Clipping...

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Carpe Diem

Guest
ok, sort of off the back of the compression topic....but most of my beats are hitting the clipper output...by ear, it doesnt sound like its distorting or anything, but im worried that somethings could end up not sounding how i want them....the only way ive found to prevent this is usually to knock down the drum level, but this leaves the beat extremely weak, so i just stick with the clipping....any help would be hugely appriciated...

and just for the record...i use reason....
 

Elgen

The Moose With The Most.
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 32
i get the same problem as this sometimes, and it sometimes helps to just decrease the velocity on some drums hits, like on a sharp snare or when u have a few hits in a short space of time. hope that helps u out alittle
 
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Carpe Diem

Guest
yeah coo..thanks, a lot of the time i do reduce the sharpness of the snares but they lose that edge... any way i can keep that?!?
 

Fade

The Beat Strangler
Administrator
illest o.g.
One thing I can say is that a lot of people have beats that clip, some really bad. Almost all beats that are sent to me (for various things), I open them in Audition and it's totally clipped. Do you open your final beat in a program like Audition so you can see the entire waveform?

It's tough to get the whole mix to sound loud enough without clipping but the best thing is to make sure all the sounds on each track are recorded around the same level.
 
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Carpe Diem

Guest
yeah, i open the final beat in sound forge, usually its the kick and snare that are clipping so maybe it aint too bad...what difference is it gonna make tho?!? anything too noticeable?
 

Elgen

The Moose With The Most.
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 32
burn yourself a cd with the beat on it if your too concerned, listen to it on your cd player, a car cd player etc. you'll be able to tell if anythings distorting and also how your levels sound on other systems
 

DjDelay

ILLIEN
ill o.g.
One good tip is to get the drum break/track that your using and normalize it to like -0.1db in SoundForge/Cool Edit

The drums may sound a little weaker but then if you turn the gain up to something just over like 105% you "beefen" up the break and it doesn't clip
 
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Carpe Diem

Guest
DjDelay said:
One good tip is to get the drum break/track that your using and normalize it to like -0.1db in SoundForge/Cool Edit

The drums may sound a little weaker but then if you turn the gain up to something just over like 105% you "beefen" up the break and it doesn't clip

ok, so you mean export the drums as a wave file yeah? then normailse? then what? do i reopen the drum rtack in reason as a wave and export the whole track?! sorry if this is dumb, i aint really up on technical ish...
 

berserk

Monster Music
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 33
i gather statistics on the hard limiter then do hard limiting and shit is coooo
 

Phiba Optix

ILLIEN
ill o.g.
Just put a compressor on the master output of your mixer...

Personally I give every single output its own compressor as well as compressor on the master output... This way in the channel settings you can set the compressor to get the exact sound your looking for, then the compressor on the master output just stops everything from clipping...

Hit me up on MSN if you need help with this Carpe...

Holla
 

djswivel

Producer Extraordinaire
ill o.g.
Phiba Optix said:
Just put a compressor on the master output of your mixer...

Personally I give every single output its own compressor as well as compressor on the master output... This way in the channel settings you can set the compressor to get the exact sound your looking for, then the compressor on the master output just stops everything from clipping...

Hit me up on MSN if you need help with this Carpe...

Holla


theres 1 maor problem with this though. when u compress every track, u get a very crappy sounding mix. very flat, and not much dynamic range. compressing everything is the LAST thing u wanna do. Easiest way to fix the problem is do your regular compression on tracks for the effect (not to prevent clips), get your mix the way you want it to sound. Then you can either add a compressor on the final mix, or better yet if the mix sounds perfect to you, just lower the master fader on your mixer a few dB in reason. 2 or 3 db should do the trick if u cant hear clipping at all and its just that damn light in the bottom corner of reason. You wont hear a huge change in your final mix volume, but u should be able to get rid of the clipping
 
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Carpe Diem

Guest
ok cheers guys...phiba ill hit ya up on msn soon...

as for the master compressor...i do use this...my master mixer links up to 3 eqs - low, mids n highs, then these all feed into the main compressor....the thing is on the master comp i only use the default setting as i aint too sure on how to use it props yet...
 

CampO

BEAT u DOWN
ill o.g.
Haha We having the Same Type of Problems Carpe the thing that is Most Frusttrating To me is My Mix Dont Sound Like ITs clipping at all But it Still Does .

It was also wierd Because I solo'd my Kick an Snares And My Bassline and played em together and they would CLip But When I played Either alone they were Fine

O Well MY Boy is in Academy of Art And Design Now So when he is Done he Can Mix my Shit nice an Crisp hopefully
 
E

Equality 7-2521

Guest
a little bit of clipping on anologue equipment is aight because of its "soft clip" nature where it naturally rounds off distortion giving it a pleaseing sound.

clipping in digital land however is another story. mixes should never exceed 0dBFS. if your clip indicator is lighting up, you are getting distrotion, whether you can hear it or not. if you turn your monitor level up louder you probably would hear it but the point is that if the clip light is lighting up, the distortion is there.

if you want your mix to sound as clean as possible, dont let it clip. simple as that.

if its your drums that are causing the clipping, compress them.

i would not recommend compressing everything in your mix. this will squeeze the life out of your mix. why would you want to compress anything that isnt even getting close to clipping anyway?

firstly, get your whole mix balanced so all the sounds are the correct volume in relation to each other. make sure nothing is clipping. if the clip light is lighting up, pull down the master fader. then what you want to do is find out the peak dB level of all the individual tracks in your mix (play each track right through). the bass peak level may be at -5dB and the piano peak level may be at -3dB and the drums peak level may be at -0.5 dB. in this case, compress the drums (since they are closest to clipping) and then raise the overall level of the entire mix. the next thing to clip will obviously be the piano. so you may need to compress that too. but dont compress unless its neccessary. use released albums as reference material and if your shit is competing with those albums volume wise you dont need to compress any more.
 

KIRK T

ILLIEN
ill o.g.
..

Most meters show clipping prior to audible distortion. It's a warning system. Listen with your ears, not your eyes, because there is no calibration standard for led meters. I see alot of computer pgms that show clipping way before dedicated outboard meters do in A/B tests... For individual sounds that are not in the context of a mix yet, probably not gonna be an issue.. But when 32 tracks are running & you're bouncing into the red with every snare hit, back off a little until it's just under, then back off the same amount AGAIN. This will leave room for your mastering engineer to do his thing.

Good luck.
 
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Carpe Diem

Guest
aight cheers guys....

@ equality...ill hit ya up on msn soon k, talk bout it in more detail and what not...

carpe
 
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