STOP Using Clippers If You Don't Know This!

[@mixbustv]

Trying to answer a common question already popping up in the comments: NO, I have never said "don't use saturation or clippers on your 2bus" Just be aware of this, so it's easier to hear if you're overdoing and overcooking things with saturation, because certain types of (bad) distortion it's hard to hear if you don't have trained ears AND most importantly, a good monitoring system. That's it. Thank you all! BUY THE COURSES AT www.mixbustv.com/ CHECK THIS OUT ➡➡ shorturl.at/anrW7 USE THE SUPER THANKS IF YOU LIKED THIS VIDEO! 👆👆👆

[@mateuszzawocki1405]

You can understand as more complex sound more distortion and unwanted noise which can be hard to handle. Sine wave is great example because of easy way to see a representation of harmonics added during saturation process.

[@mixbustv]

@thisguy5611 the only thing not making sense it's stupid arguments over a simple example. Anyone with a brain who mixed for a week understands there's a difference between a mix and a sine wave, just like everyone with a brain understands there's also a difference between an 808 snare sample and a freaking piano. It's not hard, this is not the place where you try to look smart.

[@acdnrg]

Honest question: If the newbie engineer can´t hear it without trained ears and a good monitoring system - most listeners won´t either. So why care? When does bad distortion really become relevant? On the other hand, distributing saturation/distortion across multiple sources gives a lot more of control, and that´s the bigger reason in my humble opinion.

[@BigEarBerry]

@@acdnrg I’ve thought about this before too. I think it comes down to records competing with each other. If you hear an overcooked mix on its own, it might just sound loud. But if you hear it next to a properly cooked mix that’s just as loud (or more likely louder because the mastering engineer could do more with it), then the overcooked mix sounds relatively gross.

[@mollyoko]

@@acdnrg shit in shit out mentality.

[@AKAtAGG]

looks like a UFC fighter, talks like a magician. Good stuff as always.

[@Vignushead]

😂😂😂

[@onealforde7624]

Looool

[@mixbustv]

😄

[@justin.johnson]

At first we're like, who the F is this guy? Then we grow to LOVE David 😊

[@GrisibagageSnnaa-qz6zw]

Think he can fight?

[@sirwanmusic]

This is very eye opening. Using saturation on mixbus must be really really gentle

[@florianarndt]

Perfectly showcased why it's more beneficial to saturate/clip in stages!

[@kelainefes]

Wow, you did keep it short, but still, this is one of the most useful videos on KZbin in regards to clipping/saturation.

[@NerismaStudios]

Watching this backs up completely what I remember a fairly well known producer said: “your mix should be so well done, all you need on your master is a limiter.” Maybe a bit extreme, BUT it has me completely reevaluating my entire mixdown process, this singular video. Thank you for uploading this.

[@ChrisJustice]

This is a BRILLIANT way to show the difference in how processing individual tracks and busses can yield far better results (especially with Clippers) than just trying to do it ll on the mix or even the master buss. Well Done!!!

[@StevieBoyesmusic]

It's the same reason that when using heavy distortion/fuzz on guitar using fewer or single notes and notes close to a simple ratio (2:3:4 power chord or maybe 4:5ish:6 major chord) sound better than eg minor chord (5:6ish:15). The distortion creates sum and difference frequencies often much lower than the original sounds.

[@adamsmith7058]

There's a few synths that compensate for that. Uhe's Repro 5 applies distortion at the per voice level and you can create some quite quite complex sonorities using this before everything turns sour. One of the iterations of Access Virus also did this, but if I remember correctly, it calculated a more consonant tuning for each chord. Although it's difficult to see how that would work practically without some latency.

I think this is one of the best videos on this subject I've came across. Simple, concise and really eye-opening. Thanks for this David.

[@madzondemand]

the best audio/visual mix master teacher on the planet , never feel like theres a single second of filler in ur videos . rock out david

[@mixbustv]

🙏

[@iamjonklein]

Very true, there's no waiting, only learning - thanks!!!

[@patrickanthony3572]

Nice video. Usually do 0.5db to max 1.5db clipping when on the master bus/2 bus. Sometimes no clipping at all here if done methodically on individual tracks and buses.

[@Middlestepofficial]

Awesome video. Exactly what I felt when I was attending a recording and mixing session of a friend at a studio. When the mixing engineer slapped a clipper on the master bus and tried to address the peaks, shivers went down my body. I told my friend, I'll do your mixing for free bro just do the recording and let's get the hell out of here

[@MoveTrueRecords_]

We need this cause alot of people just throwing clippers on everything now

[@Firetracks]

Facts!

[@montyrayza7220]

Thanks man, I've been engineering, mixing and mastering since the 90s and seldom learn anything on KZbin that I hadn't already figured out yet I learn from you from time to time and enjoy listening to someone who thinks like me and knows his shit. You are definitely the best out here. Thanks and keep it up brother.

[@mixbustv]

Thank you!

[@Simbosan]

This reminds me of finding out that certain intervals on guitar thru a valve amp can give very bizarre sounds. This makes so much sense now. Lesson learned, thanks!

[@M-Murray96]

A man who looks like, well, he's not afraid of clippers.

[@brandonbritton7032]

😂

[@fivebyfivesound]

Such a clear and demonstrative explanation of the topic. I’ve noticed that clipping at mix bus stage definitely tends to create more unpleasant distortion than trying at the instrument bus level. Now I understand why on the analytical level. Thank you so much 🙏🏽

[@Okayymatt]

These short form illustrative videos are some of the most helpful I've seen on audio engineering topics. Nice work, and thanks a lot.

[@LouieShowers]

Eye opening! Looking forward to implementing this. Thank you

[@cholkymilkmirage4984]

This is a great video that we should ALL be aware of. There is a fine line for clipping, saturating, limiting and even compressing on the master / 2bus. good to always get more and more minimal as you get higher up the signal flow. On tracks I go ham and cut and clean as much as I can, but on groups and what not I try to take a more relaxed approach. Its like trying to hear for candy or what sounds like its "in key" when adding saturation to groups and trying to keep things "In key" when clipping groups.

[@WillLawrenceUK]

"good to always get more and more minimal as you get higher up the signal flow" - that's the sentence right there!

[@myweirdtaste8090]

Well explained. Rule of thumb: Don't use any sound processing on the master bus (mix), except going for very small adjustments to optimise loudness (as what the Mastering engineer usually would do).

[@O.Zchannel]

I use limiters and clippers in mix only, if on master, I do it in a very subtle way to not smash the signal too much.

[@rrs731]

Short and clear! Thank you for ALL your work David

[@robshrock-shirakbari1862]

Makes sense when reflecting on the Olden Days... we didn't cram a lot on the mix bus, if anything. But by the time you had used a nice mic (sometimes a tube mic) into a quality signal chain of preamps, consoles, DI boxes with transformers, then printed that to tape (oftentimes through a compressor and EQ on the way), then played that back through the console and printed that mix... there were plenty of stages that would shave off rogue transients, add some nice saturation and distortion and generally "condition" the signal beyond its pure original signal. And all of that happened at the individual track or instrument level for the most part. So when you were combining all these signals in the end for the final mix you weren't trying to add a lot of color at that point. Just blend and balance, add your effects and capture a great mix. Not surprising that a lot of the recordings we hold in highest esteem were approached that way. Not this trend for overzealous top-down mixing with crazy Mix Bus chains... which I'm not a particular fan of, btw.

[@timepainter6831]

Thank you for showing this, I had some mixes I didn't use saturation on tracks, and in laziness on my master, and when I hear some old mixes I made the same mistake. And the last mix sounded fine until I started pushing loudness. Actually it's complete logical but sometimes you need a demonstration!

[@indyawichofficial1346]

Many useful advices shared here & true gems for those not in the know. ☆☆☆☆☆

[@arthur.monticelli]

David always comes up with the most mind blowing content on mixing. Thank you!!

[@markcole4001]

This is a wonderful revelation. It is causing me to completely re-think the placement and use of saturation tools in the mixing process.

[@roogrey]

A superb lesson, David; clear and simple. Plus it's always good when I find out I've been adopting the right approach without knowing it. It didn't make sense to me in a mixing scenario to add a clipper to the 2bus when I had the opportunity to sort out any issues before they got there. Besides, it just sounded better! Now I know why! 😂

[@davidthiele9952]

Unbelievably eye opening. Thank you so much for making the world a better place!!!!!

[@CypiXmusic]

Oh wow, thanks so much! Love to learn more on the technical aspects of mixing!

[@djrandalldean]

WOW! So many other youtubers have preeched saturating at the bus level, but i can see that was a gross over generalization that has me wanting to go and crack open all of my WIPs! Thanks!

[@ES60Hz]

Thanks, buddy, for the well-explained video! One question in my mind: what about compressors? And what about bus compressors? Where are they standing with this information?

[@theocorfiatis8324]

Excellent demo of intermodulation distortion! super clear. I'm wondering if hardware clippers are better able to deal with complex signals as opposed to plugins ......

[@mixbustv]

What hardware clippers?

[@theocorfiatis8324]

@@mixbustv I was thinking of Mastering grade DA converters on a Lynx Hilo, being clipped. But after listening to Acustica Ash, I'm not sure I can hear any difference between that and the hardware.

[@rishabhbose29]

Hands down of the most important information that I have come accross. Thanks a ton for this David.

[@obiwantschernobyl5650]

Thats quite the difference. I am not that educated on these but i tend to limit/saturate/clip single tracks (maybe some drumgroups together) in a small amount and rather add 2-3 of them but always touching the peaks. Then i put a limiter on the master and look how the whole mix behaves and if i see peaks in the master limiter i go back to finding out which single track is peaking too much out of the mix and gently tame it with mentioned tools. Sometimes i still use compressors ( especially for fatter drum sounds and taming synths a little) but overall limiters, clippers and saturators i found give you better control and get louder mixes without weird distortion sounds if you handle them with caution. I try to avoid such tools in bigger groups because i found the sound really changes and when you look at the eq its suddenly all over the place. I am guessing that's what you are showing with your examples. Of course there can be cases where you actually want this dirt in you track. :)

[@RockstarRecStudio]

Great video Dave! Can you please do a new studio/rack tour? You have a ton of new things now!

[@trashunicorn2308]

+1 for the gear tour

[@aleksamrkela831]

+2 for the studio tour! Also a tour of the Bunker Recording Studios!

[@mixbustv]

I'll make it happen

[@lespieces]

What a useful video! There are TONS of established KZbinrs that swear by their magic mastering chain, including saturation and clipping for that sought after ''extra loudness or perceived loudness''. That explains the feeling I had where my mastering is louder but not better, never knew why, I was a fan of saturation in mastering.. Wondering now if Saturn2 or Kazrog True Iron is safe on the master....

[@alfieholloway]

Brilliant video. This teaches so many lessons in one simple example. Thanks

[@MatthiasLindemann-hp2zr]

Thanks, that helped me, I always had the feeling that something sounded distorted somewhere. That made me really aggressive because I didn't know where it was coming from. It was especially distorting on the sub-bass track, but that's gone now.

[@Foxxear]

Really good example, thank you. I tend to mix this way as much as possible already, just because it seemed like a good idea, but it's nice to see and hear concrete examples of what kind of difference it makes. It is so much better to be sure of what you're doing and why. I think even if this video got into a more technical explanation of intermodulation, the best way to start such a breakdown would be with this kind of simple example, to make it absolutely clear WHAT phenomena we're trying to understand. Some tutorials get way too technical before the audience has any idea where its all going, and it makes learning fundamentally harder to anyone who isn't already pretty familiar with the subject

[@jeffrosen2010]

Wow I never thought of this. It makes perfect sense, thanks for opening my eyes!!

[@BarakaBlanka]

Amazing!!!! Thanks for this, this explains the hassles I had with Saturation Plugins on my Master Bus, I thought the plugins are bad and stop using them

[@Keroser1983]

THIS IS AMAZING!!! Learning by example and all to the point. Very very good.

[@seamajorseven]

This is why it’s good to mix INTO a clipper or saturation instead of slapping it on at the end.

[@mixbustv]

You're not changing what's happening tho.

[@SoCalPatriot]

Awesome video. Thank you!

[@musicman8942]

Thanks David for this video. I would say eye opener but it's more an ear opener. Good to both see and hear what the difference is.

[@aleksamrkela831]

This is gold. I assume a similar principle would apply to analog color boxes (542s, HG2, SSL Fusion)? Of course, there's the caveat that they're more forgiving when it comes to saturation.

[@musicman8942]

I would say that yes it would apply to color boxes/plugins as well. But analog hardware? Not so much for the same reason analog summing is more forgiving of signal input.

[@aleksamrkela831]

@@musicman8942 Thought as much!

[@chJBO1973]

Thank you so much David, this was definitely eye opening! Going to change my workflow.

[@DerekPower]

I have heard from others too that these kind of processes work better on individual elements or even groups rather than on an entire mix (and by extension the master). If nothing else, those kind of processes can help bring a distinct character to that element and in turn will also help bring cohesion for the entire mix. And a lot of time, that’s all that is needed. An additional thought: I’ve found that you have to be careful when applying additional character to an overall mix. Now, it helps to have some kind of intent behind it. But also, you have to be aware of what it is doing and make adjustments accordingly. For instance, tape-based saturation will have a frequency bias depending on its formula. If you want to use say Type I, which leans toward the low-end, be aware that the low-end will be emphasised more than you probably think. At any rate, good job sir in making the point simply. Let the rage talk commence 😁

[@Rareos]

Not saying there isn't value in this tip, but did you attenuate the gain on the 2bus before going into the Decapitator to compensate for the input difference? If you are not doing so, you are hitting the 2bus decapitator hotter and saturating more.

[@mixbustv]

Not the point. You can attenuate as much as you want and hitting it even lower, the result will not change (especially with plugins)

[@Rareos]

@@mixbustv of course it’s the point, you were trying to isolate the difference, and if you didn’t attenuate the input exactly by the difference in volume that two sine waves are vs one (probably -6db), most of the mess and the difference in sound you referred us to is coming from decapitator’s response to a hotter input, so of course it’s going to create more complex harmonics. Also interesting you make no consideration of how the 2bus instance would be making musically related harmonics (when the test is not a sine wave of course) vs the individual channels. There is obvious value in the harmonic “mess” you’re talking about, one mostly just needs to think about these tools respond differences in input level and to see the benefits of 2bus saturation vs channels or groups.

[@lucapretorius]

Having 2 signals feeding the clipper/decapitator, the input gain is higher, so the amount of distortion. The clipping for the single channels has lower gain and low distortion too. That's another reason why it changes sound

[@mixbustv]

I promise you the plot will look exactly the same. We can try if you want

[@lucapretorius]

@@mixbustv I'll definitely try tomorrow! Keep doing videos like this, great job

[@nerdexproject]

This is one hell of a fantastic video! Thank you so much!

[@ruminantrecords]

Always wondered if all those tutorials with Plugin Doc using a single sinewave on a saturator reflected real world scenarios. Clearly not, Brilliant demo, very useful to know. Thanks!

[@fakshen1973]

I'm late... but it's genre dependent a lot on the main mix. There are genres of music where that nastiness can sound great. It's very, very program dependent. You can think of the clipping as even an effect in those cases and not a dynamics tool.

[@damienharrison1]

I was just having a problem with two synths I was trying to layer with distortion, I think this could be the problem! Thanks for sharing.

[@TracingFlares]

Oh! this thing alone is huge. Thanks!😅

[@duncan.o-vic]

This is all well when your goal is the color, but the reason you're using a clipper is to shave off the peaks and if you sum the two clipped tracks you are getting significantly higher peak level than if you clip the 2bus.

[@mixbustv]

No you're not.

[@duncan.o-vic]

@@mixbustv whatever man

[@kaveiros75]

Now... this is a really eye-opener video! Thanks a lot!!!

[@odecasa]

Very good explanation!! I have a lot of problems just when using vintage emulations, which already implement a lot of saturation. For me, it's very difficult to know if I'm overdoing it until I finish the mix.

[@billyhughes9776]

Great info David -- I have stayed away from using clippers on my 2Bus. I've tried it and almost always don't like the results. Your great example lets me know my ears were not lying. Saturation on individual tracks or buses, that's it.

[@happyshadow]

This video is a massive oversimplification. You can clip the 2 bus, you just have to make sure ur not clipping sustained musical moments. Clipping is one of the best ways to tame stray quick peaks in any material.

[@billyhughes9776]

@@happyshadow Ok -- clip way and have fun. Cheers!

[@alessandrosummer]

Interesting. I usually put a clipper on the Master bus but only to shave off the very top of the highest peaks: therefore I can't hear any obvious nasty distortion. As you said it's gonna be really bad if you abuse it, not if you just go very soft with it, right?

[@mixbustv]

Yes

[@RutgerS.]

Working on a higher sample rate also increases the intermodulation distortion

[@mixbustv]

Could. Not a rule, it's not as straightforward

[@GloveBunniesVideos]

Great video. Thanks so much for clearing this all up.

[@stevewills735]

Wow that sounds very destructive on the bus. How about light clipping on the 2 bus? or do you not recommend it at all? How about mastering? would that be like throwing it on the 2 bus as well? cheers!

[@NikolausBrocke]

Very helpful. It proofs what experienced mixers thought anyway.

[@2grandbaby854]

In the engineering world, “good” or “bad” is very much subjective. At the end of the day, science aside, a good sound is all that matters. Proper monitoring, converters, and ear training will reveal problems in the mix. What I don’t like however is how this guy responds to comments that disagree with him. Rude and petty comebacks don’t make for the most respectful space. Not to mention, YOU’RE the content creator and the professional here, so act like one and take the high road when responding to viewers.

[@kayahanli]

Great example! Video title should better include "saturator" as well, as not only clipper but also saturator is demonstrated very well. Thanks!

[@jason.martin]

This is a great demonstration of this, brilliant as I was unaware of this. This works well for ITB, I am just trying to think of the application if mixing on a console.

[@mixbustv]

Analog is quite different, we can say more forgiving..

[@jason.martin]

@@mixbustv So this would be more for ITB mixing in your opinion. Do you mix entirely ITB or do you use a summer? love your channel

[@raymondspagnuolo8222]

An eye opener. Thanks for posting!

[@philburns5656]

Best educative video ive seen in a long time. Thank you so much!

[@SebastianKomor]

......hold my coffee while I go through some mixes lol. This is pretty massive.

[@AlexChitu-np6jd]

Great eye opener / video. Question: 1) If you only use decap or other effects on individual tracks only, if you bounce the mix, re import in a new project on its own and use decap or other effects, is it better then using decap on entire mix, since the whole song is now renedered on a single track? Or is it still a bad idea to use effects like decap? 2) What processing should be used on entire mix?

[@mixbustv]

First of all I would not use decapitator on a full mix. That's way too heavy handed. But it's not a matter of numbers of tracks, it's a matter of content of that track. A full mix is a full mix whether you bounce it or you play it from the individual tracks into your 2bus. The last question unfortunately has no answer. Whatever is needed. But I want to point out that I've never said, here or anywhere else that one shouldn't use saturation or clipper on a mix, just pointing out something to keep in mind when and if one does it.

[@Mind_Splitter]

Wow that's actually crazy. Great experiment!

[@lolaurent5606]

Maybe my favorite channel... Always good stuff here. Thx buddy. Greets from belgium 🇧🇪

[@johnkeable5304]

A lot of people need to watch this video. There are way too many channels of people putting out mixing advice and songs are so distorted in the worst way 💩

[@huberttorzewski]

But don't you think that the individual tracks are also complex signal? Of course more instruments at once are even more complex but individual tracks are quite far from "simple" signal when you have a ton of different harmonics etc. for example in the real drums, guitars, vocals etc.

[@mixbustv]

Yes but the most common mistake you see is people trying to clamp down their drum transiens at the mastering stage to reach level. So compare a kick or a snare vs a piano or guitar chord

[@unterwasserbeatboxer]

​@@mixbustvyou opened my ears for this topic. I'm curious if I will have some acoustic insights on this, I will definitively compare those szenarios listening closely. I bet it is like allways: It depends on the desired outcome and settings and input.

[@ITSYABOYDONTE]

I just watched this exact same demonstation on another channel that I follow. I don't know who did it first, I really don't care. I will say yours was a little easier to understand and grasp though even though its exactly the same.

[@mixbustv]

Well I got not time to watch other channels so :D

[@korymcintyre]

Thank you for this information…such an excellent example of the difference. 😎👍🏻

[@kayhuang333]

That's a big difference. Great video.‼

[@nikezooms]

excellent example. really gots home with many things i’ve been thinking about lately. I spose i’m general it’s good to have more heavy load distortion-producing processing at the being of single sounds, and pair it off less and less as you go up through groups, pre-mastering, mastering? or is that too simplified an explanation? I used to saturate a lot but i’m doing it less and less in general these days. Can I ask a final question - what is your favourite 3 plug-ins for saturdation in the mastering stage, if you havd to choose? I find decapitator a little to uncontrollable (i like to have multiband control/mid side when possible.) thanks, from Ireland

[@gmpro9159]

Awesome video again, thank you

[@drrodopszin]

I think it is important to learn the bad sound of distortion and what to "hear" for. Low end of a kick might usually gets terrible, but it has a specific sound you can learn.

[@mixbustv]

Exactly, and it's hard to spot if one doesn't have good monitoring

[@jdigital1]

Wow! Huge Difference, This Is An Amazing Video Thanks!

[@secretvegans377]

Short and sweet & 2 tha point -thanks!

[@onejohnonenine]

I watched a video from the channel Hardcore Music Studio a few days ago and asked if I should use a clipper on other tracks than drums, since he was demoing his plugin on drums. He kindly replied but told me "no, just on drums and master" or something like that. Now that I see this experiment it makes sense to use it on groups rather than the master bus, as he told me...

[@mixbustv]

Oh yeah the same guy who ripped off my snare saturation video 😄

[@onejohnonenine]

@@mixbustv 🫢

[@unterwasserbeatboxer]

Hm. Maybe I am too unexperienced with this, but I won't learn if I don't ask my questions: With these sinewaves it is obvious, that the signal gets more complex, adding several simple sinewaves, but this for me seems far off any reality in mixing (except in electronic musik), right? Isn't even an electric bass sound allready a very complex signal in its frequency spectrum? Is it really getting more complex when mixed with electric guitars in a way that matters in the observed regards? Are drums mixed with electric bass getting more complex in its dynamic spectrum behaviour?

[@unterwasserbeatboxer]

I love frequency selective saturation, and there will even be a big difference when putting lets say a bandpass before or after a clipper... so this topic gets as deep as you like to look at it.

[@djterminus]

It will not necessarily be as immediately apparent, but it's the principle of it that is important to keep in mind. He used the sine waves because, like you said, the difference is obvious. But if you think that multiple complex signals combined might not be significantly more complex, you are probably letting yourself be tricked by what you personally interpret from spectrum analyzers. You can disprove that theory just by listening. Like in your example, yes drums and electric bass are both quite complex signals, often covering a majority of the audible spectrum. It can be difficult to appreciate their nuances just by looking at an analyzer. But you can prove and understand their deep complex differences just by listening. A full drum kit and an electric bass sound nothing alike. No one would hear one and think it was the other. And you might see on an analyzer what to you don't look like significant differences between the complex signals of a distorted electric guitar and the entire mix, but the mix is many magnitudes more complex (typically, assuming many tracks and/or a variety of tracks). No one would be incapable of hearing the difference between a guitar stem and the entire mix. His point is that if you try to process everything at the end, you will end up with a different result to the person who painstakingly applied processing in small doses over the course of the whole project. The difference could be very significant, or it could be very minimal, so we should be mindful of this principle. Maybe we want to use the intermodulation distortion for a desired artistic purpose, whether on one group of tracks, or on the entire mix. It's up to us. But if we don't even know the differences that result from our processing methods, then we limit our options and understanding of signal processing unnecessarily.

[@unterwasserbeatboxer]

Now THAT is an answer!! Thank you very much!!! I still have to analyse how I will reflect on my perceptions. I see a danger in the oversimplification of the example which maybe opens up 'qualities' which only occur in such a minimalistic setup while this is in no way in contradiction to your observations. Thank you for your detailed point of view!

[@djterminus]

@@unterwasserbeatboxerYeah for sure I totally understand what you mean. Just to prove your point there are already quite a few people in the comments asking, "So does this mean don't use clippers or saturators on my mixbus?"

[@mixbustv]

@djterminus thank you, you saved me the typing :D

[@Narz3000]

Eye opening, for sure. Thank you for the info.

[@Flimpy74]

Great explanation video, thanks. Its not new topic, but it demonstrates why it is so. Makes me wonder, does make sense to take it even further... would it make sense to split existing track (e.g bass) to base freq and harmonics and process them separately...in edm its anway done often, but can it be done in other genres

[@Flimpy74]

yea, can be done, just tried it... melodyne is not only for vocals.... :) Grazzie David

[@Rolanoid]

Wow! Huge difference. Pure gold.

[@andywilson2177]

Thanks David for the eye opening video! I'm curious how IMD relates to aliasing (inharmonic) distortion, if at all? Do they interact in some (unpleasant) way? Because more instances of saturation means more aliasing right. Is the answer just always use oversampling and use good quality clippers that don't create lots of aliasing in the first place. Thanks again for the great video!

[@mixbustv]

It does relate, long -ish subject. The short version would be the usual bleeding into the audible range, that bleeding is IMD. And yes in many cases OS solves that, it's also not the only way. Tokyo Dawn Labs is probably the best source if you want to read and dig deep. Fabian is a very smart and prepared guy on the matter

[@le-berry]

Saturation on the 2 buss is recipe for less focus. Most producers who do this aim for loudness but aren't aware of compromises. I use a little VSM-3 m/s distortion on the 2 buss to get life into genres like EDM and techno and that works great. Do saturate parts (where usefull) but never on the buss.

[@AliR]

Sure, but whichever sound we choose and solo, won’t be as simple as a sinewave and since whichever sound has timber (that isn’t a sine wave) will kinda act as if we’re adding saturation to the the 2 bus. As no sound consists only of one wave frequency. So wherever we use saturation, the ugly looking result will be kind of the only option (unless we’re using it on a tracks that are made of single sine waves) What do you think?

[@mixbustv]

Of course, but a snare is always gonna be more complex than a piano

[@VinceJackson1]

Amazing video! Never thought about the technical side just felt like each track especially drums would benefit from it own clipping since they have different peaks & I could monitor the change in sound. This takes my theory to the next level 💯

[@danm3570]

thanks for explaining buddy, maybe I won't use distortion as glue for mix now 😁

[@mohammedabduljabbar-kg4wp]

Is analog saturation more forgiving on the 2bus? Intermodulation is digital right?

[@mixbustv]

It is yes and of course you don't have aliasing

[@mohammedabduljabbar-kg4wp]

@@mixbustv thanks for the answer!

[@Boaugustin]

in opposition, for sound design, that could be way more interesting to saturate multiple audio tracks to get unique sound, like you did on the master bus, the sound that created is in a way quite nice and could be a beautiful drone/ pads sound with weird tonat texture ! Very interesting video by the way !

[@adamsmith7058]

My thoughts exactly. It's a different take on the sort of cross modulation you get with complex oscillators one might find in Buchla Modular for example. In fact, David's demonstration inspired to use this method to created to create some multisamples using a sine tone at different pitches.Something like that would make an excellent modulator in Reaktor toybox, Reaktor Eurorekt, Cherry Audio Modular or VCV.

[@danzo9528]

Yeah i think the best way to use a clipper on 2bus is by just limiting 0,5-1db to give the limiter a bit more space to work

[@onteraction8294]

Gain stage properly and use clipper if it suits you’re tune characteristically . It can be used heavily if everything done right.

[@onemic-theminimalist]

I have never mixed sinewaves before, so this isn't an issue for me. Each track has complex waveforms, harmonics, and even some distortion.

[@mixbustv]

And obviously you never explained a mixing concept, not even a very simple one, to anyone. And how funny, 808's are sines, and half of the synth lines on modern music are too. 👍

[@onemic-theminimalist]

@@mixbustv 808s and synths don't produce perfect sinewaves. They all have harmonics and some about of measurable distortion. BTW - please don't make assumptions about me.