This is a perfect example of trust your ears and do what sounds good. We’d all probably naturally reach this conclusion to clip a little bit if people didn’t make it sound like it’s a sin to clip
@@chinmeyswayit’s the same principles behind flying by looking outside your aircraft and not at your instruments, you obviously need/ utilize both but you focus on your peripheral
Back in the analog days as a band member, I always noticed that the engineers would have the meters on the drum channels flashing red on the hits, and I wondered if it was OK. Maybe this is the rediscovery of that technique?
Ngl, I've been doing this when I mastered and I was always scared when my boss comes around when I'm doing this before I Limit/compress the transients. You just gave me confidence to say I know what I'm doing! Thanks man, and keep at it
This is the way I did things back in the 90s when I started building my first home studio based around a Tascam 424 mkII portastudio. Because the signal-to-noise ratio of cassette tapes wasn't great, you just had to crank the level to tape to get the audio above the noise floor. You soon realise that running the level hot to the tape sounds best and gives you some natural compression/limiting. I think there is a LOT of mileage to the 'clipping' method. Maybe try some channel-strips on the master bus and just crank the level. You will also get some 'sweetening' depending on the type of console plugin you're using.
When I see you talking about clipping am so happy,clipping is the most underrated part of mixing but clipping,saturation,is key to reduce the Crest factor/dynamic range of a signal,hence increasing RMS where the percieved loudness lies. Newfangled audio elevate is the mastering limiter I recommend is so great cuase I has a cliper at the end that you can completely control it's a game changer!!!.
I've been mixing audio in some capacity or another for 25 years. I've mostly done arena level live sound for that, but often have to make mixes of shows. I'm shocked that I have never known of this clipping technique - and now that I've seen this demonstration it makes complete sense. Never again will I use a limiter for loudness.
I misused compression so much in the past (noob problem). Clipping is great. The cleanest solution there is. I also backed down on saturation. Compression makes sense to glue several items together, or to shape the snare. Nowadays I am very careful with compression.
i used to and still sorta have this problem. I clip on specific things, usually drums. Usually use the mpc and gain up the drums in there. or clip it in ableton. I still struggle at times with compression, but ive been using it way way less over the years...
Haha yesss a few years ago Andreas stayed at my studio to help work on a record and I saw him do this and it changed my life! He’s a great engineer/producer.
Hey i love the amount of lower resonance on that snare. Tone is on point! Seeing too many people EQ ing that resonance out and I just love that part of the snare frequency.
I've been doing this all my life, sending the mix through a Behringer console and clipping back in the DAW. For hard genres like metal, rock, dubstep, this can work like a charm. Nothing makes a kick drum hit hard as a clipper
Sorry, can you clear something up for me? So on the way back in are you still keeping the drums' actual db around the same? IE in the mix stage you've got the drums at say like -6db, route out to Console for clip then back in around -6db?
Are we not gonna talk how cool that guitar/solo riff is?😎🤘 Great video as always. Been dong this for years first by accident, then secretly leaving here and there as it sounded great and later more deliberately, awesome to hear from other engineers that it's not a "sin".🤙
I'm using clipping within my 2 bus and Schwabe Gold Clip. I'm also using their Orange Clip on other things. Other Clipper plugins I've got are SIR Standard Clip, Softube Clipper that I use for the unique RMS clipper, LVC Clipped-MAX, K-Clip Zero.
I wish I have seen clipping on purpose tutorials 10 years ago. All of a sudden I don't try to push drum with every possible tool to squeeze a little bit more out of it. Sometimes I need to take back! It saves a ton of time and effort and frustration.
Oh dude you just solved a major problem I had for sure. I clipped on my 8 track and I though it sounded better, but i couldnt find a clear answer to what that did to the audio. Thanks.
I appreciate these videos. It’s rare you hear controversial advice such as this. One of the best pieces of advice I keep coming back to is “don’t be precious with audio.” Also, that EQ is just + and - ‘s
Another loudness technique is to use saturation, of course; everyone knows that. But I'm not sure everyone knows about sonnox inflator. It is another way to push up RMS to reduce the crest factor (which allows a limiter to achieve more level boost without destroying transients).
I really like GClip. It has a simple soft clip option, and the visuals are very clear with an amplitude over time graph so you can really easily see what you've been clipping off. Best of all it's free.
Kazrog K clip 3 is an awesome clipper. resizable with great metering and has volume match to hear exactly what its doing. I've tried several clippers and this one worked best for me.
Love to see it. I've been using Logic's Bit Crusher on clip mode to do this very thing for almost ten years. Used to think it was a dodgy approach! Finally just trusted myself, and my happy clients. I've seen some of the 'bigger' mastering studios like sterling do this by clipping at the AD/DA converters when they print. Pretty cool. However you manage to clip your signal, as always, if it sounds good IT IS good.
The AD/DA makes tons of sense! Before this era where everyone can mess around with digital versions of rack gear, people were probably wondering how mixes got so "pushed" without getting into clipping. Turns out, they were clipping the whole time!
Question, don't most daws use a 32 bit float system meaning you can clip without any distortion on playback and only hear the distortion after you bounce a file to a 24 or 16 bit file? Meaning the way you're doing it while it may work, there's no way to hear how much distortion there is during playback until you export or bounce the track?
This is true, in Logic Pro i would get this issue a lot but using Reason i never have an issue, not sure if it has the same system but when I bounce i always get what i heard in playback
Love this! I am new to audio but noticed how incredible things sounded the other day when I boosted my preamps. I noted the clipping and backed off. Planning to get back there and play around some more now that I’ve been given some “professional latitude”. Thanks!
Getting a louder mix is down to proper eq work and distortion on the individual tracks well before hitting the limiters. No need to clip. You should have no issues getting a mix as hot as -6 LUFs without clipping. If there is proper bus compression the transients don't get lost. Don't clip, use high quality distortion plugins, it will sound better.
Depending on what 'distortion' you are talking about. You ARE clipping things, be it hard or soft clipping that comes with the added benefit of a specific kind of distortion. Clipping is used all the time on every professional mix/master out there.
If your are on 32 float and above. It doesn’t matter. As long as that converted master bus is not peaking you. Good. I usually do a small amount of clipping on each drum track and some on the bass. By the time it get to the clipper on the Master buss. The loudness is mostly there.
Great tutorial! Been using Ik Multimedia's Soft Clipper for a while, it does some magic on master bus. But realize now i should probably replace alot of brickwall limiting with clipping!
I've absolutely noticed this effect! I've always hesititated to used this method though. Why? Fear! I totally thank this channel for giving me a bit of courage!
@@jowlorenz9555 no, I don’t think it does, no. It’s just than when you push a channel into the red it often sounds better than pushing into a limiter! That’s all we’re talking about really. And some plugins can mimic this effect!
you have to use clipping with all the plugins hitting all the hot spots otherwise it will sound terrible if you don't isolate the proper frequencies and highlight the transients as good as possible
Been using the kazrog clip for a while. Turns out I could’ve just used a trim this whole time lol. The kazrog is still probably the best clipper I’ve heard though
Be. Careful. ... if you're just sending a reference mix, then fine. If you are sending this to mastering, nope nope nope. The only reason he isn't getting digital clipping (the really bad sound) in the first example is b/c Pro Tools is running internally at 32-bit float. As soon as this gets mixed down to 24-Bit or 16-Bit, there will be digital artifacts that can't be undone. In the example of the Waves L2 - most of the issues he is having is from using it with the noise-shaping turned on as well as dither (noise). You can use a different limiter (like the FabFilter ProL-2 for example) and have way more control over the attack/release etc. and get much better results. Clipping is an art, and is very useful, but this use of it is not going to work when sending to a mastering house.
Venn audio has Freeclip that's probably what you meant by not having a proper user interface. But it's free and I think it sounds great! Thanks for this great video.
Funny how people here say they would never clip anything in there life. Sure limiting works to an extent. But how do you think you'll get a commercially loud, tight and punchy sound like Dealer, alpha wolf or gojira (from Mars to Sirius) without pushing the boundaries. Clip it and rip it, let the loudness flow
Hi Jordan ! Great video. Quick question but do you keep the Clipper on the master bus when sending to Mastering ? Same question with the FG-X plugin, since it could make the mix peaks at a high level... Thanks a lot :)
@@hardcoremusicstudio Thanks ! So you are leaving it on the mix bus for the final bounce before mastering ? Or is it just for clients during mix revision ?
@@FaithinFaces I have it turned up louder for sending the mix to clients for approval. Then for the final bounce i keep it on still, but backed off by a few db (i mix into it like that too)
FreeClip is what it says on the tin, free, sadly it's not available for Pro Tools. but the thing is it can do a whopping 32x oversampling if you're afraid of aliasing (which isn't really going to be heard if you don't clip really hard anyway). The clipping behavior can only be adjusted in stages instead of percentages.
Thanks, Jordan! Never used clipping before to my advantage because I never knew how to go about it but I use it all the time to get my mixes louder for the dame reasons you stated and now I know I'm not crazy 👍😃
Wow finally someone that’s talking about this. This is exactly what keeps happening to me when I’m mixing down! I’m using PreSonus Studio1824 w/ Behringer Interface… Mixing in Studio One 5 Pro. Question what plug-ins can I use in this program to achieve this, please advise appreciate it. Thank you!
You can either turn on the input gain knobs in the mix window from settings and crank them up or use the Mixtool plugin which is the equivalent of the trim plugin he used in Protools.
@@audio_odyssey hi I appreciate you getting back to me. Yes I do have the Mixtool plug-in I’ll try that. Question when you say I can turn on the gain knobs in the mix window from settings. Are you talking about the final mix down window when I’m in the project page in PreSonus studio one ? I’m using a MacBook laptop. Please advise. Thank you.
@@FairweatherBlues-Band71322, happy to help. No, in the window with all of the faders. On the left side there is a place you can show or hide various functions. Click the wrench and enable the input gain controls by selecting the check box. Once you do that, at the top of each channel there will be a gain control. These can be used to gain stage the volume of your tracks without moving the fader. For clipping you would use these to push the amplitude high enough that the signal goes above 0 dB on the meter and a red light should indicate clipping has occurred. This I the same as doing it with the mix tool, but no plugin is required. Hope that helps.
A good clipping plugin? Try standard clip. It has very high-degree oversampling for online and/or offline use, and it has tuneable filters. It's really a great, great clipping plugin. I highly recommend it. You will really want high-degree oversampling for some uses to eliminate aliasing distortion.
You're missing the point. It's not about being louder, it's about being as loud as the others. As said several times in the video, bands don't want to sound weaker than others.
@@peteshifter I see, you want to make music for playlists and to be compared with other artists. That makes all that loudness war understandable but that's also probably the reason why I don't like it how the most of the modern music sounds like. I rather listen to music album by album and enjoy sounds made good to sound in context of the whole record - not in context of other music you may listen to. And well, I am 34 yrs old.
Thanks for the TIP advice i will try it for sure , i would love to learn how to use a limiter on the mix bus without loosing resolution and without getting those artifacts that youre talking about , it sounded like that you use the clip gain pluggin temporarily on the mix bus just to have the band listen to it loud enough , so how do you get your mix to sound louder and ready for mastering ? Love your content , thank you !!!
Guys, SIR Audio StandardCLIP is the best and most versatile Clipper + UI friendly i´ve found yet and it´s only 25$/19€ Hard Clipping + 32x Oversampling on drums or claps is just soooo nice sounding :D
I think it's because if you were to clip with a fader it brings in unwanted distortion that a plugin like a clipper/trim wouldn't. DSPs like those VSTs may handle clipping better than a fader being pushed up to a point of the track getting clipped. In the video you can see that the faders aren't being pushed to an extreme, the plugins are doing the work.
Pushing the amplitude in a daw is the same no matter where you do it, unless you are using a plug-in that has other “colored” characteristics. You can do this with clip gain, trim plugins, or the fader and it will all sound the same. The difference will be in your metering, depending on if you are set up for pre or post fader metering. Also, you will likely have less room to push the fader up to extreme levels as you would max out. However, by doing the clipping pre-fader you could get the clipped sound you are looking for and still use the fader to control the level in the mix if you are doing it on a track or buss. You probably wouldn’t do that on the master unless you are clipping the sound and then bringing it below 0dB full scale when you export the mix down to keep from getting the bad clipping sound that digital clipping often produces when being converted.
@@audio_odyssey I never said it would sound different fader vs vsts. Those plugins may do a better job. You repeated what I said in a condescending manner and honestly why don't you do more mixing instead of replying to comments since you're a genius.
@@Hidefprod, my apologies. It was not my intent to be condescending . I just don’t want the original poster to misunderstand how it works. I have edited my first sentence to remove what may have been offensive to you. In your first sentence it does indicate that the fader would sound different due to unwanted distortion. I do plenty of mixing. Not the best or the worst, definitely don’t know everything but what you “guessed” could be misleading. I will concede that a specialized clipping plugin may as you said do a better job than just pushing the volume, but the trim plugin is the same as the fader. We may be talking past each other. It can be difficult in writing. Hopefully the original question has been answered more clearly.
I think this is a great topic, two questions if I may ask: Do you have good or bad experience using clippers on parallel drum busses, before and/or after the compression unit? And secondly: How and when to use the oversampling option that some clippers provide? I found that I need to avoid oversampling on parallel tracks, because it causes a slight delay, resulting in a phase shift. Oversampling also often seems to change the sound of the track it's applied to, not just the clipping portion, at least the algorithm of FreeClip, my favourite clipper, does. Is it more advantageous in your opinion to avoid the os option entirely, on submix groups and master tracks, anyone? Cheers :)
Hey Jordan ! I also find it very hard to find a good clipper ! Flatline is very popular but awfully NOT transparent (changes the sound when supposed to be doing nothing, frequency, balance, and image is shifting). The most transparent i've tried is the simple JS Event Horizon Clipper for Reaper. Very simple, very effective, totally transparent (=passes the phase inversion check), but lacks gain reduction metering. Standard Clip is cool with lots of options and can be very transparent but only with very high oversampling values, which is a CPU nightmare when used on many tracks (very good for 20 bucks though). Best one I found is bx_limiter for transparency vs efficiency vs ease of use vs good metering. PLEASE provide us with the ultimate clipper plugin we're all waiting for !! I'll be waiting impatiently... thanks a lot ;-)
Hello I recomend you check out,newfangled audio elavate is the mastering limiter that breaks down everything hidden behind what, brick wall limiters actually do,it has a cliper at the end which you can completely control it's a game changer.
Hard clipping just shaves off the parts of the signal that exceed the threshold. Limiting changes the envelope of the signal (it has attack and release parameters) to lessen the distortion introduced by a clipper, but as it's shown in the video clipping can be much more transparent on fast transients like snares and metal kicks
The video is 🔥, but what about if you make songs for Spotify and you should be around -14 lufs and -1 true peak, can you still clip the master like this? I think Spotify's "limiter" would change the sound
This is great info. I had no idea clipping can be used like this! I never knew understood why clipping plugins existed because why would you ever want to clip something! So far, all I've did to my master bus was compression and limiting. No wonder I felt everything felt "blurry". Question: is adding saturation a form of clipping?
Yep, kinda. When you drive a clean signal hard enough, it gets overdriven or at some stage distorted. Those are both stages of clipping. But if you think of overdrives and distortions as guitar pedals, they may have some filtering to achive beautiful distortion sounds.
@@bennyelsensohn9299 I see. That explains why I like adding tube saturation to the snare or even the whole kit. I noticed that I can get it to sound louder without muffling the transients while at the same time get the peaks on the meter under control. I guess I've been using clipping all along! Lol
@@Yanthungbemo yeah absolutely! Saturation is really beautiful. Sometimes you need some extra ooomph but no compressor does the job. And with a bit of saturation everything sounds more powerful or glued together. I was mind blown when i first heard the effect of running a drumkit through a sansamp :)
The Pro L2 beat out every other clipper & limiter I've ever tried (including Flatline). I can hit -6 LUF's no problem and can even get into -4 / -3 territory when I use two with different configs.
@@christianarnold4154 bro no doubt about it. I have never heard nor will I ever clip my tracks. That is plain stupid. -9Db is the loudest you ever need and Fabfilter Pro L2 will do that no problem.
The voices of reason! Pro L2 is well known to be at the top of the heap. Besides his plugin of choice, he might have failed at limiting because your track has to have everything tucked in, nothing sticking out, before you limit.
clipping plugins are still effective when the client is requesting incredibly loud masters. its more transparent being pushed than pushing the limiter harder. -Kclip 3
RIP to the master of clipping - Clippy from Microsoft Word. May he rest in peace, and may his contribution to clipping never be forgotten.
RIP clippy... you were a true warrior of clipping
RIP microlimp instead .
There could never be another
Being reminded of Clippy is like losing the game
@@EdwinDekker71 I just lost the game.
I'm crying at how effective this is, while at the same time making me feel stupid.
This is a perfect example of trust your ears and do what sounds good. We’d all probably naturally reach this conclusion to clip a little bit if people didn’t make it sound like it’s a sin to clip
Ableton reminds you that you shouldn't do this. It has distortion programmed into it when you clip the master
man I could listen to that guitar section all day
Using the limiter for loudness is how you end up with an all cymbals drum sound.
Hmm
That’s why you mix into the limiter, so you know to turn the cymbals down
Great tutorial! Been doing this for years in different ways... The Moral of the story is "Mix with your ears not your eyes"
Why not just mix w brain? This involves some knowing which involves looking at great visual tools.
@@chinmeysway 😂exactly
@@chinmeyswayit’s the same principles behind flying by looking outside your aircraft and not at your instruments, you obviously need/ utilize both but you focus on your peripheral
Back in the analog days as a band member, I always noticed that the engineers would have the meters on the drum channels flashing red on the hits, and I wondered if it was OK. Maybe this is the rediscovery of that technique?
'StandardCLIP' is my fav... it has good metering, great specs plus it's dirt cheap!
Finally, I've understood what clipping plugins are and do. Thank you so much Jordan.
Ngl, I've been doing this when I mastered and I was always scared when my boss comes around when I'm doing this before I Limit/compress the transients. You just gave me confidence to say I know what I'm doing! Thanks man, and keep at it
This is the way I did things back in the 90s when I started building my first home studio based around a Tascam 424 mkII portastudio. Because the signal-to-noise ratio of cassette tapes wasn't great, you just had to crank the level to tape to get the audio above the noise floor. You soon realise that running the level hot to the tape sounds best and gives you some natural compression/limiting. I think there is a LOT of mileage to the 'clipping' method. Maybe try some channel-strips on the master bus and just crank the level. You will also get some 'sweetening' depending on the type of console plugin you're using.
When I see you talking about clipping am so happy,clipping is the most underrated part of mixing but clipping,saturation,is key to reduce the Crest factor/dynamic range of a signal,hence increasing RMS where the percieved loudness lies.
Newfangled audio elevate is the mastering limiter I recommend is so great cuase I has a cliper at the end that you can completely control it's a game changer!!!.
FL Studio Producers Be Like: S O F T C L I P P E R
One of the best out of the box "free loudness" plugins ever hah.
there's a reason that it's under dynamics plugins as well as distortion plugins in the plugin selection. It's so good it had to be in there twice :D
lol no cap
I Love the JST Clip Plugin-in!
I second that. That plugin is boss! And super easy to use
amazing plugin, only thing i don't like about it is not having a clipping meter...yes use your ears but jeez...
Love it too
That and the JST Transify!
I've been mixing audio in some capacity or another for 25 years. I've mostly done arena level live sound for that, but often have to make mixes of shows. I'm shocked that I have never known of this clipping technique - and now that I've seen this demonstration it makes complete sense. Never again will I use a limiter for loudness.
try limiting and clipping together :)
I misused compression so much in the past (noob problem). Clipping is great. The cleanest solution there is. I also backed down on saturation. Compression makes sense to glue several items together, or to shape the snare. Nowadays I am very careful with compression.
i used to and still sorta have this problem. I clip on specific things, usually drums. Usually use the mpc and gain up the drums in there. or clip it in ableton. I still struggle at times with compression, but ive been using it way way less over the years...
my man, I too was crushing the hell out of my mixes until somebody pointed this out to me
Submission Audio's Flatline is the greatest one out there for that imo ! Very transparent sounding and the results you can get out of it are awesome !
Hadn't heard of that. Thanks!
@@hardcoremusicstudio Ermin over at Systematic created it. Very curious to get your 2 cents on it, but it seems to be fairly well loved already.
@@hardcoremusicstudio Ermin used it to master Plini's last album.
@@hardcoremusicstudio look up the video "4 Clipping Plugins, SAME Algorithm" Flatline uses the same algorithm as Free Clip
@@pianoatthirty That's not very shocking to me. A hard clip is a hard clip... no?
Haha yesss a few years ago Andreas stayed at my studio to help work on a record and I saw him do this and it changed my life! He’s a great engineer/producer.
Hey i love the amount of lower resonance on that snare. Tone is on point! Seeing too many people EQ ing that resonance out and I just love that part of the snare frequency.
I've been doing this all my life, sending the mix through a Behringer console and clipping back in the DAW. For hard genres like metal, rock, dubstep, this can work like a charm. Nothing makes a kick drum hit hard as a clipper
Sorry, can you clear something up for me? So on the way back in are you still keeping the drums' actual db around the same? IE in the mix stage you've got the drums at say like -6db, route out to Console for clip then back in around -6db?
Are we not gonna talk how cool that guitar/solo riff is?😎🤘 Great video as always. Been dong this for years first by accident, then secretly leaving here and there as it sounded great and later more deliberately, awesome to hear from other engineers that it's not a "sin".🤙
I'm using clipping within my 2 bus and Schwabe Gold Clip. I'm also using their Orange Clip on other things.
Other Clipper plugins I've got are SIR Standard Clip, Softube Clipper that I use for the unique RMS clipper, LVC Clipped-MAX, K-Clip Zero.
I wish I have seen clipping on purpose tutorials 10 years ago. All of a sudden I don't try to push drum with every possible tool to squeeze a little bit more out of it. Sometimes I need to take back! It saves a ton of time and effort and frustration.
Oh dude you just solved a major problem I had for sure. I clipped on my 8 track and I though it sounded better, but i couldnt find a clear answer to what that did to the audio. Thanks.
1:43 man that's some very nice solo ! Mix sounds great !
I appreciate these videos. It’s rare you hear controversial advice such as this. One of the best pieces of advice I keep coming back to is “don’t be precious with audio.” Also, that EQ is just + and - ‘s
Another loudness technique is to use saturation, of course; everyone knows that. But I'm not sure everyone knows about sonnox inflator. It is another way to push up RMS to reduce the crest factor (which allows a limiter to achieve more level boost without destroying transients).
Yup, Inflator goes on my drum crush and mixbus. One of the first plugins I bought when I got a Pro Tools rig.
Definitely tames the peaks.
God, I love Andreas Magnusson's work. Been listening to his stuff since his years in Scarlet.
That track sounds like something from a DBZ game.. I love it
Dragon dragon watch the dragon dragon Ball z. 😉
Newfangled Audio Saturate is a really good one, Transparent with comprehensive metering
I really like GClip. It has a simple soft clip option, and the visuals are very clear with an amplitude over time graph so you can really easily see what you've been clipping off. Best of all it's free.
I _just_ figured this out like a week ago! Game changer for sure.
Kazrog K clip 3 is an awesome clipper. resizable with great metering and has volume match to hear exactly what its doing. I've tried several clippers and this one worked best for me.
Freeclip is a great plugin I've been using for a while now, definitely enhances the perceived loudness, always add it at the end of the drum bus.
Love to see it. I've been using Logic's Bit Crusher on clip mode to do this very thing for almost ten years. Used to think it was a dodgy approach! Finally just trusted myself, and my happy clients. I've seen some of the 'bigger' mastering studios like sterling do this by clipping at the AD/DA converters when they print. Pretty cool. However you manage to clip your signal, as always, if it sounds good IT IS good.
The AD/DA makes tons of sense! Before this era where everyone can mess around with digital versions of rack gear, people were probably wondering how mixes got so "pushed" without getting into clipping. Turns out, they were clipping the whole time!
Question, don't most daws use a 32 bit float system meaning you can clip without any distortion on playback and only hear the distortion after you bounce a file to a 24 or 16 bit file? Meaning the way you're doing it while it may work, there's no way to hear how much distortion there is during playback until you export or bounce the track?
This is true, in Logic Pro i would get this issue a lot but using Reason i never have an issue, not sure if it has the same system but when I bounce i always get what i heard in playback
Love this!
I am new to audio but noticed how incredible things sounded the other day when I boosted my preamps. I noted the clipping and backed off.
Planning to get back there and play around some more now that I’ve been given some “professional latitude”. Thanks!
You can clip preamps on purpose during tracking. Used to do this with my APIs on snare
@@hardcoremusicstudio what about my Apollo preamps when tracking? Super cleannn
Getting a louder mix is down to proper eq work and distortion on the individual tracks well before hitting the limiters. No need to clip. You should have no issues getting a mix as hot as -6 LUFs without clipping. If there is proper bus compression the transients don't get lost. Don't clip, use high quality distortion plugins, it will sound better.
Everything you say is true, except clipping is still incredible useful on top of all of that.
there are no rules LOL
Depending on what 'distortion' you are talking about. You ARE clipping things, be it hard or soft clipping that comes with the added benefit of a specific kind of distortion. Clipping is used all the time on every professional mix/master out there.
This comment is complete ass.
Clipping is the real deal. Stop playing
T Racks soft clipper and Standard Clip are good ones
Besides the clipping trick I just learned, the track is pure fire!!
Just bought the BSA clipper, love it
If your are on 32 float and above. It doesn’t matter. As long as that converted master bus is not peaking you. Good. I usually do a small amount of clipping on each drum track and some on the bass. By the time it get to the clipper on the Master buss. The loudness is mostly there.
Thanks - super relevant. Been using a clipper on mix bus but was wondering about using on drums
Best video on clipping on YT! Thanks!
I do hiphop, but I plan to experiment with this! #blessings #peace #love
OMG, this is really what I've been searching for all times!!! Thanks so much, bro!
Great tutorial! Been using Ik Multimedia's Soft Clipper for a while, it does some magic on master bus. But realize now i should probably replace alot of brickwall limiting with clipping!
The best clipper I used on drums is GVST and it's free!
I've absolutely noticed this effect! I've always hesititated to used this method though. Why? Fear! I totally thank this channel for giving me a bit of courage!
Doesn't clipping blow up high end speakers ?
@@jowlorenz9555 no, I don’t think it does, no. It’s just than when you push a channel into the red it often sounds better than pushing into a limiter! That’s all we’re talking about really. And some plugins can mimic this effect!
@@LouisLinggandtheBombs
Isn't there even a speaker brand called Clipsh?
Best easter gift tip. Thanks a lot!
Limited No6 is free and got a great clipper and peak limiter, fact the compressor gives some great glue and colour
you have to use clipping with all the plugins hitting all the hot spots otherwise it will sound terrible if you don't isolate the proper frequencies and highlight the transients as good as possible
yeah that's Great , i recently started using this method in my mixes and the result is Amazing , thanks for explaining
Awesome video! Thank you!
You legend mate 💯
I want to thanks JV, this video is very helpful
Been using the kazrog clip for a while. Turns out I could’ve just used a trim this whole time lol. The kazrog is still probably the best clipper I’ve heard though
great tip, especially on just using that trim plugin! never thought of using it like that but it's so obvious!
T-Racks soft clipper has a pretty nice interface and yields a fairly transparent sound in my experience
yes
Wooooh this is it! Exactly what I was struggling with. Thank you so much Jordan 💪🔥
Be. Careful. ... if you're just sending a reference mix, then fine. If you are sending this to mastering, nope nope nope. The only reason he isn't getting digital clipping (the really bad sound) in the first example is b/c Pro Tools is running internally at 32-bit float. As soon as this gets mixed down to 24-Bit or 16-Bit, there will be digital artifacts that can't be undone. In the example of the Waves L2 - most of the issues he is having is from using it with the noise-shaping turned on as well as dither (noise). You can use a different limiter (like the FabFilter ProL-2 for example) and have way more control over the attack/release etc. and get much better results. Clipping is an art, and is very useful, but this use of it is not going to work when sending to a mastering house.
Mojo by Air Windows. Won't mess up your mix and goes super loud. Stick it on the end of your mix.
Venn audio has Freeclip that's probably what you meant by not having a proper user interface. But it's free and I think it sounds great! Thanks for this great video.
Funny how people here say they would never clip anything in there life. Sure limiting works to an extent. But how do you think you'll get a commercially loud, tight and punchy sound like Dealer, alpha wolf or gojira (from Mars to Sirius) without pushing the boundaries. Clip it and rip it, let the loudness flow
Hi Jordan ! Great video. Quick question but do you keep the Clipper on the master bus when sending to Mastering ? Same question with the FG-X plugin, since it could make the mix peaks at a high level... Thanks a lot :)
Not clipper, but I do use FGX on final mix, but I don't push it very hard.
@@hardcoremusicstudio Thanks ! So you are leaving it on the mix bus for the final bounce before mastering ? Or is it just for clients during mix revision ?
@@FaithinFaces I have it turned up louder for sending the mix to clients for approval. Then for the final bounce i keep it on still, but backed off by a few db (i mix into it like that too)
this video is so important
This is super interesting! I gotta try this! Thanks Jordan!
FreeClip is what it says on the tin, free, sadly it's not available for Pro Tools. but the thing is it can do a whopping 32x oversampling if you're afraid of aliasing (which isn't really going to be heard if you don't clip really hard anyway). The clipping behavior can only be adjusted in stages instead of percentages.
Venn Audio also makes V-Clip which is just for 30 bucks, with Pro Tools compatibility.
Awesome vid.. Looking forward to your plugins!
Check out Airwindows plugins. They have a bunch of great clip plugins with different flavors.
great video!!! who is this on the reference!!!???? slammin jamming!!!! so cool!!!
Thanks, Jordan! Never used clipping before to my advantage because I never knew how to go about it but I use it all the time to get my mixes louder for the dame reasons you stated and now I know I'm not crazy 👍😃
Great video and super informative! Looking forward to seeing these plugins you are working on
Mmmm. That little “chica” makes me smile every time haha. Great tip!
Tdr Limiter 6 GE has a great clipper in it
Wow finally someone that’s talking about this. This is exactly what keeps happening to me when I’m mixing down! I’m using PreSonus Studio1824 w/ Behringer Interface… Mixing in Studio One 5 Pro. Question what plug-ins can I use in this program to achieve this, please advise appreciate it. Thank you!
You can either turn on the input gain knobs in the mix window from settings and crank them up or use the Mixtool plugin which is the equivalent of the trim plugin he used in Protools.
@@audio_odyssey hi I appreciate you getting back to me. Yes I do have the Mixtool plug-in I’ll try that. Question when you say I can turn on the gain knobs in the mix window from settings. Are you talking about the final mix down window when I’m in the project page in PreSonus studio one ? I’m using a MacBook laptop. Please advise. Thank you.
@@FairweatherBlues-Band71322, happy to help. No, in the window with all of the faders. On the left side there is a place you can show or hide various functions. Click the wrench and enable the input gain controls by selecting the check box. Once you do that, at the top of each channel there will be a gain control. These can be used to gain stage the volume of your tracks without moving the fader. For clipping you would use these to push the amplitude high enough that the signal goes above 0 dB on the meter and a red light should indicate clipping has occurred. This I the same as doing it with the mix tool, but no plugin is required. Hope that helps.
@@audio_odyssey hi yes this helped, got it again thank you! Really appreciate it.
@@FairweatherBlues-Band71322 You’re quite welcome.
A good clipping plugin? Try standard clip. It has very high-degree oversampling for online and/or offline use, and it has tuneable filters. It's really a great, great clipping plugin. I highly recommend it. You will really want high-degree oversampling for some uses to eliminate aliasing distortion.
It might sound good (haven't tried), but when i see that interface it's an immediate no for me.
I use the volume knob on my stereo system to get more loudness.
You're missing the point. It's not about being louder, it's about being as loud as the others. As said several times in the video, bands don't want to sound weaker than others.
I usually listen to one record at time so it's rather irrelevant.
@@hiidenlintuband1410 Man, how old are you? People have been listening to playlist for decades!
@@peteshifter
I see, you want to make music for playlists and to be compared with other artists. That makes all that loudness war understandable but that's also probably the reason why I don't like it how the most of the modern music sounds like. I rather listen to music album by album and enjoy sounds made good to sound in context of the whole record - not in context of other music you may listen to.
And well, I am 34 yrs old.
@@hiidenlintuband1410 that's the same for me! I must to listen to vinyl rips because is not available a good digital version for a lot of albums.
Great advice as always! I can’t wait for the series next month!
Thanks for the TIP advice i will try it for sure ,
i would love to learn how to use a limiter on the mix bus without loosing resolution and without getting those artifacts that youre talking about , it sounded like that you use the clip gain pluggin temporarily on the mix bus just to have the band listen to it loud enough , so how do you get your mix to sound louder and ready for mastering ?
Love your content , thank you !!!
Probably this Clipping is better than any plugin.
Dude, you should try Flatline by Submission Audio before you put time into making one. Great video though, very helpful thank you!
Amazing tip! thanks so much Jordan! Really sounds awesome
Guys, SIR Audio StandardCLIP is the best and most versatile Clipper + UI friendly i´ve found yet and it´s only 25$/19€ Hard Clipping + 32x Oversampling on drums or claps is just soooo nice sounding :D
Is that Mandroid I hear? Love them, didn't realize you had worked on that album
I didn't think to this, thank you! I just don't understand why are you cranking the plugin, and not the mix fader? Is there a difference?
I think it's because if you were to clip with a fader it brings in unwanted distortion that a plugin like a clipper/trim wouldn't. DSPs like those VSTs may handle clipping better than a fader being pushed up to a point of the track getting clipped. In the video you can see that the faders aren't being pushed to an extreme, the plugins are doing the work.
@@Hidefprod Thank you! You're right, with the faders it wouldn't be the same
Pushing the amplitude in a daw is the same no matter where you do it, unless you are using a plug-in that has other “colored” characteristics. You can do this with clip gain, trim plugins, or the fader and it will all sound the same. The difference will be in your metering, depending on if you are set up for pre or post fader metering. Also, you will likely have less room to push the fader up to extreme levels as you would max out. However, by doing the clipping pre-fader you could get the clipped sound you are looking for and still use the fader to control the level in the mix if you are doing it on a track or buss. You probably wouldn’t do that on the master unless you are clipping the sound and then bringing it below 0dB full scale when you export the mix down to keep from getting the bad clipping sound that digital clipping often produces when being converted.
@@audio_odyssey I never said it would sound different fader vs vsts. Those plugins may do a better job. You repeated what I said in a condescending manner and honestly why don't you do more mixing instead of replying to comments since you're a genius.
@@Hidefprod, my apologies. It was not my intent to be condescending . I just don’t want the original poster to misunderstand how it works. I have edited my first sentence to remove what may have been offensive to you. In your first sentence it does indicate that the fader would sound different due to unwanted distortion. I do plenty of mixing. Not the best or the worst, definitely don’t know everything but what you “guessed” could be misleading. I will concede that a specialized clipping plugin may as you said do a better job than just pushing the volume, but the trim plugin is the same as the fader. We may be talking past each other. It can be difficult in writing. Hopefully the original question has been answered more clearly.
Another good video!
I think this is a great topic, two questions if I may ask: Do you have good or bad experience using clippers on parallel drum busses, before and/or after the compression unit? And secondly: How and when to use the oversampling option that some clippers provide? I found that I need to avoid oversampling on parallel tracks, because it causes a slight delay, resulting in a phase shift. Oversampling also often seems to change the sound of the track it's applied to, not just the clipping portion, at least the algorithm of FreeClip, my favourite clipper, does. Is it more advantageous in your opinion to avoid the os option entirely, on submix groups and master tracks, anyone? Cheers :)
All these years of MAKING SURE I did not clip and now your telling me clipping is a good thing? I give up.
😂😂😂
He is wrong. If you want truly great sound quality, peaks at -10dB. This guy is talking about winning the loudness war. Whole different ballgame.
@@weareallbeingwatched4602 peaks at -10db?!
@@shizo86 yup. If 0dBfs is clipping, which it is, then you want your loudest transients to be 1/2 that volume, ie: -10dBfs.
@@weareallbeingwatched4602 Why half?
Stillwell Audio's Event Horizon plugin is good for clipping too.
V clip is pretty good
I use this technique in Wavelab when mastering.
Hey Jordan ! I also find it very hard to find a good clipper ! Flatline is very popular but awfully NOT transparent (changes the sound when supposed to be doing nothing, frequency, balance, and image is shifting). The most transparent i've tried is the simple JS Event Horizon Clipper for Reaper. Very simple, very effective, totally transparent (=passes the phase inversion check), but lacks gain reduction metering. Standard Clip is cool with lots of options and can be very transparent but only with very high oversampling values, which is a CPU nightmare when used on many tracks (very good for 20 bucks though). Best one I found is bx_limiter for transparency vs efficiency vs ease of use vs good metering. PLEASE provide us with the ultimate clipper plugin we're all waiting for !! I'll be waiting impatiently... thanks a lot ;-)
Hello I recomend you check out,newfangled audio elavate is the mastering limiter that breaks down everything hidden behind what, brick wall limiters actually do,it has a cliper at the end which you can completely control it's a game changer.
I do that all the times without using a limter and i like the sound sometime even better
So could you make a video talk about the difference between limiter and clipper from the view of science? how they work? thank you!!
Hard clipping just shaves off the parts of the signal that exceed the threshold. Limiting changes the envelope of the signal (it has attack and release parameters) to lessen the distortion introduced by a clipper, but as it's shown in the video clipping can be much more transparent on fast transients like snares and metal kicks
@@hinawachainsaw7820 Thanks for your sharing🤘
Great work 👏 👍 nice video 📹
Try Limiter 6 from Tokyo Dawn. It has a clipping section. You can even hear what us being clipped so you don't overdo it.
The DAW is in 32 bits floating with his audio core and you can’t clip.... but in export you can have big trouble
Great video. Thanks very much.
The video is 🔥, but what about if you make songs for Spotify and you should be around -14 lufs and -1 true peak, can you still clip the master like this? I think Spotify's "limiter" would change the sound
Spotify doesn't change shit, only overall output volume.
@@silenc9 Yeah the shit remain shit even if at lower volume.
@@andreaboi8566 well Yeah If you make it sound like shit then you're correct :)
This is great info.
I had no idea clipping can be used like this! I never knew understood why clipping plugins existed because why would you ever want to clip something!
So far, all I've did to my master bus was compression and limiting. No wonder I felt everything felt "blurry".
Question: is adding saturation a form of clipping?
Yep, kinda. When you drive a clean signal hard enough, it gets overdriven or at some stage distorted. Those are both stages of clipping. But if you think of overdrives and distortions as guitar pedals, they may have some filtering to achive beautiful distortion sounds.
@@bennyelsensohn9299 I see. That explains why I like adding tube saturation to the snare or even the whole kit. I noticed that I can get it to sound louder without muffling the transients while at the same time get the peaks on the meter under control.
I guess I've been using clipping all along! Lol
@@Yanthungbemo yeah absolutely! Saturation is really beautiful. Sometimes you need some extra ooomph but no compressor does the job. And with a bit of saturation everything sounds more powerful or glued together. I was mind blown when i first heard the effect of running a drumkit through a sansamp :)
Fabfilter Pro L2 will get your levels right man. I never clip my tracks. You can use 2 limiters on your master track.
The Pro L2 beat out every other clipper & limiter I've ever tried (including Flatline). I can hit -6 LUF's no problem and can even get into -4 / -3 territory when I use two with different configs.
@@christianarnold4154 bro no doubt about it. I have never heard nor will I ever clip my tracks. That is plain stupid. -9Db is the loudest you ever need and Fabfilter Pro L2 will do that no problem.
The voices of reason! Pro L2 is well known to be at the top of the heap. Besides his plugin of choice, he might have failed at limiting because your track has to have everything tucked in, nothing sticking out, before you limit.
clipping plugins are still effective when the client is requesting incredibly loud masters. its more transparent being pushed than pushing the limiter harder. -Kclip 3
@lav romi same here at times, it is nice and tonal actually