These videos just feel like the key to the kingdom. I think the only reason they haven't got thousands upon thousands of views (which I doubt is your intention anyway) is because they require concentration, thinking and understanding.
These vids are only for people who are passionate and serious about it. That likely factors in. Whatever the case, these are def some of the best music production vids on yt, if not THE BEST.
40:46 TBH, I very much hear the clipping distortion even with just 3db (and later on in the comparison between the clippers the crackles are audible). I've experimented with CTZ on softer instruments and genres and when the instrument is soloed or everything is quiet, the clipping like that is not good, the limiter works much better. In context of the loud mix, sure, you won't hear it. But that person who asked the question needs to be really careful when doing something like that. Myself I do that "unnecessary" perfectionist clipping, too, and there are two reasons. The first is that you gain some headroom for a denser mix which you might need later on (I love dense mixes) so why not do it right now? It'll be much harder to find some room in the later stages of the project. And the second one is that even if you mixed a very loud part, you might want to make a quiet part for contrast after that - for example solo the piano by itself. That's where you'll notice the crackling immediately.
i think that it depends on what sound. on drums it sounds good and on some harder percussive sounds and synths. i would use a limiter on pads, keys, and vocals though unless i wanted them to be dirty and distorted.
Could totally hear it, but it wasn't too bad. I think his point remains valid, but this example has a little issue. FYI Reaper has implemented a "delta solo" around every plugin so testing for what is added by a clipper is one click.
I'll think about it. Like many producer DJs, I don't make **that** many full-length "radio ready" songs for publishing. Most of what I make are just short intro-drop-breakdown "beats" to sequence in DJ sets. And I tend to... um... "borrow" some fragments of other published works by other artists, which makes it hard to demo something tasty here on UA-cam.
40:48 how I know I'm not an EDM producer? That clipping was pretty intense to my ears haha. I make really noisy, noise and drone influenced and extreme electronic music, that is still pretty highly influenced by more tonal ambient music. So I don't mind loudness and distortion, but I feel like it has to have its place. But that clipping introduced a lot of audible distortion to me that doesn't suit such a small and pretty sound. Bit I think depending on the style of music that you make, varying levels of clipping are acceptable. I was just kinda caught off guard by your answer, but it makes sense.
Agreed. At that timestamp I was introducing some audible clipping on purpose. My intent was to then show that clipped sound in the context of the full mix, which effectively **masks** the clipping well enough that it's essentially "transparent". However, take heart! Later in the video when I'm demonstrating whether to replace KClip with something else (specifically TrackLimit), you'll notice that TrackLimit magically removes that clipping sound while still giving you the same amount of crest factor reduction.
Please don't get me wrong, but... At 4:45 mins is said that we could not heard any clipping there. I can, at the last but one note of that phrase. A drastic distortion there, BTW... Maybe that's why I feel this song kind of harshing like it seems to come out of the blue...
What you have to say about Pro L 2's counter intuitiveness is exactly why for years all my breakdowns had this weird ass swell from the release time that i could never figure out until i stopped pushing limiters so ungodly hard
Great tutorials! Learning a lot. I do have to comment on the comparison around 1:05:00. (I just stopped the video to comment, so haven’t watched the rest yet)…I do clearly hear a difference between the limiter and the other two (clipper and saturator). I hear a very clear distortion on the transients both with the clipper and saturator and none with the limiter. So I hate to disagree with you but to me there is a big difference. The question I suppose is “does this matter in the overall mix, and more importantly whether it is audible on big reverberant club environments”… Personally, in this instance I’d choose the limiter over the other two options. [edit] Hah. I should’ve waited. Honestly I was beginning to be concerned about your monitoring environment 😂
Glad I watched this. I would've spiraled into a frenzy of confusion, rage, stress and depression (exactly in that order) if I ran into that dilema and had not known there are dif views in Psyscope. Jesus, thank you lol. Also, I recently read your 17pg CTZ document, very well written btw. I was gna ask about the CTZ golden rule, "Fader down OR clipper up," because I'm working on this Lofi/hip-hop track and had a lot of quiet sounds that I couldn't process enough to hit 0 and was wondering if I can clip them at their current peak value, but I believe you answered my question. And, because I'm thinking clipping is not the route to go with lofi?
I'm not exactly sure what you're asking? That said, a lot of lofi music tends to be pretty chill, and not very loud... Remember, the louder you're trying to go, the more constrained you'll be in your sound choices, sound design decisions, mixing decisions, and arrangement decisions. By contrast, if you you want more freedom with all of those decisions, then you need to be willing to go more quiet and dynamic. What loudness do the "good" (to you" lofi tracks tend to hit? Why try to hit any louder than they are? Certain genres are loud, others are not loud. And if you're not trying to write in a given genre but are just following your nose and making something new without regard to genre, then maybe you just need to let the song fall out where it wants to, in terms of loudness. Never pursue loudness arbitrarily. Maybe you write a banger and it just wants to be loud. Maybe you write a chill lofi tune and it wants to be not loud.
@@Baphometrix Well the question posed in the comment you showed in the video was basically, can you clip quiet sounds that don't hit 0db in a loud song/genre. Pretty much what I'm asking is if you could perceive of an instance where one might want to clip a quieter sound that doesn't hit 0db in a quiet song/genre.
Love the explanation of Saturate which was way more clear than anything I got from RTFM. Now I will have a better response when people ask why I use it to my usual "I just like it" answer haha. Interesting that it adds 40ms in Bitwig - it is 18ms in Cubase. Having said all that, I think you have pretty much convinced me to put K Clip on my default project now! By the way, check out Dash Glitch's channel if you haven't already - another UA-camr that you now have championing CTZ!
Just out of interest, are you in Vancouver by any chance? I just ask as you have the exact same way of explaining things as one of my mentors over here who was an engineer over there before being poached by the Canto-pop scene in the 80s. And I don’t just mean your accent, it is your whole demeanour. It is pretty unreal!
hey pal i love love love your videos!!! and so excited to see all the new ones on new topics that will come in the future - I am working on a song and was wondering if you would be willing to do a pre-master or controllable interactive master when im done? which might be a few months from now lol id be down to get some pricing if so
Thanks again Bapho. Maybe i discovered something.When u made comparison on off on the piano, u said no to hearing differences. I was on my phone at that time( around min 40), ant that's the point: on that device i cleary heard clippng. So, maybe for checking audible clipping a phone (or vst emulation) is better than high range monitoring?
Yep I messed that very last part up. I'll put out a short "correction" video today and let you hear that A/B comparison correctly! As for the piano A/B comparison itself earlier in the video, I didn't explain super well what I was doing. I intentionally added just a small amount of audible clipping so I could make the point that A) when the full mix was playing around it, the clipping on the piano itself was effectively "masked". But then I wanted you to hear that with the same amount of GR done with TrackLimit, you couldn't hear the crackle nearly as much.
@@Baphometrix i ll follow your correction...but, i' ll test if what i said could be true. I will try a source, start to push clipper till i hear clipping, than go back a touch. At that point insert a phone emulation (i think Airwindiws has one), and listen if i can hear clipping.
If everything is clipping at zero, how are you adding any extra colour or widening or whatever other plugins on the master before final limiter without it immediately peaking? Are you gaining down after adding width on the master for example? So ie, getting extra 2db from widening, so pulling down gain 2db after on plugin? Also, I can't quite wrap my head around why we need to use DP meter on EVERY sound to hit the peaks at 0. Can't the quiet sounds stay quiet? Whats the benefit of making sure they peak at 0 if they don't need to be as competitively loud as some of the other sounds? THANK YOUU
I have this same question. I've been using DP Meter to set everything to peak at 0 then pull the fader back down to where I want it to sit in the mix. Then if I use BC Gain (VCA Trick) to increase/decrease the gain to increase/decrease loudness it is clipped accordingly. I think Bahpy will tell you it depends lol. I find it's easier to adjust the volume using faders instead of gain utilities at the channel level. Very likely that I'm doing something wrong though.
@@DWREK91 i have similar question about using faders and gain tools in the mix, its unclear to me at the moment what exactly is happening and why you would set levels ay zero with dp meter and then pull back down with a fader or gain tool.
@@nepntzerZer Sorry if I posted this twice, UA-cam decided to stop working midway through for me. Since we know that some saturators may not have auto-gain, but they have clip-protection of 0dB (probably unadjustable), that's one case you can use dpmeter to get the signal up to zero, before you finally decide to clip the signal. Also, even when and if you're hard clipping, you might still want to know what the signal sounds at 0dB before you clip it. That's how I interpret it, anyway, but I can't remember exactly why either; I haven't watched the CTZ playlist in a while.
Great! Thank you very much! So, watching at 19:46 mins, you're with all those clippers turned ON because the work is almost done. The right flow should be adding a clipper at each stage we get on, right? So, the track, then tracks we can sum up, then a BUS, then (as in your case) a pre-Master, and then to the Master. When we need to change something and it takes to check it out before moving on, we'll need to disable (turn OFF) all subsequent clippers from that point... Is that right? I think so... It sounds obvious but most of us would not think about that at first.
I had this exact question in mind from video two onward- I'm glad I didn't ask before watching the whole playlist. Thank you for the deep dive answer- this series is fantastic.
Being as how you are using Windows and you touched on the subject of resources in this episode, what is ideal in terms of CPU and RAM given a project that uses maybe 50 tracks? Also have you covered how YOU would set up and use VSX from a beginners perspective (I currently use Sonarworks headphone edition and Canopener and am totally monitor-free)?🙂
For some reason, Reaper murders my measly Ryzen 5 2600x even with just 20 tracks or so. Memory is never a problem (32gb is way more than I need). If any track goes above 3% cpu usage in the monitor it's death. So I have to print intermediate tracks to audio to reduce the usage from the virtual instruments and saturators (any NF plugins with their spectral processing just go straight into that number, Punctuate+Saturate on any track is enough to "kill" it, HG-2, Parallel Particles, Sugar, FlexVerb are also pretty bad). The problem is that even if the track has no audio playing the CPU usage is still there. Another trick is to bypass the plugins when the track is silent through automation which is tedious. Thankfully, Reaper allows you to freeze/unfreeze tracks with the press of a button. And the master track is even worse, Elevate or Limiter 6 GE frequently go into the "can't play" territory. That's usually a sign to separate the mastering stage into another project. Which is also tedious but oh well. So if you're one of the home producers that do everything by yourself, I doubt that you'll get away with mid-range desktop unless you use some tricks or make separate projects for production, mixing and mastering.
RAM is for softsynths. If you don't routinely bounce/freeze, etc. and try to run a lot of resource-hungry synths at the same time (VPS-Avenger, I'm looking at YOU), then more RAM is better. I run with 64 GB of RAM. As for CPU, that's a bit harder. Every DAW handles threading and optimization differently. And of course the Mac chips are different from the Windows chips. I use an i9 9900K, FWIW.
@@Baphometrix Thanks B! I'm investing in a i9 XPS with 32GB - hope that's enough RAM for now. I unfortunately got all the way to episode 19 before I discovered just how much extra insight can be gleaned from the comments so I'm gonna have to go through them all again to see if I missed anything on setting up VSX.
This whole playlist is fire!!! I only have one question. How should we deal with, the low end that is produced by the clippers we used at every track and bus?
1:07:22 if you play the video on 1.5 speed you will hear that there is a problem a distortion in the transients - when you tried track limit it sounds clean
@@Baphometrix yea u right nobody playing in this speed. but sometimes for me it's a nice way to figureout more then u think. slowing or speeding the song help me arrange better my drums my reverbs tails and I can fix more problems in the production and the song and make it sound better, with that little trick
I played this part at normal speed and Track Limit sounded clean AF. Kclip and Saturate buzzed. Saturate sounded maybe like it buzzed slightlyyy less. But Track Limit was clean.
Yep. I clipped that far on purpose. To show that the clipping you hear is masked by the entire mix. Hang in there until later when I put TrackLimit on that sound instead.
@@Baphometrix I watched the whole video and got your point. I just wanted to say that i can hear the clipping while you said you can't. I bet you can hear the clipping too.
Did I miss a gainstaging video? Is there gainstaging done at your busses as default on your templates to make levels of your low, mids and high end sit correctly? Sorry if I missed it I’ve been curious because i had watched illgatez methodology and I believe he said set lows -12 drums -6 and everything else -6 or something
Watch episode 9 "Setting your mix anchor and framework". Dylan's advice to set your (kick) drums to some lower level, your subs 6 dB below that level, and everything else ALSO at least 6 dB below the drums is pretty much the old school gainstaging approach.
Sadly, just bought KClip 3.5 and the first kick I'd pass thru it, has it's bottom freqs cutted and the seems to be passei by a soft clip process becaus the "pnch" área seems to be a bit distorted. Ok, this kicks shows a not "doritos like" shape, but I thoght KClip could be a lot "friendly" or transparent as we can hear in this tutorials. Maybe I need some help on that and I'll look for a tip about how to setting up KClip for a really almost bypass sound. All I was looking for is a way to laser sharp cut, as we say, those transients higher wave peaks... ...and don't mess the sound of the kick. In this vídeo you Warren about low end and heavy congested with bass stuff could bring some issues to the final results. Shame on me, sorry.
I gotta keep watching but basically what I’m getting here is that it’s okay to be summing over 0 at the master so long as I don’t hear it / don’t like the sound of the clipping? I stopped halfway through to play around and kept finding myself worrying about a particular sound (that was nowhere near 0db) bringing my master into the red by .01-.03db when combined with the kick that is anchored at 0db. Every track is at or below 0db. Felt myself start to go nuts and immediately returned here but with this thought in mind. Thx m8
also another quick question - I have a set of JBL 708p which i love and everything else i tested under that investment amount did not even come close paired with a JBL 10inch studio sub which at the time when i had a mid to small mixer room was great. now i have moved my home studio into a oversized 2 car garage which is well finished and sound treated. heres the dilemma - should i get the Steven Slate Audio VSX Modeling Headphones and wait on buying an extra sub to help fill the larger room size or should i invest in another sub? the thing is i really want to be able to here the 20hz range where the headphones apparently can do so or should i skip on the headphones and go for a 1000$ sub to help fill the new studio room and buy another VST modeling plugin? Personally to mix the low end is my real issue since the 708p can do the mids and highs really well - thanks in advance for your help! I know in one of your videos you said the headphones is all you use or do you mostly use these headphones?
IMO in that big a space, assuming it's well-treated, and given that you are used to working with a sub already, that's a tough choice. I'm not 100% sure that a "bigger" sub to match that bigger space will give you that much more than your 10-inch sub you already have. But it might? Is it possible for you to audition that sub you have your eye on **in** that space before you commit to buying it? These days all I use is the matched VSX headphones. But I might add back in my subpac just for one more data point. I'm undecided.
Naive Question: does clipping on the individual tracks has anything to do with the plugins we use. E.g. if my project is set at 32 bit float but can it happen that certain plugin e.g. some analog emulation EQ is designed to handle only 16 bit so clipping within it means something ?
I think it would be a lot easier just to turn down the bus and the clipper threshold in question, then A/B rather than chasing all these clippers up and down your project. Especiallly when doing this 4,5,15,30 times a mixdown. Is this a bad assumption?
Would waves WLM PLUS be a part of a workflow with this method? I’ve watched all the videos up til now and wonder what other devices might get a similar job done? Like would waves Vitamin substitute for specter? Etc? V-Clip vs K-Clip? Etc…
I think you could substitute several plugins for what I recommend and show in the workflow. They might take a few more steps to set up each time, but if you understand what I'm showing you with my recommended plugins, you'll be fine.
how do you feel about stacking sounds and using a heirarchy of sidechains with soothe/trackspacer/spectral whatever to remove frequencies that overlap, i have good success using that with your method to achieve more layering while maintaining clarity and loudness
I'm a big fan of side-chain ducking to help layered (and overlapping) sounds co-exist nicely. Ducking is part of the overall "arrangement/sequencing" that should be taken care of long before you resort to actual clipping.
Do you use compressors at all, like on vocals or uncompressed sounds? That sounds like a dumb/obvious question.. I never see them on your chains, but that must be on purpose...
Yes, when I want to change the dynamic feel of the sound. Compressors are _definitely_ there in my vocal signals. The rest of my stuff is usually so sound-designed to begin with that just slapping downward compression on it won't do much? OTT is a different story: combined multi-band upward and downward compression combined is a pretty strong sound design tool.
I agree, saturate is fantastic for sound design - making lovely a distorted midrange bass only to clip it and loose some high end is avoided. I feel like it can be pushed harder too with a unique sound - but yes its buggy visuals rarely work. I tend to use it on a some higher level busses with more high mid content such as tops, risers/downers, foley etc Dmg track limit is one of my favourite plugins, for the softer sounds that need taming it can be a night and day difference in distortion levels with little compromise. It can be used like a clipper with short attack from 50 ms up (assuming there is no significant energy below 20Hz) and sound clean. Higher mid range content can get away with slightly shorter times too, because maths haha Nice video, I look forward to the comparison/thoughts on mastering limiters - there are some good ones out there. I've never tried limitless personally. Extra question: what do you think about having a rack of two clippers panned L and R independently clipping those mono signals. Some use cases could be hard panned plucky guitars, percussion/foley or stabby midrange basses. I wonder if this would be more transparent than a single clipper instance, perhaps this is how clippers work already - I'm not certain I'm not a developer.. for now at least 😂
Regarding your "extra question" ALL clippers are already fully 100% dual-mono in their action. There's no need to do an LR split with two separate clippers.
Hi, thank you for all of your guidance so far, much appreciated. Really well explained, makes a lot of sense. Tried to send you an email but it bounced.... was asking if you get feedback cycle warnings when setting up the listen buss, it's happening after adding an effect track. Bitwig 4.2 Have discussed with support, sent them a project example, apparently its normal and happen on an analog desk?
Yeah, so you'll only run into a feedback loop if you try to put an FX track anywhere **inside** the normal track/bus structure AND you then try to put an FX track **outside** the normal track/bus structure (over on the right, next to the master track). Think about how signals would be routed in this case and you can see why Bitwig warns you. So... by default, Bitwig "helpfully" puts ONE FX track over next to the Master on every new, blank project you create. So since that's sitting there, you cannot put an FX track over inside a group anywhere, or you'll be creating a feedback loop. So just delete that default FX track over by the master, and you'll be able to start doing what you see me doing.
It's not an exact science. It has more to do with BPM and where the transient rhythmic pulses sit in typical rock/pop/dance music. You generally want the release to fully open up *before* the next 8th note, but maybe still be **slightly** affecting the 16th notes in between each 8th. If you try to make the release fully open up before the next 16th note, it can be sometimes be a little less "smooth" on tonal material. There's also the question of how long the kick tail itself lasts. Some kicks ring out for longer than a 16th, and you don't always want to be releasing in the middle of the kick tail if the kick tail itself is running up super close to 0 dBFS.
Hi Baphometrix, I'm starting to test your system in my own project. I immediately noticed that some analog tracks, for example the bass track, before entering the clipper, just the fact of normalizing it to zero, creates distortion in some points. It is almost certainly a musician's performance problem, but in these cases, in your opinion, is it possible to use the threshold (as you show in the video) instead of getting to zero db? However, using this system with analog tracks seems to be more complex than with digital instruments because the higher volume can create artifacts on the first ones. Thanks for your disclose work.
If an analog (recorded) track has unwanted (aka "bad sounding") distortion in the originally recorded signal, that's a problem upstream of any gainstaging and mixing decisions you make. And that type of problem is separate from anything to do with CTZ itself. This is a sound design or recording issue, not a CTZ issue. This might not be the answer you were hoping for, but I'd argue that in this case (re that bass track), working the CTZ way helped you **hear** a fundamental problem with the original signal that you might not otherwise have noticed when working at lower levels of old school gainstaging.
@@Baphometrix In fact, I would hardly have noticed the problem with the track. It sure would come out during mastering after hours of work! Thank you for your answer :)
I’ve been getting a lot of piercing harshness in my snares/claps by clipping to zero on the track. I realized that even though the signal in the DAW’s track meter was reading 0dbfs, on my pro EQ graph analyzer (studio one) it was showing energy from the frequency spectrum +7dB over the 0dB eq line & I realized that was what was causing the unpleasant distortion/harshness. I disregarded the track/eq meter and set the source (Kontakt’s Drumlab) to 0dB and now my pro EQ graph is reading energy capping off at 0db and it’s a much cleaner sound w/ no harshness but the signal level on the pro EQ meter & DAW’s track meter is very low at around -17db true peak. How can one bring the signals peak up to 0dbfs on the DAW’s track meter to “CTZ” without pushing the samples peaks over 0db at the source to avoid irritable harshness?
Something about the Drumlab settings/signal chain and/or the specific snare samples you're choosing are sounding "too clipped" when you get them loud enough to sit at the level you need for your framework sounds? This is what I mean by "not every sound can be made loud enough for a really loud mix". That said, it's surprising you're hitting this on snares, which can usually all take a LOT of clipping very transparently. So I'm inclined to think it's something about Drumlab and the way you've got it set up. Have you tried simply exporting/bouncing some of the snare samples out of Drumlab and seeing if they still give you the same problems?
@@Baphometrix yes I have exported some of the samples and still can hear those harsh irritating resonances that make my eardrums crackle even when the samples are at -12dbtp. I’ve tried various compression settings, tweaked w/ transient shaper parameters, saturation, and have done a lot of EQ cutting all across the samples spectrum to find the unpleasant frequencies causing the issue but once I’ve done my cutting and things sound better the harshness is still there when I boost the make up gain in the EQ to bring the signals level up. I only have this issue w/ sharp transient sounds/snares, rims, and claps..even outside of drumlab.
@@tylus17 - 12 dBTP? You're trying to set the peaks at -12 True Peak? Why on earth? First, True Peak is useless. It's a hoax. It's marketing B.S. No serious pros out there care about True Peak values. The only peak worth worrying about is sample peak. docs.google.com/document/d/1Ogxa5-X_QdbtfLLQ_2mDEgPgHxNRLebQ7pps3rXewPM/edit#heading=h.xa6coj4lv8uh Now, assuming you meant 0 dBFS (sample peak), even then, why are you trying to somehow clip/crush your peaks so far down? Your sample peaks need to stop at 0 dBFS, not at -12 dBFS. That's with fader at unity, of course. If you need your drum tracks to be quieter, for any reason, you do that by bringing the fader down from unity. To sum up, any drum sample in your project should be hitting no higher than 0 dBFS pre-fader. And there's no point in trying to make any given drum sample's peak artificially be LOWER than 0 dBFS pre-fader. Let your drum samples take full use of the dynamic range available to them at the loudness level you're trying to hit in your project. For example, if you're trying to work in a super loud genre like EDM or modern pop, you might be shooting for roughly -9 to -7 LUFS integrated across the loudest section of the song, right? Let's assume you want to just barely get into competitive range and your goal is -9 LUFS. Not in your quiet song sections.... your LOUDEST song section. So that means your total dynamic range in the loudest sections will be Short Term LUFS at -9 dBFS, and SAMPLE peak at 0 dBFS. As I've pointed out in episode 9 "Setting your mix anchor and framework", if you set the max momentary LUFS of your kick drum to -12 LUFS (max momentary), then any song balanced against that "anchor" sound of your kick will easily hit -9 LUFS integrated across its loudest section. Right? So that means your kick drum has a fairly large dynamic range to play with. It's max momentary value will be -12, and it's peaks will have a full 12 dB of range above that, hitting 0 dBFS sample peak.
From a quick read about The Wall, it seems to have been designed for lightweight use across many tracks in the project. But perhaps slightly more heavyweight than TrackLimit? Considering it also has dithering and bit depth reduction features, etc. like any other mastering limiter. Still, it's probably a fine alternative to TrackLimit if you already have The Wall.
Unrelated question: what do you think of noise musicians where they have a crazy amount of loudness like +2 LUFS? Even Dan Worrall released a track like "I Won the Loudness War..." (obviously in opposition to loudness). I also wonder if there would be damage to speakers if you have literally every sample at 0dbFS. Appreciate your work on this series; I've been binge-watching it the past week on 2x speed (except the times where I'd need to hear A/B comparisons). Keep up the good work!
I feel like I've given a lot of my own personal opinion about how loud is too loud throughout this series so far. Some music out there is louder than the specific sound choices and arrangement sounds its best at.
On LIMITERS, the auto release is generally a good idea. On COMPRESSORS, not so much, IMO. The "auto" setting tries to find an optimal release time based on the frequencies that are happening at any given moment.
Thanks so much for this series. Learning sooo much. I think I must have missed it somewhere but why would I not use a limiter at each stage so that I am doing a cascade approach but with a limiter rather than a clipper. I was comparing using KClip and the ableton limiter. Both seem to work. Could you explain or direct me to a video where you explain why I would use the clipper rather than the limiter
You absolutely CAN use limiters instead of clippers. I strongly recommend TrackLimit by DMG Audio for this purpose. The thing to remember is that clippers and limiters sound different and have different results from each other. Some sounds (such as drum sounds) usually sound "better" with a clipper. (Subjective taste!) Gentle, sustained melodic sounds (vocals, many non-edgy lead sounds, horns, flutes, violins, etc.) will usually sound "better" with TrackLimit. More aggressive, edgy mid bass, arp, and pluck sounds? It could go either way. This is why I use a "Clipper" rack that lets me instantly audition between KClip, TrackLimit, and Saturate. I just pick the one that gives the best-sounding result and then I move on.
1:10:23 @Baphometrix When you're demoing the 3 different clippers on the entire mix, it looks like you're switching on the Piano track instead of on the Pre-Master. Am I missing something here? Thank you SO MUCH for the hard work you've been putting into the series BTW, it has truly been a gamechanger for me :)
These videos just feel like the key to the kingdom. I think the only reason they haven't got thousands upon thousands of views (which I doubt is your intention anyway) is because they require concentration, thinking and understanding.
These vids are only for people who are passionate and serious about it. That likely factors in. Whatever the case, these are def some of the best music production vids on yt, if not THE BEST.
40:46 TBH, I very much hear the clipping distortion even with just 3db (and later on in the comparison between the clippers the crackles are audible). I've experimented with CTZ on softer instruments and genres and when the instrument is soloed or everything is quiet, the clipping like that is not good, the limiter works much better. In context of the loud mix, sure, you won't hear it. But that person who asked the question needs to be really careful when doing something like that. Myself I do that "unnecessary" perfectionist clipping, too, and there are two reasons. The first is that you gain some headroom for a denser mix which you might need later on (I love dense mixes) so why not do it right now? It'll be much harder to find some room in the later stages of the project. And the second one is that even if you mixed a very loud part, you might want to make a quiet part for contrast after that - for example solo the piano by itself. That's where you'll notice the crackling immediately.
THANK YOU I thought I was the only one who heard the OBVIOUS distortion on the clipper and thought I was going crazy.
Yes it is obvious. I am on earbuds.
i think that it depends on what sound. on drums it sounds good and on some harder percussive sounds and synths. i would use a limiter on pads, keys, and vocals though unless i wanted them to be dirty and distorted.
That’s what I wanted to write too 😅
Could totally hear it, but it wasn't too bad. I think his point remains valid, but this example has a little issue. FYI Reaper has implemented a "delta solo" around every plugin so testing for what is added by a clipper is one click.
I really should be doing my school work but this is far more interesting.
Hope the last video of the series will be a whole track made by these principles from start to finish :D Regardless, amazing content!
I'll think about it. Like many producer DJs, I don't make **that** many full-length "radio ready" songs for publishing. Most of what I make are just short intro-drop-breakdown "beats" to sequence in DJ sets. And I tend to... um... "borrow" some fragments of other published works by other artists, which makes it hard to demo something tasty here on UA-cam.
@@Baphometrix I'm not buying "Fire The Clip" by Acustica Audio until you review it.
dont do that, its a bloated company@@ELLIOT8209
40:48 how I know I'm not an EDM producer? That clipping was pretty intense to my ears haha. I make really noisy, noise and drone influenced and extreme electronic music, that is still pretty highly influenced by more tonal ambient music. So I don't mind loudness and distortion, but I feel like it has to have its place. But that clipping introduced a lot of audible distortion to me that doesn't suit such a small and pretty sound. Bit I think depending on the style of music that you make, varying levels of clipping are acceptable. I was just kinda caught off guard by your answer, but it makes sense.
Agreed. At that timestamp I was introducing some audible clipping on purpose. My intent was to then show that clipped sound in the context of the full mix, which effectively **masks** the clipping well enough that it's essentially "transparent". However, take heart! Later in the video when I'm demonstrating whether to replace KClip with something else (specifically TrackLimit), you'll notice that TrackLimit magically removes that clipping sound while still giving you the same amount of crest factor reduction.
Please don't get me wrong, but...
At 4:45 mins is said that we could not heard any clipping there.
I can, at the last but one note of that phrase.
A drastic distortion there, BTW...
Maybe that's why I feel this song kind of harshing like it seems to come out of the blue...
What you have to say about Pro L 2's counter intuitiveness is exactly why for years all my breakdowns had this weird ass swell from the release time that i could never figure out until i stopped pushing limiters so ungodly hard
Great tutorials! Learning a lot.
I do have to comment on the comparison around 1:05:00. (I just stopped the video to comment, so haven’t watched the rest yet)…I do clearly hear a difference between the limiter and the other two (clipper and saturator). I hear a very clear distortion on the transients both with the clipper and saturator and none with the limiter. So I hate to disagree with you but to me there is a big difference.
The question I suppose is “does this matter in the overall mix, and more importantly whether it is audible on big reverberant club environments”…
Personally, in this instance I’d choose the limiter over the other two options.
[edit] Hah. I should’ve waited. Honestly I was beginning to be concerned about your monitoring environment 😂
😉
Glad I watched this. I would've spiraled into a frenzy of confusion, rage, stress and depression (exactly in that order) if I ran into that dilema and had not known there are dif views in Psyscope. Jesus, thank you lol. Also, I recently read your 17pg CTZ document, very well written btw. I was gna ask about the CTZ golden rule, "Fader down OR clipper up," because I'm working on this Lofi/hip-hop track and had a lot of quiet sounds that I couldn't process enough to hit 0 and was wondering if I can clip them at their current peak value, but I believe you answered my question. And, because I'm thinking clipping is not the route to go with lofi?
I'm not exactly sure what you're asking? That said, a lot of lofi music tends to be pretty chill, and not very loud... Remember, the louder you're trying to go, the more constrained you'll be in your sound choices, sound design decisions, mixing decisions, and arrangement decisions. By contrast, if you you want more freedom with all of those decisions, then you need to be willing to go more quiet and dynamic. What loudness do the "good" (to you" lofi tracks tend to hit? Why try to hit any louder than they are? Certain genres are loud, others are not loud. And if you're not trying to write in a given genre but are just following your nose and making something new without regard to genre, then maybe you just need to let the song fall out where it wants to, in terms of loudness. Never pursue loudness arbitrarily. Maybe you write a banger and it just wants to be loud. Maybe you write a chill lofi tune and it wants to be not loud.
@@Baphometrix Well the question posed in the comment you showed in the video was basically, can you clip quiet sounds that don't hit 0db in a loud song/genre. Pretty much what I'm asking is if you could perceive of an instance where one might want to clip a quieter sound that doesn't hit 0db in a quiet song/genre.
King baphy, making shit simple for the little guy. #1 UA-camr for the people lol
Love the explanation of Saturate which was way more clear than anything I got from RTFM. Now I will have a better response when people ask why I use it to my usual "I just like it" answer haha. Interesting that it adds 40ms in Bitwig - it is 18ms in Cubase. Having said all that, I think you have pretty much convinced me to put K Clip on my default project now! By the way, check out Dash Glitch's channel if you haven't already - another UA-camr that you now have championing CTZ!
In Bitwig it's 20.3 ms. (I was pulling a number off the top of my head.) And yeah, I saw that!
Just out of interest, are you in Vancouver by any chance? I just ask as you have the exact same way of explaining things as one of my mentors over here who was an engineer over there before being poached by the Canto-pop scene in the 80s. And I don’t just mean your accent, it is your whole demeanour. It is pretty unreal!
@@Tutorial_ism Haha! No, I'm from Los Angeles originally, now I'm wayyyy across the country in Vermont.
@@Baphometrix 😅 Well, nationality faux pas aside, it is a compliment but you’ll have to trust me on that!
hey pal i love love love your videos!!! and so excited to see all the new ones on new topics that will come in the future - I am working on a song and was wondering if you would be willing to do a pre-master or controllable interactive master when im done? which might be a few months from now lol id be down to get some pricing if so
Thanks again Bapho. Maybe i discovered something.When u made comparison on off on the piano, u said no to hearing differences. I was on my phone at that time( around min 40), ant that's the point: on that device i cleary heard clippng. So, maybe for checking audible clipping a phone (or vst emulation) is better than high range monitoring?
Yep I messed that very last part up. I'll put out a short "correction" video today and let you hear that A/B comparison correctly! As for the piano A/B comparison itself earlier in the video, I didn't explain super well what I was doing. I intentionally added just a small amount of audible clipping so I could make the point that A) when the full mix was playing around it, the clipping on the piano itself was effectively "masked". But then I wanted you to hear that with the same amount of GR done with TrackLimit, you couldn't hear the crackle nearly as much.
@@Baphometrix i ll follow your correction...but, i' ll test if what i said could be true. I will try a source, start to push clipper till i hear clipping, than go back a touch. At that point insert a phone emulation (i think Airwindiws has one), and listen if i can hear clipping.
If everything is clipping at zero, how are you adding any extra colour or widening or whatever other plugins on the master before final limiter without it immediately peaking? Are you gaining down after adding width on the master for example? So ie, getting extra 2db from widening, so pulling down gain 2db after on plugin?
Also, I can't quite wrap my head around why we need to use DP meter on EVERY sound to hit the peaks at 0. Can't the quiet sounds stay quiet? Whats the benefit of making sure they peak at 0 if they don't need to be as competitively loud as some of the other sounds?
THANK YOUU
I have this same question. I've been using DP Meter to set everything to peak at 0 then pull the fader back down to where I want it to sit in the mix. Then if I use BC Gain (VCA Trick) to increase/decrease the gain to increase/decrease loudness it is clipped accordingly. I think Bahpy will tell you it depends lol. I find it's easier to adjust the volume using faders instead of gain utilities at the channel level. Very likely that I'm doing something wrong though.
@@DWREK91 i have similar question about using faders and gain tools in the mix, its unclear to me at the moment what exactly is happening and why you would set levels ay zero with dp meter and then pull back down with a fader or gain tool.
@@nepntzerZer Sorry if I posted this twice, UA-cam decided to stop working midway through for me. Since we know that some saturators may not have auto-gain, but they have clip-protection of 0dB (probably unadjustable), that's one case you can use dpmeter to get the signal up to zero, before you finally decide to clip the signal. Also, even when and if you're hard clipping, you might still want to know what the signal sounds at 0dB before you clip it. That's how I interpret it, anyway, but I can't remember exactly why either; I haven't watched the CTZ playlist in a while.
Great! Thank you very much!
So, watching at 19:46 mins, you're with all those clippers turned ON because the work is almost done.
The right flow should be adding a clipper at each stage we get on, right?
So, the track, then tracks we can sum up, then a BUS, then (as in your case) a pre-Master, and then to the Master.
When we need to change something and it takes to check it out before moving on, we'll need to disable (turn OFF) all subsequent clippers from that point...
Is that right?
I think so...
It sounds obvious but most of us would not think about that at first.
I had this exact question in mind from video two onward- I'm glad I didn't ask before watching the whole playlist. Thank you for the deep dive answer- this series is fantastic.
Being as how you are using Windows and you touched on the subject of resources in this episode, what is ideal in terms of CPU and RAM given a project that uses maybe 50 tracks? Also have you covered how YOU would set up and use VSX from a beginners perspective (I currently use Sonarworks headphone edition and Canopener and am totally monitor-free)?🙂
For some reason, Reaper murders my measly Ryzen 5 2600x even with just 20 tracks or so. Memory is never a problem (32gb is way more than I need). If any track goes above 3% cpu usage in the monitor it's death. So I have to print intermediate tracks to audio to reduce the usage from the virtual instruments and saturators (any NF plugins with their spectral processing just go straight into that number, Punctuate+Saturate on any track is enough to "kill" it, HG-2, Parallel Particles, Sugar, FlexVerb are also pretty bad). The problem is that even if the track has no audio playing the CPU usage is still there. Another trick is to bypass the plugins when the track is silent through automation which is tedious. Thankfully, Reaper allows you to freeze/unfreeze tracks with the press of a button. And the master track is even worse, Elevate or Limiter 6 GE frequently go into the "can't play" territory. That's usually a sign to separate the mastering stage into another project. Which is also tedious but oh well. So if you're one of the home producers that do everything by yourself, I doubt that you'll get away with mid-range desktop unless you use some tricks or make separate projects for production, mixing and mastering.
RAM is for softsynths. If you don't routinely bounce/freeze, etc. and try to run a lot of resource-hungry synths at the same time (VPS-Avenger, I'm looking at YOU), then more RAM is better. I run with 64 GB of RAM. As for CPU, that's a bit harder. Every DAW handles threading and optimization differently. And of course the Mac chips are different from the Windows chips. I use an i9 9900K, FWIW.
@@Baphometrix Thanks B! I'm investing in a i9 XPS with 32GB - hope that's enough RAM for now. I unfortunately got all the way to episode 19 before I discovered just how much extra insight can be gleaned from the comments so I'm gonna have to go through them all again to see if I missed anything on setting up VSX.
@@Baphometrix Thanks, I'm almost there now , i9 x 32GB + Bitwig and VSX... just got to get on top of that whole Listening Bus thing😉
This whole playlist is fire!!! I only have one question.
How should we deal with, the low end that is produced by the clippers we used at every track and bus?
Saturate and Tracklimit sounded more transparent than Kclip. I am low on money and stay to saturate. It does what it should.
1:07:22 if you play the video on 1.5 speed you will hear that there is a problem a distortion in the transients - when you tried track limit it sounds clean
First, you realize that all audio is spectrally skewed at 1.5x playback speed, right? Second, who is going to play back a song at 1.5 speed?
@@Baphometrix yea u right nobody playing in this speed. but sometimes for me it's a nice way to figureout more then u think.
slowing or speeding the song help me arrange better my drums my reverbs tails and I can fix more problems in the production and the song and make it sound better, with that little trick
@@Baphometrix also the kids here on UA-cam and tiktok etc speeding the songs all the time 😁🙈👻
I played this part at normal speed and Track Limit sounded clean AF. Kclip and Saturate buzzed. Saturate sounded maybe like it buzzed slightlyyy less. But Track Limit was clean.
On that bell sound I can hear the clipping. It's just a bit, but I can hear it.
Yep. I clipped that far on purpose. To show that the clipping you hear is masked by the entire mix. Hang in there until later when I put TrackLimit on that sound instead.
@@Baphometrix I watched the whole video and got your point. I just wanted to say that i can hear the clipping while you said you can't. I bet you can hear the clipping too.
Did I miss a gainstaging video? Is there gainstaging done at your busses as default on your templates to make levels of your low, mids and high end sit correctly? Sorry if I missed it I’ve been curious because i had watched illgatez methodology and I believe he said set lows -12 drums -6 and everything else -6 or something
Watch episode 9 "Setting your mix anchor and framework". Dylan's advice to set your (kick) drums to some lower level, your subs 6 dB below that level, and everything else ALSO at least 6 dB below the drums is pretty much the old school gainstaging approach.
@@Baphometrix thank you
Sadly, just bought KClip 3.5 and the first kick I'd pass thru it, has it's bottom freqs cutted and the seems to be passei by a soft clip process becaus the "pnch" área seems to be a bit distorted.
Ok, this kicks shows a not "doritos like" shape, but I thoght KClip could be a lot "friendly" or transparent as we can hear in this tutorials.
Maybe I need some help on that and I'll look for a tip about how to setting up KClip for a really almost bypass sound.
All I was looking for is a way to laser sharp cut, as we say, those transients higher wave peaks...
...and don't mess the sound of the kick.
In this vídeo you Warren about low end and heavy congested with bass stuff could bring some issues to the final results.
Shame on me, sorry.
How Bapho said before your choosen kick isn't meant to be loud
Choose another Kick or lowend
I gotta keep watching but basically what I’m getting here is that it’s okay to be summing over 0 at the master so long as I don’t hear it / don’t like the sound of the clipping?
I stopped halfway through to play around and kept finding myself worrying about a particular sound (that was nowhere near 0db) bringing my master into the red by .01-.03db when combined with the kick that is anchored at 0db. Every track is at or below 0db.
Felt myself start to go nuts and immediately returned here but with this thought in mind.
Thx m8
Cool. I’m usually mixing with a StandardClip on the master with the ceiling off but feel a lot more of the sound with it off. Thanks
also another quick question - I have a set of JBL 708p which i love and everything else i tested under that investment amount did not even come close paired with a JBL 10inch studio sub which at the time when i had a mid to small mixer room was great. now i have moved my home studio into a oversized 2 car garage which is well finished and sound treated. heres the dilemma - should i get the Steven Slate Audio VSX Modeling Headphones and wait on buying an extra sub to help fill the larger room size or should i invest in another sub? the thing is i really want to be able to here the 20hz range where the headphones apparently can do so or should i skip on the headphones and go for a 1000$ sub to help fill the new studio room and buy another VST modeling plugin? Personally to mix the low end is my real issue since the 708p can do the mids and highs really well - thanks in advance for your help! I know in one of your videos you said the headphones is all you use or do you mostly use these headphones?
IMO in that big a space, assuming it's well-treated, and given that you are used to working with a sub already, that's a tough choice. I'm not 100% sure that a "bigger" sub to match that bigger space will give you that much more than your 10-inch sub you already have. But it might? Is it possible for you to audition that sub you have your eye on **in** that space before you commit to buying it? These days all I use is the matched VSX headphones. But I might add back in my subpac just for one more data point. I'm undecided.
Naive Question: does clipping on the individual tracks has anything to do with the plugins we use. E.g. if my project is set at 32 bit float but can it happen that certain plugin e.g. some analog emulation EQ is designed to handle only 16 bit so clipping within it means something ?
Unless you're using some really oooooolllllddddddd plugins this isn't anything to worry about, IMO.
I think it would be a lot easier just to turn down the bus and the clipper threshold in question, then A/B rather than chasing all these clippers up and down your project. Especiallly when doing this 4,5,15,30 times a mixdown.
Is this a bad assumption?
You're free to experiment with modifications to what I show you in this series.
Hi Baphometrix, did you try ACQUA - Fire The Clip? looks interesting
Not yet. Been super busy at work so haven't had time to check it out yet.
Would waves WLM PLUS be a part of a workflow with this method?
I’ve watched all the videos up til now and wonder what other devices might get a similar job done? Like would waves Vitamin substitute for specter? Etc? V-Clip vs K-Clip? Etc…
I think you could substitute several plugins for what I recommend and show in the workflow. They might take a few more steps to set up each time, but if you understand what I'm showing you with my recommended plugins, you'll be fine.
how do you feel about stacking sounds and using a heirarchy of sidechains with soothe/trackspacer/spectral whatever to remove frequencies that overlap, i have good success using that with your method to achieve more layering while maintaining clarity and loudness
I'm a big fan of side-chain ducking to help layered (and overlapping) sounds co-exist nicely. Ducking is part of the overall "arrangement/sequencing" that should be taken care of long before you resort to actual clipping.
Do you use compressors at all, like on vocals or uncompressed sounds? That sounds like a dumb/obvious question.. I never see them on your chains, but that must be on purpose...
Yes, when I want to change the dynamic feel of the sound. Compressors are _definitely_ there in my vocal signals. The rest of my stuff is usually so sound-designed to begin with that just slapping downward compression on it won't do much? OTT is a different story: combined multi-band upward and downward compression combined is a pretty strong sound design tool.
in the comparaison section i found tracklimit more clean i dont listen the clipping (click) at all
im using Ableton
I agree, saturate is fantastic for sound design - making lovely a distorted midrange bass only to clip it and loose some high end is avoided. I feel like it can be pushed harder too with a unique sound - but yes its buggy visuals rarely work. I tend to use it on a some higher level busses with more high mid content such as tops, risers/downers, foley etc
Dmg track limit is one of my favourite plugins, for the softer sounds that need taming it can be a night and day difference in distortion levels with little compromise. It can be used like a clipper with short attack from 50 ms up (assuming there is no significant energy below 20Hz) and sound clean. Higher mid range content can get away with slightly shorter times too, because maths haha
Nice video, I look forward to the comparison/thoughts on mastering limiters - there are some good ones out there. I've never tried limitless personally.
Extra question: what do you think about having a rack of two clippers panned L and R independently clipping those mono signals. Some use cases could be hard panned plucky guitars, percussion/foley or stabby midrange basses. I wonder if this would be more transparent than a single clipper instance, perhaps this is how clippers work already - I'm not certain I'm not a developer.. for now at least 😂
Regarding your "extra question" ALL clippers are already fully 100% dual-mono in their action. There's no need to do an LR split with two separate clippers.
@@Baphometrix excellent to know thanks
Hi, thank you for all of your guidance so far, much appreciated. Really well explained, makes a lot of sense. Tried to send you an email but it bounced.... was asking if you get feedback cycle warnings when setting up the listen buss, it's happening after adding an effect track. Bitwig 4.2 Have discussed with support, sent them a project example, apparently its normal and happen on an analog desk?
Yeah, so you'll only run into a feedback loop if you try to put an FX track anywhere **inside** the normal track/bus structure AND you then try to put an FX track **outside** the normal track/bus structure (over on the right, next to the master track). Think about how signals would be routed in this case and you can see why Bitwig warns you. So... by default, Bitwig "helpfully" puts ONE FX track over next to the Master on every new, blank project you create. So since that's sitting there, you cannot put an FX track over inside a group anywhere, or you'll be creating a feedback loop. So just delete that default FX track over by the master, and you'll be able to start doing what you see me doing.
@@Baphometrix Thank you for taking the time to follow up. Shall investigate tomorrow.
Well comparing limiter release time with the tone of sub sine wave. I would love you to go deep with its math :p
It's not an exact science. It has more to do with BPM and where the transient rhythmic pulses sit in typical rock/pop/dance music. You generally want the release to fully open up *before* the next 8th note, but maybe still be **slightly** affecting the 16th notes in between each 8th. If you try to make the release fully open up before the next 16th note, it can be sometimes be a little less "smooth" on tonal material. There's also the question of how long the kick tail itself lasts. Some kicks ring out for longer than a 16th, and you don't always want to be releasing in the middle of the kick tail if the kick tail itself is running up super close to 0 dBFS.
Hi Baphometrix, I'm starting to test your system in my own project. I immediately noticed that some analog tracks, for example the bass track, before entering the clipper, just the fact of normalizing it to zero, creates distortion in some points. It is almost certainly a musician's performance problem, but in these cases, in your opinion, is it possible to use the threshold (as you show in the video) instead of getting to zero db? However, using this system with analog tracks seems to be more complex than with digital instruments because the higher volume can create artifacts on the first ones. Thanks for your disclose work.
If an analog (recorded) track has unwanted (aka "bad sounding") distortion in the originally recorded signal, that's a problem upstream of any gainstaging and mixing decisions you make. And that type of problem is separate from anything to do with CTZ itself. This is a sound design or recording issue, not a CTZ issue.
This might not be the answer you were hoping for, but I'd argue that in this case (re that bass track), working the CTZ way helped you **hear** a fundamental problem with the original signal that you might not otherwise have noticed when working at lower levels of old school gainstaging.
@@Baphometrix In fact, I would hardly have noticed the problem with the track. It sure would come out during mastering after hours of work! Thank you for your answer :)
I’ve been getting a lot of piercing harshness in my snares/claps by clipping to zero on the track. I realized that even though the signal in the DAW’s track meter was reading 0dbfs, on my pro EQ graph analyzer (studio one) it was showing energy from the frequency spectrum +7dB over the 0dB eq line & I realized that was what was causing the unpleasant distortion/harshness. I disregarded the track/eq meter and set the source (Kontakt’s Drumlab) to 0dB and now my pro EQ graph is reading energy capping off at 0db and it’s a much cleaner sound w/ no harshness but the signal level on the pro EQ meter & DAW’s track meter is very low at around -17db true peak. How can one bring the signals peak up to 0dbfs on the DAW’s track meter to “CTZ” without pushing the samples peaks over 0db at the source to avoid irritable harshness?
Something about the Drumlab settings/signal chain and/or the specific snare samples you're choosing are sounding "too clipped" when you get them loud enough to sit at the level you need for your framework sounds? This is what I mean by "not every sound can be made loud enough for a really loud mix". That said, it's surprising you're hitting this on snares, which can usually all take a LOT of clipping very transparently. So I'm inclined to think it's something about Drumlab and the way you've got it set up. Have you tried simply exporting/bouncing some of the snare samples out of Drumlab and seeing if they still give you the same problems?
@@Baphometrix yes I have exported some of the samples and still can hear those harsh irritating resonances that make my eardrums crackle even when the samples are at -12dbtp. I’ve tried various compression settings, tweaked w/ transient shaper parameters, saturation, and have done a lot of EQ cutting all across the samples spectrum to find the unpleasant frequencies causing the issue but once I’ve done my cutting and things sound better the harshness is still there when I boost the make up gain in the EQ to bring the signals level up. I only have this issue w/ sharp transient sounds/snares, rims, and claps..even outside of drumlab.
@@tylus17 - 12 dBTP? You're trying to set the peaks at -12 True Peak? Why on earth? First, True Peak is useless. It's a hoax. It's marketing B.S. No serious pros out there care about True Peak values. The only peak worth worrying about is sample peak. docs.google.com/document/d/1Ogxa5-X_QdbtfLLQ_2mDEgPgHxNRLebQ7pps3rXewPM/edit#heading=h.xa6coj4lv8uh
Now, assuming you meant 0 dBFS (sample peak), even then, why are you trying to somehow clip/crush your peaks so far down? Your sample peaks need to stop at 0 dBFS, not at -12 dBFS. That's with fader at unity, of course. If you need your drum tracks to be quieter, for any reason, you do that by bringing the fader down from unity.
To sum up, any drum sample in your project should be hitting no higher than 0 dBFS pre-fader. And there's no point in trying to make any given drum sample's peak artificially be LOWER than 0 dBFS pre-fader. Let your drum samples take full use of the dynamic range available to them at the loudness level you're trying to hit in your project.
For example, if you're trying to work in a super loud genre like EDM or modern pop, you might be shooting for roughly -9 to -7 LUFS integrated across the loudest section of the song, right? Let's assume you want to just barely get into competitive range and your goal is -9 LUFS. Not in your quiet song sections.... your LOUDEST song section. So that means your total dynamic range in the loudest sections will be Short Term LUFS at -9 dBFS, and SAMPLE peak at 0 dBFS. As I've pointed out in episode 9 "Setting your mix anchor and framework", if you set the max momentary LUFS of your kick drum to -12 LUFS (max momentary), then any song balanced against that "anchor" sound of your kick will easily hit -9 LUFS integrated across its loudest section. Right? So that means your kick drum has a fairly large dynamic range to play with. It's max momentary value will be -12, and it's peaks will have a full 12 dB of range above that, hitting 0 dBFS sample peak.
What about Boz Digital the Wall limiter? Seems pretty damn transparent
From a quick read about The Wall, it seems to have been designed for lightweight use across many tracks in the project. But perhaps slightly more heavyweight than TrackLimit? Considering it also has dithering and bit depth reduction features, etc. like any other mastering limiter. Still, it's probably a fine alternative to TrackLimit if you already have The Wall.
your a legend
Cup of tea ready for this yet again. let's go.
You make the tea; I'll bring the biscuits. 😉
@@Baphometrix do you deliver to the UK? 😅
@@wintourmusic Do my videos NOT deliver? 😆
@@Baphometrix They K-clip the disappointment of the day away
it must be a big cup of tea ,I am only an hour in and I have had 3 beers😂
Unrelated question: what do you think of noise musicians where they have a crazy amount of loudness like +2 LUFS? Even Dan Worrall released a track like "I Won the Loudness War..." (obviously in opposition to loudness). I also wonder if there would be damage to speakers if you have literally every sample at 0dbFS.
Appreciate your work on this series; I've been binge-watching it the past week on 2x speed (except the times where I'd need to hear A/B comparisons). Keep up the good work!
I feel like I've given a lot of my own personal opinion about how loud is too loud throughout this series so far. Some music out there is louder than the specific sound choices and arrangement sounds its best at.
9:06 sorry dude but it's gonna end up in a song sooner or later :)
@@Baphometrix Seriously though, thanks so much for this excellent series. Keep up the great work!
Any thoughts on using the "auto" release option that is available on some limiters? Abletons stock limiter has this option for example
On LIMITERS, the auto release is generally a good idea. On COMPRESSORS, not so much, IMO. The "auto" setting tries to find an optimal release time based on the frequencies that are happening at any given moment.
Thanks so much for this series. Learning sooo much. I think I must have missed it somewhere but why would I not use a limiter at each stage so that I am doing a cascade approach but with a limiter rather than a clipper. I was comparing using KClip and the ableton limiter. Both seem to work. Could you explain or direct me to a video where you explain why I would use the clipper rather than the limiter
You absolutely CAN use limiters instead of clippers. I strongly recommend TrackLimit by DMG Audio for this purpose. The thing to remember is that clippers and limiters sound different and have different results from each other. Some sounds (such as drum sounds) usually sound "better" with a clipper. (Subjective taste!) Gentle, sustained melodic sounds (vocals, many non-edgy lead sounds, horns, flutes, violins, etc.) will usually sound "better" with TrackLimit. More aggressive, edgy mid bass, arp, and pluck sounds? It could go either way.
This is why I use a "Clipper" rack that lets me instantly audition between KClip, TrackLimit, and Saturate. I just pick the one that gives the best-sounding result and then I move on.
@@Baphometrix Aaaaah. ok I get it now. makes sense. Many many thanks
Hmmm I guess I should have watched the video before asking my question. Haha. Sorry man
1:10:23 @Baphometrix When you're demoing the 3 different clippers on the entire mix, it looks like you're switching on the Piano track instead of on the Pre-Master. Am I missing something here?
Thank you SO MUCH for the hard work you've been putting into the series BTW, it has truly been a gamechanger for me :)
Damn. You're right. I messed that one up.