Solution for clipping?

[Majestic_Jester]

oops double post...

[Majestic_Jester]

personally i kinda like a little bit of clipping as long as it doesnt take anything away from the quality of the song. Ive heard a load of songs where they use clipping to warp drums into crazy sounds. drums that hit hard then almost cancel out completely and a sonic aftershock follows after it.

maybe its just in what i do, but i have come under the impression that clipping doesnt really happen until you actually compress it cause technically clipping doesnt happen unless you're playing the track really freaking loud, so loud that the speakers the sounds are coming out of cant go any louder. so really you cant clip until its being played really loud outside the computer.

[nostalgic gen]

maybe its just in what i do, but i have come under the impression that clipping doesnt really happen until you actually compress it cause technically clipping doesnt happen unless you're playing the track really freaking loud, so loud that the speakers the sounds are coming out of cant go any louder. so really you cant clip until its being played really loud outside the computer.

Well, it's not really to do with the speakers - they'll keep going until they tear themselves apart - but the amplifier. There's a limit to what the amplifer can take and once this is passed the signal starts to clip. This analogy can be applied to digital clipping as well. With both analogue and digital systems compression is often used as a means to prevent clipping. I know everyone likes to talk about a compressor making things louder but I think this is misleading. A compressor literally compresses a signal (which would indicate it gets quieter) then, after compression, a seperate amplifier is used to boost the amplitude back to a desirable level if required. This may be the same as it was at the input or it may be lower. Occasionally it may be higher. Usually one simply tries to return the signal level to what it was at the input (normalisation).

What's important to realise here is that what we perceive as loudness and the actual amplitude of the signal in question is not necessarily the same thing. Sure, if you increase amplification you increase loudness but if you introduce a compressor into the chain then you can increase perceived loudness without additional amplification at all.

A look back over this thread, on the rest of the forum and on the internet in general should explain why this is the case.

[prophetik music]

Is this the panning knob in the mixer? I don't really understand what you said.

sry this is so late, yosh, but whatever works. if you're going to pan in Fruity, use the panning knobs in the properties box for that channel - its the most accurate. the PanOMatic isn't all that great no matter how you tweak it, and the pan knobs on the basic playlist and the mixer are only so sensitive - not quite as clear as you want. If you do it through the piano roll, its pretty good too because you can control exactly whats panned - but your eyes will fall out of your skull after doing about nine thousand notes - lol - so watch yourself. Just use the panning in the properties - its the easiest and most accurate one to use.

[Nicole Adams]

if you're going to pan in Fruity, use the panning knobs in the properties box for that channel - its the most accurate.

You're talking about the panning knob at the very top of the box of the channel settings, right? Will using this panning knob effectively pan effects, too? What do you think of the panning knob in the step sequencer? That's the one I've mostly used.

...level it so that the loudest peak reaches +0dB max....

"Compression" is the most used answer, but trust me. Nothing has to be at the +0dB range while producing, that's just ported into your head that you "have" to do it. But that's simply wrong, because you kill a lot of the dynamic of a song with it.

Hmm, so how am I supposed to handle clipping? First you say to level it so the loudest peak reaches +0dB max, but then you say doing that kills a lot of a song's dynamics.

[skulkrusha]

...level it so that the loudest peak reaches +0dB max....

"Compression" is the most used answer, but trust me. Nothing has to be at the +0dB range while producing, that's just ported into your head that you "have" to do it. But that's simply wrong, because you kill a lot of the dynamic of a song with it.

Hmm, so how am I supposed to handle clipping? First you say to level it so the loudest peak reaches +0dB max, but then you say doing that kills a lot of a song's dynamics.

I think he's talking about using a compressor to keep outputs at 0db. You can in fact lose dynamics by lowering the volume too much.

[Nicole Adams]

Okay, so the "best" thing to do is level the volume so the peak is +0dB (without using a compressor)? This being for the loudest instrument of the group. Then I can use this instrument's volume as a starting point for balancing my other instruments, right?

[Compyfox]

Exactly, Yoshi.

BTW skulkrusha:

I think he's talking about using a compressor to keep outputs at 0db. You can in fact lose dynamics by lowering the volume too much.

Nope. I didn't talk about using any compressor while producing. You can use one, indeed. But keeping that habbit makes your productions louder and louder and louder over the time without yourself noticing it.

It's the other way, you loose more dynamics while "overcompressing" than lowering the volume and balancing the the instruments.

Well... that's at least my opinion.

[prophetik music]

if you're going to pan in Fruity, use the panning knobs in the properties box for that channel - its the most accurate.

You're talking about the panning knob at the very top of the box of the channel settings, right? Will using this panning knob effectively pan effects, too? What do you think of the panning knob in the step sequencer? That's the one I've mostly used.

The panning knob in the sequencer is directly linked to the one in the channel settings. Also, you can right click on it and use the edit events box to do a lot of automated panning. it takes a little longer, but its better than using the piano roll. it works the same as the piano roll, it just works in values from 0-100% rather than notes.

[Compyfox]

Could you keep the FL related questions and answers in the specific thread please? Because what you're talking about doesn't really count to "clipping".

Thanks.

[Eternal Testament]

What whould you recommend I do to eliminate clipping using a very basic setup:

Soundblaster Live 5.1 card.

Cooledit 2

Basic "came-with-the-PC" 2 speaker setup

Don't ask about my sequencer, it doesn't do shit. (Unless you know anything about Music 2000)

M2K exports the tracks as 44100 16bit .wav (a setting I can't change until I get the .wav into cooledit) so I only have the one wav to work with.

Clipping: The bane of newbie and pro alike.

[prophetik music]

What whould you recommend I do to eliminate clipping using a very basic setup:

Soundblaster Live 5.1 card.

Cooledit 2

Basic "came-with-the-PC" 2 speaker setup

Don't ask about my sequencer, it doesn't do shit. (Unless you know anything about Music 2000)

M2K exports the tracks as 44100 16bit .wav (a setting I can't change until I get the .wav into cooledit) so I only have the one wav to work with.

Clipping: The bane of newbie and pro alike.

holy shit, a two year old thread ressurected.

basically, clipping comes from the audio being too loud. if it's clipping on everything (headphones as well as 2 speaker setup) and it just sounds distorted, turn it down. in general, when a mix gets clipping, just turn the damn thing down a few notches and you'll be fine.

[Splunkle]

Preety much waht Prophet said. Since it seems your sequencer wont let you do any sort of compression/limiting, just turn it all down. Make sure its still balenced, though. If you really want to compress it, you could do that on the wav in cooledit.

[Eternal Testament]

How about keeping a good dynamic range, without sacrificing amplitude and of course no clipping?

[prophetik music]

make the whole song a little quieter, get your dynamic range in there, then normalize later with a wave editor like Audacity or CoolEdit.

[Compyfox]

Normalize only raises volume peaks, compression and limiting can raise the loudness however (and "compress" the dynamics a bit again)... Two very different things.

[Splunkle]

How about keeping a good dynamic range, without sacrificing amplitude and of course no clipping?

The thing is, the distortion introduced by clippling can't be fixed later. But if the whole mix is quiet, that can be eaisily fixed by normalising, or by compressing, which, as Compy mentioned, are different things - they make the mix sound different in the end.

Anyways, lets say you are some classical buff, and thus want your track completely undistorted, and with the dynamics the way they were recorded. Thus, you can't use compression, because that will change the dynamics, but you can normalise. But since you also must avoid clipping, what you do is record everything really low, make sure it is all balanced (you will probably need to turn up the volume on your speakers for this), and then export it. Then you normalise it, which brings the loudest peak up to -0.01 dB or somesuch, and everything else up proportionally, and you will have a track that doesn't clip and has correct dynamics.

Now the normalisation will introduce some distortion, but you will not be able to hear it. I've seen tracks that peaked at -32dB be normalised fine. Compy might know just how quiet is too quiet in terms of wanting to normalise it.

Now the same thing applies if you want to compress it. Just compress it, instead of normalising it. Done.

Disclaimer: I am by no means an expert at mastering. If you think something I have said is wrong, please let me know so that I might learn from it.

[Cerrax]

Normalizing can be fruitless if you've already taken those steps manually when you are creating the mix. I don't have a normalize option in my editor, so I have to do it manually.

Compression, like others said, will mess with the dynamics. I personally try to stay away from compression because too much of it will ruin the song IMO.

Limiting is also problematic, as it limits the peaks of the frequencies, this can result in a strange sound in the mix if by some strange event a frequency spikes in the song, it will not do that with a limiter on it and may make the song sound bad.

Normalizing is probably your best option. Or just don't make it so loud.

[SnappleMan]

I'm gonna probably repeat what's been said a few times over in this thread, but I'm gonna give you my process of dealing with clipping and mastering in general.

The mixing process of a song is the most important, because that's where you should add your EQ, effects and per channel compression. The way I do things is, I do all of my mixing work without any clipping. Meaning, the tracks peak is always at about -.2 to -.3 dB, never any higher. This means that it's the entire songs peak, not the individual tracks, which makes the RMS very low (the way it should be for a pre-mastered track). I get it to sound the way I want here. I turn my amp volume high up so I can hear everything in the track without compressing it, and I mix it like this.

Now that it's mixed properly, and the peak is at that level, I bounce everything to the main mix track, and I start the mastering process. When mastering, the only thing I do is add compression, and slightly tweak the track's EQ to shape the sound how I want. The amount of dynamics that I'm willing to sacrifice will determine the loudness of the track. If I feel that the track isn't as loud as I want it, and if more compression will ruin too many of the dynamic elements, I GO BACK AND REMIX THE TRACK!

I can't stress that enough, the mixing stage is where all of the most important work should take place. Mastering is only there to make it loud and bring out some things that mixing cannot.

Always mix your track at a safe volume, otherwise you'll end up with an overall bad song that doesn't sound good mastered.