The Clip-To-Zero Production Strategy, Part 2 (Tips & Tricks)
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- Опубліковано 7 тра 2020
- (Part One of this topic is here: • The Clip-To-Zero Produ... )
(Finding this video too dense and long? Read the 17-page written guide instead! Find it here at docs.google.com/document/d/1O...)
Part Two of my "Clip-to-Zero" production strategy for achieving ANY desired loudness target, quickly, predictably, and with no nasty surprises during the mastering stage. In this video, I show you a few additional tips and answer a few questions that some producers had about the technique.
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
I'm addicted bro, can't stop watching and listening, your're a natural born tutor!💞
Who is this guy?! This is the ADVANCED stuff I needed. Everybody always spoon-feeding the newbies. Give us folks who are least done "some" work something. This guy!!!!
Just wanted to say a big thank you for your time and energy in explaining this method, your videos have helped me out so much in making my productions sound better and the way you explain things is very good. I can’t thank you enough.
I don't know how i stumbled upon your videos, but im glad i did. I research a bunch of guys and you are in the dark arts. using what you have taught it seems everything i do is instantly loud and easy on the cpu. with this approach it seems compressors are useless. before ctz i was using compressors on everything, now i basically traded the compressors for the clippers. i've heard of using clippers before but didn't really quite grasp it, until i watched your video. Now, i get it. and of course limiters. i especially like how deep you go into explaining things.
It's for people like you that I do this. Glad some lightbulbs went off for you! Now adapt this into your own style and workflow! Every one mixes a little differently!
You’re a legend in the making. Thanks for all of this incredible information and attention to detail
just finished watching both parts. This is gold. Thanks!!
Answers my question from the last vid perfectly, thank you Baphometrix!
So grateful for your clarification!
After watching this video and the one prior for this method, you have become one of my most favorite channels on mixing and mastering. This helps so much, subscribed and clicked that bell icon!
Thank you for your EPIC work.
Thank you for this series. Until now, making my track lout at the end hat always change the sound. The idea of mixing hot is really good!!
Great videos! this has made me see signal processing in a whole new light. I record rock music but have already been able to apply this advice for mixing drums. Crazy how flat and dull heavy bus compression sounds in comparison to this method
amazing information thanks again!
this is so nice, the density you added gives the beat more power and impact WHILE making it louder, amazing approach! i will use a lot of clippers in the future, though not worrying too much about target loudness, because just knowing that i'm shaving peaks off in every stage of summing is enough for me to know, that i'm going to achieve a good amount of loudness in the end. I was looking for ways to get more loudness while making things also sound better. clippers are a very nice tool for that, as is every other kind of saturation and limiters. clippers are very transparent though, especially on transients, often better sounding than limiters, which for me sound like they are folding the sound into itself, clippers just make sounds more aggressive.
i will also try mixing into clippers, see how this works.
thanks for your videos, this was a huge inspiration and finally a new rabbit hole i can fall into =D
BOOM!!! fantastic this is is extremely detailed and valuable knowledge ...greatly appreciate your time.. altruistic folk like yourself should rule the world..... subbed and keen to hear anything else you have to say about production... you have upped my game bro.. Respect
Awesome video. I don't have the A/B tester, so I found a different method:
instead of boosting in the first step, drop the the clipper ceiling; this will preserve the general loudness. Once you know how much you can pull off, put the ceiling back at the top and use raise it by the same amount of db.
very helpful tutorials man but this Daw is pain in the ass😂
Amazing work. Like always. Thank you for that. I took me almost two years to figure it out how to set up everything and I was feeling that mixing to limters was way to go. I was suprised too many times that by the time I got to mastering everything sounded different. Then I had to remix everything 10 times and alwasy ended up somwhere else. Now I know exactly how to set it up and how to use it. Thank you! Best electronic music tutorial on the web!
PS> You are using tbProAudio plugins for gain staging. Have you heard about Hornet Plugins and Normalizer, VU meter, CLMS, Coherence meter? They do a lot of cool things with gain staging, etc. Please check them out, very cheap and very usefull (and small) tools.
This really changed my mixing game. Did it somehow the same way in the past but not in such a structured way. Now it feels much more natural. And if You have done two to five fixes it is really quick. Well explained, Baphometrix!
01:22:10 This video turned into a mastering master class gradually and this part is so important.
If you are a sound/music editor for media and are dealing with licensed music, the label may send you a -0 dB peak, >0 True Peak master. If you need to convert to mp3 or ogg, make sure to turn down (normalize) to -1 or 0 True Peak (which may be up to -3 dB sample peak) before converting, as the data compression algorithm will definitely create extra dB on your peaks and create ugly distortion. The other option is to use a true peak limiter before data compression which Bapho mentions around 01:30:02. A basic example is when compressing music for a video game (ogg vorbis) you may want to take a look at the true peak before adding it to the game.
iZotope's RX is handy for batching these tasks.
Hey Baphy, I see and hear how your method works, but I have two questions:
1. Why use clippers at all? Why not just use Tools and let the system clip the tracks by manually raising the loudness, until it starts sounding bad? You could then skip the step of finding the amplification to normalize the track, because in the end you do it by ear anyway.
2. Why use a ducking tool, where you need to guess the envelope of the sound that steers the ducking? Wouldn't a side-chained Tool, where the Tool's amplification follows the envelope of the side chain, be much more precise? (This would probably be a very bitwig-specific solution.) Or would the envelope-based modulation have too much latency?
Thank you very much for your dedication and your time. If I get to do well in music, I thank you with an "Argentine asado" haha greetings
""GOD MODE""
Thanks for the great Video. One question that remains for me is the Effect of CTZ on Plugins (especially Analog Emulation). Most of them only run smoothly inside a certain Volume Range. Any suggestions? Also do you still need a Fabfilter-MB on the Mastering Chain if you use the Unisum?
Great strategy, I do something similar in my productions. I don't trust ISP/TP Limiting anymore tho! Sometimes it compensates transients too much and pushes them back into the negative, even with clipping going on before the limiter.
good to know what are you using
Great to hear! Like I said in this video, I *know* some other producers/engineers do this, whether they consciously understand why they do it this way or not. But it's one of those things I wish I could go back in time and teach myself from two years ago, lol. Or would have stumbled across someone teaching this on UA-cam. It makes everything related to gain-staging and loudness so simple and predictable. As for transients and True Peak limiting... yeah, in general I ignore TP or go for only 0.0 or -0.3 TP when making loud bangers that have to compete. But when I'm making quieter stuff directly for the streaming platforms, I find that working at -1 TP is alright and doesn't affect the final mastering push too adversely.
@@Baphometrix Seems plausible! Your content is very unique btw. You go way deeper than most people. For me it all started by looking at the waveforms. All the information is in there... one can gain a lot of knowledge simply by analyzing waveforms of well mixed/mastered songs, well at least in the electronic genres, where the "sound-aesthetic" quality matters more. E.g. I started to see that often, good sounding transients are very clean looking - almost just a sine-wave and how important it is that the ducking of other elements takes place before the transient.
There is a very, very nice free oscilloscope (and more!) it's called "Signalizer" by Janus Thorborg. If you haven't heard of it before - check it out I think you would love it! It's very usefull on the kick or snare BUS, you can zoom in all the way to the samples.
@@SiLiDNB Signalizer is great. I have it and use it when I want to see different frequencies represented in the waveform (like where the transient in a kick ends).
Hi very interesting technique. Do you do any kind of mix bus processing or do you just slap a limiter on at the end?
I've been watching mixing and mastering tutorial for 5 years ...this video definetly is the most helpful and valuable one i've ever watch...❤❤
I have a qustion ...
For better result ..Should i use the same clipping pluggin for all channels ? And do you think if i make oversampling x8 for all clippers is better ? And what is the best mastering saturation and compression and limiter in your opinion ?
And i don't know how to thank you for these information this change my life especially i make drill and trap the most ❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥❤️🔥
when exactly do you add the Buss/Mastering Compressor? ( 1:30:01 ) are you doing that before or after you reset your TBProAudio Ref. Level?
is it
A- Take off Dirty Limiter → Mastering Compressor → TbProAudio → Final Limiter
or
B- Take off Dirty Limiter → TbProAudio → Mastering Compressor → Final Limiter
thank you!
Very interesting, thank you! Looking forward to the new CTZ videos you're working on!
Silly question, There's advice all over the internet about leaving about 6dB "headroom" for mastering engineers to work with, but what does it really mean when you're commiting to the CTZ mixing strategy?
That advice is ancient. Mastering engineers only care that you don't sent them a mix that is clipped over 0 dBFS. And even then, if it's a 32-bit float pre-master, they can simply pull the gain down and like magic, no clips! Read up on how nothing is actually clipped in a 32-bit float file (or track bounce).
Hi. Your tutorials changed the way I mix. Although, the music I mixed is very different the music you used in your tutorials (my mixes goes to Alternative rock/pop, World music), the method and philosophy allowed to get the mixes I always searched for. I would like to share a small Soundcloud list where you can hear my mixes. If you have some time to hear what I did following your mixing approach, please let me know and I’ll share the link to the list. Best regards from Rosario, Argentina.
Thanks for asking. Sure, go ahead! I'm glad to hear you got some good ideas/inspiration from my stuff, and I'm curious to hear how it translates to the type of music you're doing.
Good
Thank you for all the CTZ PDF guide, tutorials & series, Baphy.
Question: If I were to set all the tracks around -10 db peak, and push the clipper down on each track to shave some of the unnecessary transients to reduce the crest factor, then mix, and finally push the limiter to 0 DBFS. Would I still be able to achieve loudness of 8~9 LUFS?
You'd have to set EVERY clipper manually to a threshold of -10 dB. EVERY clipper, even on the busses. That's extra steps, and it doesn't gain you any advantages. It would be no different than simply clipping to 0 dBFS and saving yourself the hassle. It would also potentially make it more difficult to understand your levels in various metering tools. And it would make it potentially harder to compare your own mix with your reference tracks, all of which are themselves "clipped to 0".
So, to use this "loudness thru clippers all over" technique we'll limit the sounds and samples options a lot, as far as I could see. Because, of course, most sounds fall apart before a, for example, +6dB gain against the clipper ceiling, right?
Ok.
Thank you for another cool vídeo!
Here to say THANK YOU for this tutorial it’s a godsend and a huge help. I have a question
If this song had vocals with sends like reverb, delay, etc etc. would we also want those sends to peak at zero and then use the fader after to drop to taste?
Aux return tracks (your FX returns) aren't usually loud enough in the mix to need to "make loud" via clipping. So no, I wouldn't bother on your aux returns.
What's chain in master bus? Can you explain it again...Thanks
When separating completely the arrangement, mixing and mastering in 3 different projects (and you suggest to apply CTZ from the very beginning of a new project on) i guess that the shown approach is done in all those 3 projects, right?
Hi Bapho,
Should we keep the SUB bus / track all the way out of PRE-MASTER bus to avoid any unintended clipping on SUB? Like VOCALS & INSTRUMENTS into PRE-MASTER, and then PRE-MASTER + SUB going into MASTER?
Same question in my mind
I have one question requards to the gain on the first part of each channel then your other plugins follow from a lot of UA-cam tutorials I use Uad plugins I thought they worked worse with the signal so hot ? And a lot of people on UA-cam saying to send the signal negative 12 prior to hitting the plug-in or does that only apply to when you bus the sounds
Is there a way to be able to guess beforehand if a certain sample will be likely to survive a clipping push without even trying it out? Just by auditioning or even looking at the waveform? (Only just started the video, perhaps you explain it later but I wanted to ask anyway) ✌🏻
I notice you do not use Bitwig's Effect Tracks by the looks of it. I guess for CTZ method, effects tracks make it more messy to deal with?
Awesome video, thanks! Quick question: would using a clipper with gain compensation such as KClip bypass the need for AB-LM? At surface level, it appears to me that it would, but perhaps AB-LM is conducting more precise pre- and post-processing gain analysis than a plugin like KClip is able to. Curious if you've A/B'ed against a gain-compensated clipper. Thanks again!
Yes. If you use KClip you can avoid the use for something like AB-LM. Same deal if you later replace some of your lightweight GClip clippers with the much heavier-impact Pro-L2 limiter. I never need or want AB-LM when I'm testing my Pro-L2 settings, because the matched loudness button ("1:1") in Pro-L2 is very good. Likewise, if I'm using Eventide Saturate as a clipper, it's "Auto" button for matching loudness is also very good.
@@Baphometrix Got it, and thanks for the reply!
Great video... Definitly food for thoughts... I have a few follow up questions (maybe you answered them, but the density of input made me overhear it)
1) would you say this approach works in other genres? Let's say boom bap, or hip hop in general?
2) what i didnt really get is.... So you'll clip at many stages all around your anchor points... So kick and snare are sitting at 0
Will you do the same treatment to all sounds but level them via the faders? It's hard to figure out because this is a fairly straight forward example. So lets say there are chords, a lead etc. Would you level them to 0, clip them and THEN adjust them via faders to sit in the mix?
Thanks in advance!
The answer is to look at my playlists. I have a much more recent "Mixing Loud with CTZ" playlist that walks you through the entire process in detail.
are you saying to do all this with (ie produce with) mastering chain engaged. Basically produce with limiter/maximiser engaged on master yeah???
I wonder if ableton has a in channel oscilloscope like the one you are using ? It seems like it would be helpful having one on the channel that you dont have to open as well as the multi channel oscilloscope to see how signals are summing together ?
After clipping kick to zero can I adjust post fader volume? If I dont I cant get bass loud enough mix with kick
Hey Baph, I noticed you don't use any of Bitwig's AUX FX... I guess because you are making use of the GROUP folders as buses? Are they functionally equal? How would you treat Aux FX outside of your folder system? Gain/Clip on those channels too?
Hello and thank you for this video series. I’m recently getting into more EDM styles but I’ve recorded in more traditional pop/rock genres mostly (i.e real drums, guitars, etc). Do you think this approach can apply to a track with a live drums, guitars, and vocal performances?
Yes. And no. lol. Yes, if you understand it well and you're already experienced at tracking and mixing these organic genres of music. But! In these genres, you tend to prize "more dynamics" and "less loudness", except maybe for the metal-oriented sub genres. You tend to produce masters at a lower LUFS than for electronic dance-oriented genres and Pop and (KPop). So again, depending on genre, you already do a lot of your dynamic range control through "saturate/distort from the bottom" more than by "clipping from the top" (See my latest "Has Dan Worrall convinced me..." video for what I mean by "saturate from the bottom".
So... TL;DR - it's easier to *learn* this CTZ approach--and its benefits--by working in more electronic genres while you learn it. And yes, if I were to do a traditional "record a band and mix/master them" project, I'd still use this technique, but I'd probably shoot for -10 LUFS integrated across the loudest chorus. Which means my drum bus (and its kick and snare) would start out more dynamic than we have to squeeze them for competitively loud electronic genres, and everything else would just mix up into that quieter framework. And therefore fewer signals would need to clipped as hard, compared to typical sounds in electronic music.
Thanks for this info. What do you have your Bitwig default setting for New Track Volume set to? Does that matter at all?
0 dB for new tracks. I don't like when a DAW automatically gains everything down. And that type of "on guided rails" gain-staging from the DAW is somewhat counter to the spirit building your mix around core "framework" sounds that are pushed right up to the ceiling.
HI again baph.....once again i think i dig the process now.......most of my final mixing is done inside studio one.....and i land a lot of stems from bitwig in S1......in workflow terms i am trying to settle on a system after i have CTZ each stem......what do u reckon is a good workflow in bitwig for bouncing the clip after the CTZ is achieved???? cheers
Well, it kinda depends on what you mean by "final mixing". If you do further processing to sounds over there, then you would kinda need to add CTZ pairs in the 2nd DAW too, and just keep following the methodology there.
What if u don't start w drums first? Can I track all my elements and then add clippers later? And what about summing on the master?
Another question arises though, how does this work with buss processes like reverb and delay? Do they have to be routed differently or processed in a similar way to fit/not fall apart?
Signal is signal. Whether a signal is heavily processed with various time-based effects or not is immaterial to its Peak, RMS, LUFS, loudness, etc. Think of it this way: when you work the old school way, does adding reverb or delay to a sound typically make you reach for the fader and adjust the perceived loudness of that sound in the mix up or down? Sometimes yes, sometimes no, right? It's no different in the CTZ approach. What CTZ is doing is simply gainstaging the sound PRE-FADER in a different, more predictable manner. But you're still going to level that sound into the entire mix via the FADER. If you add reverb/delay/whatever and it makes you want to grab the fader and re-adjust the level of that sound in the mix, go right ahead! :-)
I saw in your neewer Videos you used only saturated in the older you have a Gain ( to 0) and then the Clipper. Ist that because saturated has this Gain build in ?
Sooo, is GClip better than KClip 3pro for your techniques? 🤔
I have a question (i think i know the answer)...what about the return channels (ie: group reverbs, delays, buss compression etc)? Would you want to use a clipper on those as well? Amazing technique man, cant wait to try it out!
Good question. 👍
also wondering bout this
I'm confused when to set the reference loudness of dpmeter to -12dbfs and when to set to 0dbfs, in a previous video it was set to 12 and now its set to 0
That "reference level" is a feature for automatically increasing the gain of the signal to match the reference level (if you press the little "M" button" you see on the bottom left of some of the measurement boxes). In other words, that "Ref Level" value means nothing important in the context of how the meters **measure** the signal. Read the doc for dpMeter and you'll see.
Couple of questions.
Where do you put your eqs, comps and saturators on individual tracks? At the start of the chain probably and that would be what you called "shaping"? So the clipping always happens at the end of the chain right?
Okay what about volume automation with Utility? It can't be before the clipping on individual tracks because that's going to effect the tonality of that sound. So it has to be at the end of the chain right?
Yes to your first para. Sound design first. Clipping last, and only if the track **needs** to be clipped to be made loud enough to fit into the framework of your mix.
As for volume automation on an individual track, yes, you'd put some type of gain/utility/tool device at the very end AFTER the track CTZ rack. And then you'd automate that device for the volume. (IMO never do volume automation on the fader itself because in most DAWs that prevents you from making fine mix adjustments with the fader.)
@@Baphometrix thanks for your reply! Yeah I agree never automate the fader
What stock instrument in Ableton would you use as the clipper ?
Glue Compressor, doing no actual compression, with the Soft Clip setting on. But honestly you should buy KClip and TrackLimit at a minimum, IMO.
Where can I send you some money fam? This stuff is GOLD!!!
I don't monetize or try to sell anything. I mostly make these when I get asked chewy questions (that require chewy answers) in various places and its easier to *show* than try to explain in words.
Can't you just put an auto loudness normaliser at the end of a chain? Instead of 2 ab_lm's. So that when clipping and fiddling around, the loudness goes to 0db automatically. And then when done I guess with the core part of a track, replace it with a static gain reduction.
hi baph thnx for the cool info......one question...i make pop tracks in studio one mostly....5 piece band and vocal sound....would this work ok if i did the clip to zero routine then bounce the clip to wav?
Yes, it would work fine. In any DAW, for any genre, for any general loudness target. The CTZ approach, at its heart, is about gainstaging your tracks pre-fader based on "loudness" (RMS), instead of gainstaging by peak. We mix a project by leveling different sounds into a balanced whole based on how "loud" each track seems to our ears. When you work the "old school" way, it doesn't encourage you to care about or find the optimum "loudness" vs "peak" of the signal for any given sound. So your faders and gain-staging across all tracks is very arbitrary, and you can end up with surprises at mastering because you've let a lot of very high crest factor sounds pile up on top of each other, summing together to create HUGE peaks that don't need to be there (bad crest factor). Then your mastering limiter has to crush those peaks way more than necessary, which destroys everything near those peaks and wrecks your mix. (Or forces you to have a quieter master that might have too much dynamic range for the genre you're working in.)
@@Baphometrix Ah the penny drops thanks for this. I am indebted to you for such great insight......I will remix my last track with this method and post on SoundCloud the two tracks for comparison....much appreciated
Thanks for all you help man. Do you setup clip to zero before your apply any eq, compression etc? in other words is it first in your chain or last? Thank you
Clippers last after all other processing, on every channel's insert chain.
Thanks heaps Baphometrix. Is the dp meter to bring to zero after my processing aswell? Sorry just a bit confused about that part if it matters or not. I’m thinking I could just essentially do a tiny bit of clipping on every channel of a mix I have going now to tame the unnecessary peaks without bringing to zero? I can’t see a problem with that but there probably is haha. Banging music you make too man. Legend
@@eddiekimura Aww, thanks for the kind words about my music. Okay, so, you really should read my written CTZ guide, which I keep up to date as I learn new tricks and nuances to this approach. You might also want to watch some of my newer videos like "Loudness is in the Mix, not the Master!" (parts one and two) and also "Did Dan Worrall convince me?". In those videos you can see me using and talking about my own more updated approach to CTZ.
Specifically in this video, I describe how to make a "CTZ Pair" out of dPMeter + any hard clipper. The dPMeter lets you get your track/bus to peak right at 0 dBFS, and then you can simply push up the "drive" or "Input gain" knob on your clipper to **further** push the signal up past 0 dBFS to start clipping the signal AT 0 dBFS.
But if you're willing to spend some money (and not that much, really), you can get the job done with just one clipper (or limiter) and not bother with dPMeter. Read the written guide - It's linked in the description.
Short questions: when you set the levels of your anchors like kick and snare, and then adding any other sound after that, you have to readjust all gain and clipper settings on the summing busses up till the premaster right? Because every new element will add up with all the other sounds.
Second question is:
as we can see in your mixer channel plugin list, you do EQ and stuff before setting the gain back to zero . So you mix quiet and then adding the gain. Doesnt this clash a bit with the decisions you make while mixing quiet? What i want to say is, that i do some eq while the signal is like -12 db, then smash it up to zero and then suddenly i think ...... ok that decision would be not that good when i get the track this loud later in the mastering stage. ?? Hope i couls explain my question.
Also big thanks to those awesome tutorials
Good questions. It might help supplement what I'm about to say if you look up in the description area and go check out the 17-page guide I posted there. The short answer is that the "CTZ Pair" kinda sorta act in concert with your track/group fader. So in the old school approach, all the FX processing you do in a track happens PRE-fader, right? And then you simply use the fader to level that processed sound into the entire mix. It's no different with the CTZ method. The CTZ pair just makes sure that PRE-fader the peaks are sitting at 0 dBFS, and you still use the fader to level the sound into your mix. The clipper in the CTZ pair is there to help you push the RMS up closer to 0 dBFS if needed or desired. Maybe another way to look at it is like this: think of the CTZ pair as a "special fader in front of the regular fader" ;-)
@@Baphometrix Thank you for writing down the whole process. That was super helpful. Have you tried automating this technique with a plugin called Hornet-The Normalizer ?
It does basically the same as the dp meter, adjust the gain. But you can link all modules in a group. Everything gets normalized to 0. When you make any changes in + direction( Add rms) it compensates automatically all mixer channles and also all bus channels. This speed up the whole workflow enormous. When you change the RMS negative, you just need to click twice in 1 of the Plugin group and it compensates that also. Highly recommend that one.
A Video with that Plugin, and a little 8 bar loop where you adding one Instrument after another until the final product would be awesome.
@@christianbasler1608 I have The Normalizer and other related plugins from Hornet, such as CLMS. In general, I find Hornet plugins to be a wee bit "buggy" and unpredictable. So I tend to prefer the similar offerings from TBProAudio (like that DPMeter4 that I use in the video). But whatever works for you and accomplishes the same goals!
Is this correct?. Its called the Clip to zero method. Long story short the purpose of that is clipping every track on so you cut off the unnecessary peaks without changing the timbre of other sound qualities. You gain a lot of headroom by cutting those peaks and compression with clipping.
Большая работа! Большое спасибо за этот метод.
there are a few vst who could help.
as you think about it
?
HoRNetTheNormalizer, HoRNetLUMeterMK2, HoRNetVUMeterMK4
It's like i get the idea but i dont aaahh stressed out someone please tell me what does that gain 0 mean is it a limiter with a ceiling of 0.0db
This is some serious red pill shit. Recording school never taught this. I’m gna start using these techniques. If I get the results I’m looking for, ur gettin an Olive Garden gift card.
Hi, i love your channel, you put very interesting ideas in your tutorials. I will definitively test your way of mixing. looks really interesting. I wonder why you don't use eventide saturate instead of TBproAudio to balance the singal to zero?
Saturate is a very good clipper, but it's also very CPU-intensive and has some significant latency too. The dpMeter 4 device is what I use to set the pre-fader ceiling to 0, and it's FREE and excellent for that purpose. During final mixdown I might replace SOME of the instances of GClip with either Saturate or with a mastering limiter like Pro-L2. But I save this for the end when most of the project has been flattened to audio and I'm now in the mode of putting big, heavy mixing/mastering devices all over the project.
Good stuff. Currently using this CTZ strategy in ableton.
Down side is that with all the clippers running, the ducking running, and the master chain ready... The issue I'm running into is that my CPU is taking a pretty big hit, limiting the amount of tracks I can have running. (unfortunately, even when turned off the master chain is still eating up CPU like a mo fo). I may have to opt for either freezing& flattening the individual tracks once CTZ is applied, or making some folders of sounds that already have the CTZ processing applied. I cant ever see myself aiming for less than -7LUFS so having a folder of my fav snares already processed, and kicks I use the most already processed (and dorito the shape if needed) Ill only have to worry about processing on the summing groups.
Yeah, in Ableton it might not be a good idea to let a big, heavy mastering chain sit there idle. Better to have it set up in a rack and just drag that rack onto the master when you want do a quick "master check", and then to delete the rack entirely when you're done. Why? Because unlike in Bitwig or Studio One (or maybe also some other DAWs?), Ableton doesn't free up RAM when you turn a plugin off. It frees up CPU, but not RAM and not latency. (By contrast, in Bitwig and Studio One if you deactivate something it frees up all the CPU, latency, and RAM.)
The clippers themselves should have zero latency (if you're NOT oversampling them), and should have extremely low--almost negligible--CPU and RAM impact.
also would you say this is applicable to psytrance?
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