this or that sound, all that should be done pre-clipper. If you push the sound louder and it needs to clip more, so be it. But you live with the consequences.
Clipping to zero forces you to constantly be aware of the dynamic range of every sound in the project. And it forces you to clip at busses where lots of sounds are summing together. When you hear a bus getting too "dirty" because too much clipping is happening there, that's a clue that you have flaws in your arrangement, mixing decision, and/or sound design. That might seem esoteric now, but I'll be explaining and elaborating on that concept real soon in the 2nd video in my new "Mixing Loud with CTZ" series.
Bottom line, don't automate your clippers. Automate your signals pre-clipper. Let your clippers be the "canary in the coalmine that tells you when you're approaching something wrong. Doing steady beat kicks with a snare layered in on every backbeat is **tricky**, and your clipper cascade can tell you when you haven't got it right yet. If your layering sounds good through the entire clipper cascade, then you know you nailed it. Otherwise, try different ways to combine that kick and snare without the combined signal getting too mushy or dirty because of the clipping.
You got some concepts wrong. Yes clipping and saturation are useful and can add character. However when the problem is in the amp envelope of the sound you are using you need compression too. For instance, if you have a really plucky piano there is no way to bring it out and make it louder without using compression. Clipping introduces some uneven harmonics that sound harsh to the human ear on acoustic instruments and only affects the part or the waveform that is being clipped. Whereas if you want to shape the overall envelope of say a piano or clean instrument you need compression as well. Thats why the only way to achieve extremely tight and loud but clean mixes when you have many sounds is really understanding compression (and, as you also point out, use clipping and saturation when needed)
You're absolutely right, in a way. All your examples revolve around organic instrument recordings, and recording-based production. Maybe you haven't noticed that my video series in general revolves around electronic dance music and pop music genres? Which utilize heavy sound design and/or pre-processed samples and loops, etc. Yes, absolutely, part of the processing of a recorded instrument is the compression necessary to tame its dynamic range while bringing out the character you want from that track. That's the nature of analog signals and recorded instruments.
But when you're taking any synth and hammering it into the shape you want? There's usually so much amp envelope control and saturation/distortion in the synth's internal processing, and then there's all the usual post-processing, which typically includes EQ on resonant frequencies, band-shaping, probably some aggressive multiband compression (think OTT), and probably even more saturation/distortion.
And when you're using samples? Loops? Those have usually all been processed to death and are already sounding close to the mark with a tight dynamic range.
Point being, when you're building up arrangements from these highly processed types of tracks (even drum sounds are incredibly processed), you don't usually need to do the type of compression you're talking about. Because as you know, the type of compression you're talking about usually makes for drastic, not-at-all-transparent changes in the _feel_ and the _sound_ of a thing. When your goal is to simply control dynamic range _as transparently as possible_ while tracks are summing together into busses, and those busses are summing into higher level busses, that's when you need (hard) clipping. Not compression.
Watched the whole series and I enjoyed it, and I learned some good things on the way for sure.
But now after putting this into practice on a few tracks I must say that I am not a fan of this method.
First 😁