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
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
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!!!.
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.
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?
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?
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.
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.
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.
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 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...
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!
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!
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
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.
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
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.
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).
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.
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.
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!
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!
This is a great trick. Submission Audio has an amazing limiter that has the same effect. it doesn't destroy your drum transients, and at the same time, it gives you the loudness you need. This is just a cheaper way to do so and I absolutely love it.
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.
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)
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 👍😃
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.
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
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.
Great vid Jordan. Appreciate the info. I've recently been using/experimenting Kclip 3 by Kazrog with the multi band feature on drums. Really enjoying the results with each band having a mix blend feature along with the ability to apply a different style of distortion/clipping to each band as well. I think someone with your skill set could really make great use of something like that, much more than me... Love to know what you think or any tips, take care ✌🏼
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 !!!
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
I just started learning a little about production and mixing because I can’t afford producers and mixers for my music so this might be a dumb question, but why can’t you just record loud if you’re okay with a little clipping/distortion. I like the way it sounds in some of my vocals (although it’s usually not that noticeable ) or on distorted guitar. But why do you need a clipping plug in as opposed to turning up the output?
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.
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
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.
I’ve heard before that the big pros literally just clip the hell out of the mixes and that’s why nobody can compete with the loudness because the casual music listener won’t notice the distortion anyway.
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
Can i ask a reeeeally silly question....about the context of this vid.... Is this clipping to get loudmess thing, is it from the pointof veiw of checking mixes against referencing and playin on my other shiz prior to sending it for mastering ( at which point youll take the clipping off and send the mix without it? So the master engineer does their bit in the place of my clipping?) Or would you send this as our pre master final mix? And they do their bit with my clipped mix??? Your vids have been a very recent discovery for me and youve really pushed my mix game. Nice one! Im gonna invest in a course in the new year i rekon. See u then lad!
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.
Could you achieve the same goal by making your drums more punchy with parallel compression? I've been doing this lately on a fairly routine basis, and it makes a huge difference.
I would def recommend using both in different ways. Parallel comp is great for making an element sound more hyped up without adding much actual volume. Clipping is good for taming those transients and little peaks so your master limiter acts more appropriately. If a kick has a crazy -1db transient but the rest of the kick is at -6, you're never going to be able to make your drum bus louder than that without it farting out unless you shave that transient down. A compressor isn't going to get that transient unless it has really good lookahead, which will add latency, cpu, etc. Clippers can be very transparent!
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 :)
Do you back off a little bit once its clipping so you dont send clipped version to a clienT ? Also, wouldnt be the same if you lets say turn up the Input of compressor until you get clipping and then output to get volume out? THANKS
Have you tried the Flatline clipper by Submission Audio? I think the workflow is great, it only has two knobs (clipping shape and threshold) and UI is very clean!
@@b.scribe5999 can't you just adjust the threshold to set how much clipping you want, unlink the volume and then set the output volume to what you prefer instead? :)
Hi Jam master J! Have you tried the Kazrog clipper? It's pretty great. There is always room for another clipper out there so PLEASE consider putting one out. cheers!
It's funny how the internet is FLOATING with tips regarding clipping in mastering - I'm by no means professional, but I mix and master my own material for commercial release, and I figured this out years ago. The result is ALWAYS better without a limiter 🔥
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 :)
A couple things. 1- The Waves L2 is possibly the, oldest, shittest limiter still in production (well not in production/being sold). and 2- Inside a 32 bit float point DAW you have extended headroom, so im not surprised it sounds good in this video. however, once you export it... That's going to be another story. Did like the video though, some cool examples. thank you.
That's what I was thinking too. When he said "it sounds exactly like my mix, just louder", I think that's exactly what was happening lol. Unless ProTools and/or the Apogee Duet does something different that I'm not aware of.
trim the master channel...slightly til u stop seeing red on master channel for no clippin after export or clip into a limiter with a high threshold. for his example tho when only the kick clips...the audible distortion sounds like the attack (punch/transient) is enhanced only on the kick, once exported.
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
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
Finally, I've understood what clipping plugins are and do. Thank you so much Jordan.
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
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
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!
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!!!.
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.
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
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?
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?
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?
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'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 :)
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.
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.
'StandardCLIP' is my fav... it has good metering, great specs plus it's dirt cheap!
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 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
1:43 man that's some very nice solo ! Mix sounds great !
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!
That track sounds like something from a DBZ game.. I love it
Dragon dragon watch the dragon dragon Ball z. 😉
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
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
God, I love Andreas Magnusson's work. Been listening to his stuff since his years in Scarlet.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
OMG, this is really what I've been searching for all times!!! Thanks so much, bro!
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.
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
Newfangled Audio Saturate is a really good one, Transparent with comprehensive metering
Besides the clipping trick I just learned, the track is pure fire!!
I _just_ figured this out like a week ago! Game changer for sure.
You legend mate 💯
T Racks soft clipper and Standard Clip are good ones
Best video on clipping on YT! Thanks!
Thanks - super relevant. Been using a clipper on mix bus but was wondering about using on drums
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?
Just bought the BSA clipper, love it
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 do hiphop, but I plan to experiment with this! #blessings #peace #love
Great video and super informative! Looking forward to seeing these plugins you are working on
This is a great trick. Submission Audio has an amazing limiter that has the same effect. it doesn't destroy your drum transients, and at the same time, it gives you the loudness you need. This is just a cheaper way to do so and I absolutely love it.
I just looked, its a clipper LOL that's awesome. You learn something new every day
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.
yeah that's Great , i recently started using this method in my mixes and the result is Amazing , thanks for explaining
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)
great tip, especially on just using that trim plugin! never thought of using it like that but it's so obvious!
Check out Airwindows plugins. They have a bunch of great clip plugins with different flavors.
Mmmm. That little “chica” makes me smile every time haha. Great tip!
The best clipper I used on drums is GVST and it's free!
Best easter gift tip. Thanks a lot!
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 👍😃
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.
This is super interesting! I gotta try this! Thanks Jordan!
I want to thanks JV, this video is very helpful
Great advice as always! I can’t wait for the series next month!
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
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.
Great vid Jordan. Appreciate the info. I've recently been using/experimenting Kclip 3 by Kazrog with the multi band feature on drums. Really enjoying the results with each band having a mix blend feature along with the ability to apply a different style of distortion/clipping to each band as well. I think someone with your skill set could really make great use of something like that, much more than me... Love to know what you think or any tips, take care ✌🏼
Awesome vid.. Looking forward to your plugins!
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 !!!
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
I just started learning a little about production and mixing because I can’t afford producers and mixers for my music so this might be a dumb question, but why can’t you just record loud if you’re okay with a little clipping/distortion. I like the way it sounds in some of my vocals (although it’s usually not that noticeable ) or on distorted guitar. But why do you need a clipping plug in as opposed to turning up the output?
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.
Amazing tip! thanks so much Jordan! Really sounds awesome
Quick question: so do you send it off to your mastering engineer with clipping on your mix bus? (Thanks for everything, Jordan!)
It's clipping? I mean literally by passing 0db or just until it got almost 0db?
Never send anything clipped or limited/maximized to a mastering engineer.
Dude, you should try Flatline by Submission Audio before you put time into making one. Great video though, very helpful thank you!
this video is so important
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 :)
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.
Awesome video! Thank you!
I’ve heard before that the big pros literally just clip the hell out of the mixes and that’s why nobody can compete with the loudness because the casual music listener won’t notice the distortion anyway.
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
Can i ask a reeeeally silly question....about the context of this vid....
Is this clipping to get loudmess thing, is it from the pointof veiw of checking mixes against referencing and playin on my other shiz prior to sending it for mastering ( at which point youll take the clipping off and send the mix without it? So the master engineer does their bit in the place of my clipping?) Or would you send this as our pre master final mix? And they do their bit with my clipped mix???
Your vids have been a very recent discovery for me and youve really pushed my mix game. Nice one!
Im gonna invest in a course in the new year i rekon. See u then lad!
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.
Could you achieve the same goal by making your drums more punchy with parallel compression? I've been doing this lately on a fairly routine basis, and it makes a huge difference.
I would def recommend using both in different ways. Parallel comp is great for making an element sound more hyped up without adding much actual volume. Clipping is good for taming those transients and little peaks so your master limiter acts more appropriately. If a kick has a crazy -1db transient but the rest of the kick is at -6, you're never going to be able to make your drum bus louder than that without it farting out unless you shave that transient down. A compressor isn't going to get that transient unless it has really good lookahead, which will add latency, cpu, etc. Clippers can be very transparent!
Tdr Limiter 6 GE has a great clipper in it
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 :)
great video!!! who is this on the reference!!!???? slammin jamming!!!! so cool!!!
Stillwell Audio's Event Horizon plugin is good for clipping too.
Do you back off a little bit once its clipping so you dont send clipped version to a clienT ? Also, wouldnt be the same if you lets say turn up the Input of compressor until you get clipping and then output to get volume out? THANKS
T-Racks soft clipper has a pretty nice interface and yields a fairly transparent sound in my experience
yes
Have you tried the Flatline clipper by Submission Audio? I think the workflow is great, it only has two knobs (clipping shape and threshold) and UI is very clean!
Love the flatline!
I was going to ask the same question. I haven’t used it yet, but it is on my list of ones to get.
@@WhereAreWe7 I believe there is a free trial :)
I have flatline and like it, but there’s no output ceiling so you’re always clipping!
@@b.scribe5999 can't you just adjust the threshold to set how much clipping you want, unlink the volume and then set the output volume to what you prefer instead? :)
Mojo by Air Windows. Won't mess up your mix and goes super loud. Stick it on the end of your mix.
Hi Jam master J! Have you tried the Kazrog clipper? It's pretty great. There is always room for another
clipper out there so PLEASE consider putting one out.
cheers!
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.
It's funny how the internet is FLOATING with tips regarding clipping in mastering - I'm by no means professional, but I mix and master my own material for commercial release, and I figured this out years ago. The result is ALWAYS better without a limiter 🔥
Ok
Is that Mandroid I hear? Love them, didn't realize you had worked on that album
Awesome content as always!
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 :)
A couple things. 1- The Waves L2 is possibly the, oldest, shittest limiter still in production (well not in production/being sold). and 2- Inside a 32 bit float point DAW you have extended headroom, so im not surprised it sounds good in this video. however, once you export it... That's going to be another story. Did like the video though, some cool examples. thank you.
That's what I was thinking too. When he said "it sounds exactly like my mix, just louder", I think that's exactly what was happening lol. Unless ProTools and/or the Apogee Duet does something different that I'm not aware of.
trim the master channel...slightly til u stop seeing red on master channel for no clippin after export or clip into a limiter with a high threshold. for his example tho when only the kick clips...the audible distortion sounds like the attack (punch/transient) is enhanced only on the kick, once exported.
2 years late but you just need to put a 24 bit dither plugin at the end when you start a mix and now you know how it really sounds
I like using Kazrog KClip3 on the master and Boz Little Clipper on tracks. Tons of fun when doing electronic music :)
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🤘