The Science of Clipping - The ULTIMATE Tool for Loudness + Punch

[@warpacademy]

Some people have been asking about Standard Clip here, because they're not able to reproduce the same overshoots I observed in my session. So I captured a screenshot of the session, Standard Clip settings, and meters for you below. Also, Nicholas Di Lorenzo from @panorama_mastering just published a good video that shows how the overshoots happen in Standard Clip and why they happen on some material but not other material. You can watch that here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fXjMfXSefbV7jJI. First of all, I'm clipping very gently here. A couple dB on super short audio events. Mainly just the snare. I'm not pushing the clipper hard at all. Check this out: capture.dropbox.com/UY8A1izXIQNtEJFU You're most likely not seeing the overshoots because Standard Clip has 2 clipping stages. The first is oversampled, and the second is a 0X non-oversampled hard ceiling (called "Ceiling" in the plugin). If you leave the Ceiling engaged, then the second clipping stage hides the overshoots from you by applying more clipping. If you disengage the Ceiling parameter, you see the true peak level overshoots both in sample peak and true peak (true peak overshoots being higher). The same is true for K-Clip and most other clippers with oversampling. They usually have a second 0X OS ceiling. And in fact, you see the exact same thing in iZotope RX Audio Editor. When you use the Resampling process to downsample anything, you'll see the parameter "Post Limiter" engaged by default. They need a post-downsampling limiter to catch these overshoots. This is because the Fourier transform process with the sinc function related to the lowpass filter used in anti-aliasing will cause higher and higher overshoots the more Fourier partial harmonics are used. The more oversampling used (and the more extreme the downsampling) the higher the overshoots will be. Some people have commented that they're not seeing overshoots using Standard Clip with the ceiling off, so we're investigating this further. It could have to do with the material being run through the clipper and the project sample rate. I'll post more info here as I learn more.

[@SR1B]

Hey there. Btw, Gold Clip also has a « ceiling » function, it’s called « Clip Guard » (it’s found in the settings), and that’s probably why you don’t get overs. Edit: Gold Clip does also have a LPF, which also probably contributes to the absence of overs.

[@warpacademy]

Hey hey. Yes, first thing I do with any plugin is read the manual and discuss the plugin with the creator or the support team. I'm aware of the Clip Guard and it is off. It's off by default, and I left it off. It has nothing to do with the presence or absence of overs in Gold Clip in this example. It's a legacy feature from before Ryan developed the anti-derivative anti-aliasing process currently used and now it's basically obsolete. Regarding the LPF, there are actually quite a few places where low pass filtering can occur in Gold Clip. Are you referring to the Box Tone feature? If so, I'm not using it. Or maybe you're referring to the Clip Filter, activated with the LPF button on the clipper shape area. I'm also not using that. I was careful to set each of the clippers up to be as identical as possible for this test. If you're referring to the downsampling filter, then yes, every single plugin with oversampling has an LPF used in the downsampling process. That's par for the course and every single clipper I showed in this video has it. It is serendipitous that you mention an LPF being the reason why I don't get overs. In fact, it's precisely the opposite. The LPF in most plugins used as the anti-aliasing downsampling filter is the EXACT reason why the overshoots are created in the first place. The source of the overshoots is the process of band-limiting (lowpass filtering) the signal. The reason I don't get overshoots in Gold Clip is because of the self-modulating LPF filter used in the anti-derivative anti-aliasing process Vlad created for Ryan.

[@SR1B]

@@warpacademy I was referring to the LPF on the Clipper button. Which IIRC is pre-clipper (which makes more sense). I was pointing out those elements (LPF and clip guard/ceiling), because they are actual overshoot mitigators. I might have a deeper dive into the ADAA technique. Thanks for the exchange.

[@warpacademy]

Hey hey. Yes, this is a good exchange and lots of deep dive content here. There's one fundamental thing that's key to understand regarding overshoots. It's that of filtering. It's super counter-intuitive and it took me a good while to wrap my head around it. You're thinking that using an LPF is a way of mitigating overshoots. It doesn't do that. It's the process of band limiting hypersonic content (or audio range content) that causes the overshoots in the first place. The LPF is the source of them, not a way of removing or mitigating them. It's a head scratcher for sure hey? How can removing audio content possibly create higher peak level than with it? But that's how it works. You can test it yourself. I'm working on a video about this right now. The LPF in Gold Clip (on the clipper button) is not there to mitigate overshoots, it's there to reduce bright audible harmonics that can be created by clipping (moreso with hard clipping, but even with soft clipping). Use of the LPF will dull the harshness, but it will actually cause an increase in peak level, just like the anti-aliasing LPF that's used in virtually every other oversampling plugin. For proof, take a look at iZotope RX in it's Re-sample function. When you go to downsample anything, you'll see an option for "Post Limiter". Why would a post limiter possibly be needed when all you're doing is downsampling? It's the anti-aliasing LPF that causes the need for a post limiter to deal with the overshoots. I hope that makes sense. I needed Dave from DMG to walk me through the physics until I got it. Cheers!

[@SR1B]

@@warpacademy yeah I know all that, but that’s not what I’m talking about. I talk about low passing the signal _prior_ to a clipper having Oversampling on. It will mitigate the overshoots of the oversampling filters. The less HF content, the less overshoots. I think Nicholas even did a video on that.

[@Masteringthemixlondon]

Love how you break down complicated subjects and make them easy to understand, with practical advice!

[@warpacademy]

I appreciate that! Thanks Tom.

[@neosonixyz]

watched your video on how to master loud but retain clarity recently and it instantly fixed my problems until now id always struggle (I've been producing lightly as a hobby for over 2 years now) to hit a good loudness without ruining it, but now i know exactly what was my issue this channel is great

[@warpacademy]

Right on. Glad to hear the videos could help you make some solid forward moves. Cheers!

[@Rhuggins]

This is RIGHT up my alley. Videos like this are exactly the reason I am subscribed. Its hard to find content on KZbin that delve into slightly more advanced topics, without having to pander to the newbie that jsut downloaded their DAW a week ago. Keep it comin!!

[@warpacademy]

Awesome, thank you!

[@ORUMusic]

Keep in mind that the artifacts added by aliasing are explicitly non-harmonic. They're harmonics that would have been created but bounced off the Nyquist frequency and therefore render improperly. You're right that for gritty DnB track, aliasing is probably pretty much negligible. But that won't always be the case depending on how much clipping you're doing and what genre you're working with.

[@warpacademy]

100% on the same page with you. Well said. Aliasing foldback is usually described as non-musical compared to harmonic series. The reason why it works here, is that it's on the transients mainly, which contain all frequencies. And the rest of the song is very harmonically dense as well, with tons of saturation and distortion in the sound design and mixing, which has a cumulative masking effect. In the end, I did use oversampling in Gold Clip on the master. But I did not use oversampling anywhere on the clippers in the mix, unless they were soft clippers creating audible harmonics. Cheers!

[@hcl8836]

Exactly

[@mojophonic]

I am in awe when I watch someone of your professionalism teach about such advanced topics. Thank you for this.

[@warpacademy]

You’re most welcome. The science behind audio production is really fun stuff to dig into. Thanks for watching.

[@mojophonic]

@@warpacademy what do think about training your ears and how age affects it? When you were comparing the clippers, I did hear the Gold was "different" (which you referred to as "open"), but in general, I don't always hear compression or more subtle A/B comparisons. And that bugs me, but I am also late to this whole scene. I am in my mid-50s and there is the hearing loss, especially at the high frequencies, that accompany that. Is mid-50s too late to really train your ears? Curious as to your take on this. Cheers

[@warpacademy]

Much of this stuff is quite subtle to hear. The room and monitors you’re listening on have a large effect on whether you can hear things like this as well. Yes with age you definitely get eventual HF hearing loss. I probably have some too but I’m also very careful about protecting my hearing. I think that you can train your ears better at any age to get better than they were. It’s partially about being able to hear. And it’s partially about the ability to discriminate and interpret what is audible to you in A/B comparisons and that comes with practice.

[@earthlyng_official4599]

Not advanced but i agree

[@XPJV]

My best "clipper" is the natural acoustics of the soundtrack headroom. To my knowledge, it works the best than any compressor or limiter! Max loudness & punch! The only excception is that I use comp/limit processing in my individual tracks, but leaving my master to respond naturally with the acoustics of actual headroom. In my 25+ years of experience, I realized that this is the best technique to preserve all "organics" & naturality of the soundtrack.

[@warpacademy]

That’s one way of mixing but it won’t ever be very loud. If you like it and it works for you that’s all good. But limiting on individual tracks can never sound as loud and clean as clipping on individual tracks then busses and then using a touch of hard clipping on micro transients and clean limiting on your master. If you’re not as concerned with clean perceived loudness in your mix then it’s all good. Stick with limiting. Because of the tiny bit of distortion caused by the clipper on transients a clipper will always sound louder than a limiter if used correctly. Limiters dull transients. And when you set them fast enough that they don’t, then you get distortion and then you effectively have a clipper anyways.

[@kerimallami]

Man this was probably the most helpful video I watched on clippers. Even doing it on a dnb song! You are a legend. Hope you’ll have some more dnb examples in your videos. Subscribed!

[@warpacademy]

Glad it helped! Clippers have totally transformed my mixing workflow so I'll be including them a lot in my video. And...we just are about to launch a new bass music label at Warp Academy and I'll be doing all the mixing and mastering for it. So you'll see a lot of dnb and mid-tempo bass music in my upcoming videos as I work on tunes for release with our artists. Cheers!

[@AndyParka]

Holy crap, I saw someone mention the name "vespers" and had not idea that you were the guy from 10 years ago. Here you are making hits and I'm still in my bedroom haha

[@warpacademy]

Hey Andy. Yes, I'm the same Vespers ;). Glad to see you around the channel still after all this time! I wish you all the best with your music.

[@JustaArmada99]

I'm glad he is still going!

[@avokyu]

I noticed at 07:46 the in and out for each band on KClip was [in = 0 out = 0] but before enabling the 4-band mode it was [in = 6.0 and out = -6.0]

[@warpacademy]

With all the clippers I set the input gain to +6 and the output to -6 to get the same amount of clipping. The multi-band just splits that into frequency ranges. The overs when in multi-band happened due to the crossovers being IIR filters and not FIR filters. The IIR filters cause phase rotation which causes a significant increase in peak level.

[@dilatedconciousness]

This is top quality content. Your delivery is clear, precise, and engaging. This is a great insight and an angle on the subject I’ve not come across before

[@warpacademy]

Much appreciated! Thanks for stopping by the channel and for the comment. All the best!

[@uirehuigedkahds]

Thank you! Very helpful and easy to understand.

[@warpacademy]

Glad you found it useful!

[@imjessegarrron]

You blew my mind with ozone back in the day. Awesome to see you still killing it.

[@warpacademy]

Thanks! Yeah I think that was back in Ozone 4 right? Old video. Thanks for still following the channel. I can’t believe Ozone is in V11 now!

[@EG0MUSIKOFFICIAL]

I agree! 100 percent! I used to use limiters in my mix and constantly was always faced with lots of troubles, UNTIL I started using only clippers. Im 100 PERCENT a fan of using CLIPPERS! great video! very informational! thank you!

[@warpacademy]

Thanks for sharing your experience. Yeah, I've found that clippers are a nice alternative to limiters when used in the mix on individual sounds and busses. Then I just use a limiter on my master, last in chain. Sometimes, with bass-heavy material like 808s, subs, and kicks, clippers don't perform well and produce too much distortion. In that case I will use a lightweight track limiter, DMG Track Limit, which is able to do the job with much less distortion. Cheers!

[@EG0MUSIKOFFICIAL]

@@warpacademy I only use compressors(on my main bus channels, DRUMS/BASS/SUB ETC. when needed. and reeally havent found a situation arise where I need to use alimiter in my master mix. as long as my mix is sound and landing at -6.0 dbs, im usually golden in my master. but maybe I am missing out by not using a limiter?? I dont know

[@warpacademy]

So you’re using a clipper last in chain on your master instead of a limiter then? If you drive sub heavy material into a clipper you’ll get super audible nasty distortion. That’s why I use a limiter on the master. Limiters don’t do that unless you push them too hard.

[@EG0MUSIKOFFICIAL]

@@warpacademy The 1st plug in I utilize in my master chain is MAXIMUS, which is limiter/compressor of sorts, i utilize this to focus my compression in seperated low/mid low/mids/mid highs/ and High frequencies, from there I fully utilize Ozone. I keep it as simple as possible although my Ozone mastering chain does utilize around 5-8(pending the song) different tools/plugins to get to that desired sound

[@warpacademy]

Sweet. If you’re getting good results then stick with it :)

[@DeltaWhiskeyBravo13579]

Great demo and info. I use Gold Clip on the 2 bus just before the Slate FG-X 2. I love the Gold Clip because it is clean, but it can get gritty if that's what you want. I have had Orange for a week, and would use it per track. I also have SIR Standard Clip, and have used it on the 2 bus. Anyway, very interesting info on oversampling. I don't typically use oversampling in most plug-ins already.

[@warpacademy]

Right on. Nice to hear a bit about how you're using clipping plugins. Wishing you all the best with your mixes and masters!

[@marcinrau2817]

This was a super cool Video as always. I think oversampling can be genuinely useful, especially when it comes to more aggressive clipping but in this case it makes absolute sense to leave it off. Thanks for the Input!

[@warpacademy]

Exactly, you nailed it. If you're clipping aggressively where you're using soft clipping knee to affect more than just a micro-transient, or you're using hard clipping to dig into more of the signal (IE a longer audio event) then it makes sense to oversample to reduce audible aliasing from all the harmonics. That's the "tone shaping" style of processing that I mentioned at the beginning. In this case, I'm clipping off micro-transients where any aliasing is getting completely masked by the presence of the transient, or it's adding harmonic density to the transient in a way that adds perceived loudness, as David Gnozzi stated. Thanks for watching and commenting!

[@pronskiy]

At 1:20 you show how clipping affects the wave, but it looks more like like compression - making a certain part of wave quiter. Whereas with hard clipping it supposed to “cut” the top of the wave, isn’t it? If yes, then it means that it cannot be transparent, because it has to add harmonics to reflect the new wave shape. Or am I understanding it wrong?

[@warpacademy]

Hey mate. Good question. Clipping always reduces dynamic range. Whether or not it makes the sound “louder” to us depends on how the clipping is set up. You can either A) push level up into a fixed ceiling or B) bring a ceiling down until it touches the waveform. Either one will clip off the top. And in fact in that oscilloscope example I was clipping, not compressing. Compression is in some ways similar and in other ways very different. You have upwards compression and downwards compression. Both reduce dynamic range. Downward compression makes the signal quieter until you use makeup gain. Upwards compression makes the signal louder by bringing up low level information without touching peaks. Clipping always touches peaks. But it has no attack and release time. It’s a sample by sample effect. Fast compression can and does generate harmonics. This is why digital compressors have oversampling usually. Clipping is wave shaping and can generate much more aggressive and audible harmonics than compression. Saturation and distortion (really the same thing) are also very similar (arguably identical) to clipping. Clipping only micro-transients is what I’m taking about here. And that is very transparent even though it generates odd harmonics. This is due to the masking effect of transients.

[@pronskiy]

@@warpacademy, thanks for clarifying, appreciate it 🫶

[@warpacademy]

My pleasure. Details matter. And much of this stuff can be hard to wrap your head around. There are many things in audio I still don't fully understand, but through discussions like this, we all get to learn. Cheers!

[@bigboss-qv7pe]

The demo from around 4 minutes got me engaged. Too many mixing channels are using weak demos.

[@warpacademy]

Thanks. I like to use my actual mixing and mastering projects so they’re real world examples. Cheers.

[@alexmancera6566]

So true, I thought that too.

[@warpacademy]

Thanks. I'll definitely be doing that in most of my upcoming videos. Cheers!

[@TokyoSpeirs]

Love this. I never thought of aliasing not mattering if all you are chopping is transients.

[@warpacademy]

Indeed. David Gnozzi FTW on that one. He laid it out very clearly. Makes total sense when you think of aliasing as just more distortion on an all frequencies super short signal.

[@AstroPilotMusic]

the best video about the clipping! thanks a lot

[@warpacademy]

You're welcome!

[@djkrptdnb]

I remember Baphometrix saying something about not turning on oversampling in his Clip To Zero Strategy series of videos - while extremely comprehensive, I got a little lost in the series, this video has cleared things up for me so thank you (easier when it’s d’n’b too!)

[@warpacademy]

Right on. And yes, Baphometrix did have a video about oversampling in track clippers like this. They recommended the exact same things, if memory serves. I wanted to do a video about it because, while extremely detailed and comprehensive, I found many of the Baphometrix videos to be quite long winded and drawn out. 90 minute run times were quite normal so I'm not surprised that a lot of people got lost in the series.

[@agapeleone5847]

I respectfully disagree about Baphometrix stuff being too long etc. Baph just covers all the bases and goes into very clear detail which helps many people who are not already familiar with some of what is discussed.

[@agapeleone5847]

...all that said, this video is great too!! And very appreciated!!!

[@warpacademy]

Oh I’m not saying it’s too long for me. I love detail oriented stuff. It’s too long for the average person on KZbin. Short form content like TikTok and Reels have destroyed people’s attention span. The average watch time on most KZbin videos is less than 5 minutes. So rather than making a huge long 90 minute video it’s better for the audience to make a series of shorter videos. No disrespect to the Baph stuff it’s great. It’s just not packaged for the average learner on KZbin and I consider that stuff very carefully when I’m creating content.

[@warpacademy]

Cheers.

[@nota76]

Why I didnt see your this lesson before? Thank you very much!

[@warpacademy]

I'm glad you found the video. All the best!

[@EdSoloUK]

Were you using the gold clip in hard or soft clipping? If it was hard then surely all the clippers would sound the same as hard clipping is identical regardless of the clipper

[@warpacademy]

Hey Ed. In general, you'd think that all hard clippers would sound the same. It's really quite simple math. If a sample = more than the clipper ceiling, make that sample output = clipper ceiling. That's it. And yes, I was using Gold Clip as a hard clipper. However, in practice, these clippers are actually quite different, especially when you start oversampling them. Anything that oversamples will have to run through a downsampling anti-aliasing filter. Those filters can be linear phase, minimum phase, and can have wildly different slopes and frequency settings with respect to Nyquist. They could be brick walls or more gradual slopes. Just look at the SRC / Resample function in iZotope RX Audio Editor and you'll see all the options. Most clipping plugins do this under the hood, hard coded, or give you only very limited control over the LP filter. Saturate from Newfangled audio has a spectral clipping algorithm with "detail preservation" which makes it perform very differently even when hard clipping. Gold Clip has a totally unique anti-derivative anti-aliasing process, which is why it sounds so good and doesn't produce overs. Gold Clip modulates the filter settings based on the frequency and amplitude of the signal. It also has other processing in addition to the clipper (the Gold knob, modelled on the Lavry Gold hardware and the Alchemy parameter which acts like HF tape saturation). If you're simply hard clipping with no oversampling and just touching the micro-transients, then they sound more similar. Oversampling (and the corresponding downsampling and band-limiting process) is what changes the sound a lot (and is also the source of the overshoots).

[@EdSoloUK]

@@warpacademy Thanks for the detailed response, i found it hard to tell the difference, it would be intersting to do a null test to see what exactly what the diffference is. Flatline is my fave clipper, mainly because of the GUI, i did try a demo of Gold clip and found the gold part quite interseting even tho it was subtle. i might look into it again now, buy i cant do a null test cos my demo was up last year.

[@warpacademy]

Hey Ed. Yeah, the Gold knob in Gold Clip is an emulation of the Lavry Gold hardware ADC. It inflates low level information in a unique way. Very useful. I also really like the box tone feature and Alchemy. Worth testing out. Perhaps you could request another demo from Ryan, I'm sure he'd help you out. Cheers!

[@AliR]

Maaaaaaan, finally I get to understand why is my kick and punch sound little bit grainy... i tried hard clip with no oversampling on Standard Clip... dayumm.... so much better

[@warpacademy]

Right on!

[@matrixxman187]

killer video. very helpful in understanding some of the concepts that have eluded me re: clipping. any recommendations for fairly aggressive clipping approaches? I'm interested in over-the-top character of some lofi trap/soundcloud rap where they are clipping the hell out of FL albeit the clipper in FL is fairly limited. I have kclip but I'm not sure if I'm fully taking advantage of its functionality

[@warpacademy]

Glad you enjoyed it. First step, get Orange Clip from Schwabe Digital. It is an exact copy of the FL clipper and its soft clipping is apparently identical. To get more aggressive with clipping you can use hard clipping for harsher sounding odd harmonics or soft for more round and warm harmonics. Use oversampling in this case for sure. As you’ll get audible aliasing.

[@matrixxman187]

@@warpacademy followed your advice and the results I'm getting from Orange Clip are *substantially* better than before. a most worthwhile purchase. can't thank you enough 🙏

[@panorama_mastering]

Great observations! Funilly enough; even with oversampling; I'm not getting TP overs on my standard clip ceiling; how hard are you pushing to get over's +0.6dB?

[@warpacademy]

Hey Nicholas. Nice to see ya round the channel mate! I captured a screenshot of the session, Standard Clip settings, and meters for you below. I'm clipping very gently here. A couple dB on super short audio events. Mainly just the snare. capture.dropbox.com/UY8A1izXIQNtEJFU You're most likely not seeing the overshoots because Standard Clip has 2 clipping stages. The first is oversampled, and the second is a 0X non-oversampled hard ceiling (called "Ceiling" in the plugin). If you leave the Ceiling engaged, then the second clipping stage hides the overshoots from you by applying more clipping. If you disengage the Ceiling parameter, you see the true peak level overshoots both in sample peak and true peak (true peak overshoots being higher). The same is true for K-Clip and most other clippers with oversampling. They usually have a second 0X OS ceiling. And in fact, you see the exact same thing in iZotope RX Audio Editor. When you use the Resampling process to downsample anything, you'll see the parameter "Post Limiter" engaged by default. They need a post-downsampling limiter to catch these overshoots. This is because the Fourier transform process with the sinc function related to the lowpass filter used in anti-aliasing will cause higher and higher overshoots the more Fourier partial harmonics are used. The more oversampling used (and the more extreme the downsampling) the higher the overshoots will be.

[@panorama_mastering]

@@warpacademy Super interesting; I understand why/how this is occurring; I don't use the ceiling feature; and don't get overs; I'll have to share with you my OS settings under-the hood of standard clip, see if they match up!

[@SR1B]

Not getting overs with ceiling off here neither

[@warpacademy]

That's certainly interesting! I wonder what the deal is. My session is at 48 kHz, which matches the mix sample rate. I've found overs happen in Standard Clip (and any other clipper except Gold Clip) on any oversampling setting. I've tested 4X all the way up to 16X and they all seem to produce the same measured overs. I've found they occur on simple material (single tracks, like a snare) as well as complex material like a whole mix, and they seem to happen even when clipping very lightly (1-2 dB). One thing to note is that the overshoots are triggered by jump discontinuities, like a square wave or a drum transient. Anywhere you have an abrupt change in level, you typically see the overshoots as you add harmonics to the Fourier transform. Let me know if your settings are different or if there's something you've set up under the hood. Cheers!

[@warpacademy]

Thanks for sharing. What settings are you using in Standard Clip and what material are you running through it? There needs to be a sharp jump discontinuity to see the overshoots, like a square wave or sharp drum transient.

[@MalikAmer87]

Great video, i like clipping the individual busses before the mixbus.

[@warpacademy]

Same here! I clip many individual tracks, then mix busses and then the master. Depending on the song.

[@regglesmusic]

Hey I have a bit of a strange question. I'm voicing over a movie soundtrack acapella with a below average microphone. There's a small amount of noise when I record with the microphone. There are sometimes a dozen layers in the track, would the small amount of noise in each recording have a meaningful impact on the mix, and if so, is there a way to lessen it?

[@warpacademy]

Hey hey. It's one of those "it depends" things. How much noise is there, how compressed is it going to be, is it noticeable and obtrusive in the final mix? There are noise reduction tools these days that are really good. Usually some noise floor is totally fine. If you start stacking it up on multiple tracks and then compressing the mix, it can eventually become very noticeable. In that case, you'll need a de-noising tool like iZotope RX.

[@regglesmusic]

@@warpacademy thank you! Can I use that on the final master? Or will I need to use that on a per track basis?

[@warpacademy]

Nearly everything in terms of audio repair is best done on individual tracks rather than leaving it all summing up to your master and dealing with it there.

[@regglesmusic]

@@warpacademy legend, thank you

[@warpacademy]

My pleasure.

[@djdrwattz]

wow, this is amazing. You have answered so many of my questions in a short video. This is a place but I always feel my students and my artist investing to make themselves better. I want you to see me what you know and paying you for it is an honor. Thank you so much for the time you have taken to assemble all the business information I just videofor all of the information if people could take the time with thank you. Looking forward to working with your company. Dj, DRWATTZ.

[@warpacademy]

You're so welcome!

[@tomorrowcometoday]

This video is a must-see 👨‍🏫

[@warpacademy]

Thanks!

[@sm-journey8281]

Excellent lessons for me ❤ Subscribed 🎉

[@warpacademy]

Awesome! Glad you enjoyed the video. Thanks for the sub.

[@Dj_Leoguerrero]

Priceless info as always ! Thanks a lot.

[@warpacademy]

My pleasure! Thanks for being a subscriber. All the best!

[@revisethedream8406]

Thanks so much. I just saw another video and concluded that you should always use oversampling unless you're trying to distort the sound or save CPU. Thanks for giving the other side. Oversampling wasn't really working for me.

[@warpacademy]

You are very welcome! It's all about finding what works best for you, and what works for your ears.

[@alvarof1166]

Amazing video. Wish you added to the comparisson, clipping with the Glue Compressor in Ableton. I´ve been using only the clipping option that comes with the Glue for years now in the master before the limiter. And it´s free :) All the best!

[@warpacademy]

Thanks. Regarding the Glue compressor and soft clip. It’s very basic and while it can and does do clipping I don’t like that approach. I like a controllable knee, control with oversampling (IE different settings), and the ability to gain link with a waveform display. Also seeing how much clipping is occurring helps!

[@FrankieTedesco]

This is very interesting, i tried Standard Clip myself and i noticed the same issue. Looks a little better with mixed phase instead linear, but there is still some overshoot compared without OS. Didn't tried the mixed phase with more pole (maybe it's better for peaks) but i'm not so sure if mixed phase should be used in clippers, i'd like to know your thoughts about this too

[@warpacademy]

Hey Frankie. Nice to hear your insights. Yeah, Standard Clip is one of the few clippers that allows you some control over the anti-aliasing LP filter. The configuration of the LPF will certainly affect overshoots, because the the source of the overshoots is band limiting the signal, removing the supersonic frequencies that have a flattening effect on jump discontinuities and square wave type signals. Linear phase LPF in clippers would typically be used if you're running the clipper in parallel (some clippers have wet/dry, or you may be running it on a return). Also, FIR vs IIR filters will have different ringing artifacts most noticeable around jump discontinuities (and by that I mean transients and square wave type jump signals where you have a vertical or near vertical jump in amplitude). And those ringing artifacts are also related to the number of Fourier harmonics / sine wave partials that are used to represent the signal. Specifically the decay rate of those ringing artifacts. For me, I almost never run clippers in parallel. But I would test linear phase vs minimum phase in clippers when you get the option to do so (such as in Gold Clip or Standard Clip) and especially when you're using it on the master. See if you can hear a difference. This is way up close to Nyquist, so the ability to perceive a difference is questionable.

[@FrankieTedesco]

@@warpacademy I tried linear vs minimum few years ago, and i preferred linear cause i felt a better response with transients, but i didn't digged too much. I think now it's time to do some proper testing again with multiple materials cause i don't use parallel clipping neither, but usually just on my master. Thank you for your detailed reply, is much appreciated!

[@warpacademy]

Sounds like a plan. Let us know what you discover.

[@TheArkhamRebellion]

A lot of people complain about the cost of Gold Clip but you really have to give it a go if you haven't yet. It's definitely got some special sauce going on.

[@warpacademy]

Exactly. Plus, they put it on sale every now and again. It's much more than a clipper. And as far as clippers go, it's the king.

[@futilerecordings]

Some times when I use a clipper on my mix bus or in mastering, I get audible distortion on more tonal sources like pads and vocals. This happens with even 1 db of gain reduction. I use Kclip and standard clip. I've read that clipping doesn't work well on complex audio, such as the mix bus. Thoughts?

[@warpacademy]

This is a VERY important point. Glad you asked. In general, I don't use clipping on sustained sources or gentle sources that are more like pure tones. So pads, don't use clipping. Vocals, generally I don't use clipping. As you correctly noticed, they will easily get over-distorted very quickly. Use limiting on these sources, with more gentle settings (IE use 1ms or more of lookahead and a longer release). Use clipping on sources like drums, transient / high micro-dynamic range sources, plucky things etc. And, in general, clip more in your mix on less complex, individual sounds, and not on your master. If you clip a complex source, you will get intermodulation distortion which universally sounds bad. Watch this video for a full 2.5 hour free masterclass on how I use clippers in my mix, on tracks, and sub-mixes: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mJuai4GsosuFraM. Cheers!

[@AlbertSirup]

this is really interesting - I've been disabling oversampling on freeclip (which I use for run-of-the-mill track/bus hardclipping) but I never thought about checking for overshoots when using KClip on my master. Now i wonder if it's even the best option for master clipping. Also, I noticed (when I check the delta signal) that kclip is doing some kind of noise-shaping on the signal which I thought was interesting - but maybe that's related to the overshoots.

[@warpacademy]

Hey Albert. Thanks for joining the discussion. I've used K-Clip a lot and have loved it. It was my primary track clipper before I started using Orange Clip, which I now prefer. Keep in mind that you should avoid using multi-band mode in K-Clip as the crossovers are non-linear phase and cause dramatic level spikes as I showed. K-Clip should be fine for a mastering clipper, if you're going gentle and using a limiter after it. Never put an oversampling clipper last in chain, unless you check that it's maintaining a hard ceiling without overshoots. I much prefer Gold Clip now as a bus and mastering clipper, due to the oversampling algorithm. Not all oversampling is created equal. Also, the configuration of the downsampling anti-aliasing filter is very different between various plugins. Some use a brickwall, some use a less steep filter, some use minimum phase and others use linear phase. That may very well be the difference in what you're hearing in the delta signal. All LPFs have ringing artifacts due to the decay of Fourier transform partials and the number of them used around a jump discontinuity. Because any downsampled signal must be band limited, every single oversampling plugin creates overs from the filtering process. Many of them are just hidden by an additional clipper.

[@cobraofearth]

When you hard clip, it doesn’t really matter what clipper plugin you use for that right? I can see for soft clipping, maybe there are different curves or something. But at the end if the day, hard clipping is hard clipping

[@cobraofearth]

Ok oops, you explain later on. I’m confused though, hard clipping creates harmonic content, which means it’s louder right? On those peaks, I get it is clipping the waveform a little smaller, but the added harmonics undue any headroom you get from clipping. I think that gold clipper maybe had a built in limiter

[@warpacademy]

Hey hey. Good question. Not all hard clippers sound the same because of oversampling if you use it and if there’s anything spectral going on like in a multi-band clipper or spectral clipper (Newfangled Saturate). Clipping will free up headroom and decrease peak level yes. Normally that would make the transient of a drum feel less punchy but the added harmonic content compensates for that so you get to have your cake and eat it too. You get louder perceived drums with amazing punch AND more headroom in the mix.

[@warpacademy]

Oh and Gold Clip does have a legacy feature that’s a post oversampling secondary ceiling but it’s no longer needed due to the new anti-derivative anti-aliasing filtering that doesn’t produce overshoots and thus it is off by default.

[@cholkymilkmirage4984]

OKAY so i finally tried this out. I went to my project (I mix and master at the same time dont shoot me I love it) And i took off the over sampling on all the clippers. i use kclip to hard clip, then use standard clip pro clipper mode to add some SLIIIGGGHHHTTTT expansion into a clipper. Max 1 db of clipping. I was 4x oversampling on al of them. And the sonics are so much more different. Its noticble right away when i A/B them. I also notice that the 4x oversampling changes my wave form, make some peaks smaller for some reason idk why but then I have 0.2 db more headroom when I dont use oversampling. I also notice that the 4x makes things kinda squashed together. Ruining the open separation and depth that i worked so hard to learn and test and create in the box. The 1x sounds a bit darker, but this is a dark mix, its supposed to be dull and sad. The production is also using dull tracks. That "dullness" I am getting is the OG sound i was after. I also noticed the 808 and snare opens up and you can hear the syncopated rhythm better. I am so shocked that this many changes happened using the over sampling. I over sampled on my kick, snare, > kick and snare buss, > drum buss and my master chain. Insane. I am still over sampling on certain plugins that inject distortion and harmonics on non transient tracks and using oversampling on a saturation plugin on my mix buss but its paralleled saturation through the plugin mix knob mix knob. Never gonna use oversampling again on transients. I am def gonna look into gold clip as well and see a new A/B

[@warpacademy]

Thanks for sharing your experience. This is very similar to how I work. I use oversampling on devices that generate harmonics that can be heard on more sustained material (saturation / distortion, soft clipping on things other than micro-transients). When you upsample, the clipper is now reading and addressing formerly inter-sample peaks ("true peaks") and clipping those. Plus oversampling / downsampling / LPF anti-aliasing filter will change the waveform, as you noticed, changing the harmonic structure by filtering out supersonic frequencies. Kudos to you for actually testing this out in a mix and observing the results for yourself! That's a how you learn and improve. Cheers!

[@cholkymilkmirage4984]

@@warpacademy Yes thankyou again for the amazing lesson. Its these little master class theories that separate the advanced from the pro's

[@warpacademy]

My pleasure. Thanks for the comment. See you around the channel!

[@cph2004]

Great video. A question for you, what is the best clipper to use on my nails? 😂

[@warpacademy]

If you have delicate nails use a soft-clipper ;)

[@cph2004]

@@warpacademy 😄 great advice 👍

[@TianpeiWang]

Another good reason of not using oversampling, depends on the filter is being used for the downsampling, they tend to create pre-ringing or a long post ringing.

[@warpacademy]

Hey Tianpei. It's insightful that you point that out, because it's not actually the oversampling alone that creates these overshoots. It's the action of the downsampling anti-aliasing lowpass filter band limiting the signal. It's the removal of HF content that actually generates the overshoots. And of course, any cut filter will create pre-ringing if it's FIR and post-ringing if it's IIR. The decay rate (ringing) of the frequency components depends on the number of Fourier partials present. When you have lots of Fourier partials, the decay is fast. When you have only a few, the decay is slow. And the ringing artifacts are the most overt around jump discontinuities such as a square wave or a transient.

[@TianpeiWang]

@@warpacademy Exactly! Btw I still believe there is only one way of hard clipping or wave shaping to a hard clip state. So in theory the stock clipper is actually the best clipper and the most accurate. Other clippers might add some distortion before the clipping stage so that it sounds “better”.

[@warpacademy]

To know which clipper to use, you have to carefully consider a few things. Are you only ever going to hard clip? Will you ever need oversampling? In that case, you will want to use a more full featured plugin as the oversampling and LPF sound quite different between plugins. If you ever want to soft-clip you will also want to use a plugin clipper, unless you're in FL and have a nice one built in. Still, I don't think the FL clipper oversamples and you'd want that for soft clipping. AFAIK plugin clippers do not add any distortion before the clipping stage. I mean, why would they do that? But yeah, if all you want to do is non-oversampled hard clipping, I mean you could just clip your DAW master output and that would do it too. You just have very little control.

[@TianpeiWang]

Yes that is what I mean, a non oversampled hard clipping effect should always sound the same no matter what plugin you use. But there are enough plugin manufacturers that add some extra sneaky sauce in order to distinguish them from another. Like BSA audio clipper adds a little LP filter at 20hz, beside that it’s exact the same as the stock clipper.

[@warpacademy]

Ah yes. You're correct there. A hard clipper without oversampling is a very simple, and AFAIK, universally identical, calculation. Things only get different when you're introducing soft clip knee shapes and OS.

[@flyoverfredusa]

nice info about the oversampling

[@warpacademy]

Thanks. Keep in mind this also happens with limiters. I’ll be making another video on that soon. The plugins where oversampling definitely is needed is in saturation / distortion and soft clipping where lots of audible harmonics are being generated.

[@flyoverfredusa]

@@warpacademy these little nuggets are so helpful

[@warpacademy]

Glad to hear that.

[@intranexine8901]

I still remember when I figured out how useful clipping is for mixing, I was new to FL Studio and wanted to distort a sound, wanted to try out fruity soft clipper since it was in the distortion section, but the plugin has no gain, so I used a plugin before to drive it into the clipper. I was very surprised just how far I had to push into the clipper before it actually started sounding distorted, then I started just putting it everywhere instead of limiters since Fruity Limiter does sound kinda trash by default.

[@warpacademy]

Ah yes, FL Studio is pretty much made for this mixing style. The Orange Clip plugin that I really like was modelled on the FL Studio clipper. So you're right on track there. It has a very specific sound that's become woven into modern music. Cheers!

[@MrCool144]

Can you check out the clipper in limiter 6 GE. I believe its alsp doing some advanced oversampling when insane mode is enabled. Sounds very analog to me and until i discovered gold clip this was my go to.

[@warpacademy]

Thanks for the suggestions. I have that plugin from TDR for sure. I haven't messed with it much yet, but I do know it has a clipper. Did you see Kraftur from Soundtheory? That's my main interest in terms of clippers right now. I just got it.

[@MrCool144]

@@warpacademy ill check it out

[@BrofUJu]

Great! Love the IK Soft Clipper to control the knee, I find it to be quite transparent, and the harmonics are really pleasant on the master. Edit: and damn, Gold Clip sounds amazing, beyond my price point for what I do though, lol.

[@warpacademy]

Thanks for the tip on IK Soft Clipper. Haven't used that one yet. But yeah, Gold Clip is the boss! Maybe they'll do a BF sale? Cheers.

[@apoplexiamusic]

Holy shit! I haven’t watched a video from this channel in a few years and it feels like a completely different channel, but in a really good way. Like this is really high level, technical stuff here. Thank you for this!

[@warpacademy]

Thanks and welcome back to the channel!

[@filippopaviglianiti5372]

about oversampling being negative on clippers, does that apply to the mastering chain limiter too?

[@warpacademy]

Hey hey. Just to clarify, oversampling is not always a bad thing on clippers. Use it when you're digging into the signal in such a way that the clipper is generating very audible and sustained harmonics, and thus also aliasing. And my views on oversampling to apply, in part, to mastering limiters. First, use of oversampling will cause the limiter to detect a higher peak (ISP) level and thus will cause more limiting than without OS - all other settings being equal. More limiting, we all know, causes more artifacts, distortion, dulling of transients, and general reduction in fidelity of the signal. Oversampling in a limiter is there to reduce aliasing. But do you hear aliasing? Is it a problem? Are there super sharp transients that need dulling? If not, then why use it? I will eventually do a dedicated video on this. Cheers!

[@felixwood8693]

Can you do the same with a stock Ableton effect? Compressor maybe?

[@warpacademy]

Good question. Certainly not the compressor. Wrong tool for the job. It’s way too sluggish. But with the Saturator on hard clip mode yes. Or with Soft Clip enabled and “high quality” (IE oversampling) on. But really just get a clipper. It’ll give you more control. Free Clip even will get the job done.

[@ownlife.mp3]

fantastic video

[@warpacademy]

Thanks for the visit

[@djkrptdnb]

So if there’s a “high quality” switch (as there are on FAC’s Punchlab and KnockClipper) it’s best to just leave them off? I’d say both of these wouldn’t be used as master clippers though

[@warpacademy]

Hey hey. In general, in plugins with "high quality" settings and the like, that triggers oversampling. You're correct. For track clippers (IE clippers on individual drum or transient sounds, clipping in the way I describe here - short audio events) then it makes complete sense to leave oversampling / high quality off. If you don't hear negative distortion / aliasing, then why activate it and eat up your CPU? Also pay careful attention to your peak level. To a test. Render your signal to audio and look at the result. I always see big spikes over the clipper ceiling on drums when using oversampling, which is exactly what I'm trying to remove using the clipper in the first place. On a master clipper, I would recommend using oversampling. The overshoots can be dealt with by a limiter downstream and then you reduce the chance of any audible aliasing. For this I prefer Gold Clip because it doesn't create overshoots in the first place. Cheers!

[@soundhealer8661]

Very informative. Thanks much.

[@warpacademy]

Cheers! Thanks for the visit.

[@djeliasR]

So is turning the oversampling option off on the plugin like standard clip not a good option? I’m confused. You can turn oversampling on and off.

[@warpacademy]

In general what I recommend is not using OS if you’re clipping individual sounds with hard clipping and all you’re removing are micro transients. If you’re digging into the signal more and you’re hearing audible aliasing then AB with OS on and see if you feel like it makes an improvement.

[@djeliasR]

@@warpacademy I gotcha. Thanks a lot this was super useful and love that there’s more conversation over these topics as most engineers and producers don’t openly talk about this stuff and it’s so important

[@warpacademy]

Happy to help. And I agree, it's nice to be having these conversations about settings out in the open. Stay tuned on the channel for more videos soon. Cheers!

[@gameon2000]

absolut gold

[@warpacademy]

Glad you enjoyed that. Thanks for the comment!

[@axel8grease]

You are an incredible communicator as well as knowledgeable. However, I really would love you to do a blind comparison test between clippers. The differences were imperceptible to me when compared in this video, I almost laughed when you said it sounded much more open and transparent!

[@warpacademy]

Hey hey. Thanks for the comment. Yeah, blind tests are great. I recently saw a plugin that can spool those up and it may work well for that. In terms of hearing the differences, there are usually 2 reasons why people don't hear things and others do. 1) Monitoring system resolution & room acoustics. If you're listening on speakers that are not designed for professional monitoring, then you're unlikely to be able to discriminate between details in audio. Additionally, the room you're in contributes more to the final sound than your speaker themselves do. If you have early reflections because you don't have adequate acoustic treatment, then you're hearing a blurred signal and won't hear much. It's like trying to listen to someone talk far away in a tiled swimming pool room. The combination of reflected energy masks the direct signal. 2) Ear training. As an engineer, I needed to train my ears to listen to small differences between A and B in audio and make a judgement about what I prefer. That takes time and focus. There are many things I never used to be able to hear, such as differences in compressor settings, that are now very obvious to me. In no way am I saying that you don't have a good monitoring system, or that you need to do ear training; I don't know anything about your situation. I'm just pointing out the most common reasons. All the time on KZbin I hear people say things like, "On my iPhone it sounds like A is better...." I just shake my head.

[@runemidsun]

Great video, thanks. Btw what are your thoughts on oversampling in limiters? Like Pro L2 etc Cheers

[@warpacademy]

Thanks. Glad you enjoyed the video. Regarding over sampling in limiters, I’ll do a video on that very soon. Typically I don’t do it but I’ll explain and show why in the deep dive video.

[@runemidsun]

Looking forward to it 😊

[@warpacademy]

Stay tuned!

[@alexaguilar6789]

Thanks for your video… only one doubt… do I set the clipper first in the mastering chain? Or last? Thanks 🙏🏼

[@warpacademy]

That is a very good question. It’s one you can debate a lot. For me, currently I’m putting the clipper first in chain both on individual tracks and the master. I used to put the clipper last in chain on tracks and just before the limiter on the master. But to me it makes more sense to get rid of the little micro transients before hitting other level sensitive effects downstream. Cheers!

[@alexaguilar6789]

@@warpacademy awesome! Thanks for your response and help on this. I will try that out. Greetings from Mexico 🙏🏼🙌🏼🎶

[@warpacademy]

Hope it works out for ya.

[@DerSilvano]

How much GR would you aim for (as a starting point) when using a Clipper in Mastering?

[@warpacademy]

Hey hey. Thanks for checking out the video. I would challenge you to avoid going down any kind of formulaic approach with this. It is entirely situation specific and widely variable. You must learn the tool, train your ears to hear bad side effects, and experiment. In general, if you're unsure of the right setting, and if your'e new to using clippers, use less clipping. Clipping a master is the most difficult because any mistakes in setting the clipping ceiling can completely destroy the master and be glaringly obvious. Clip in your mix, on a track by track level first, and leave your master alone until you get good at it. Limiters will be much more forgiving on the master. Example: Clipping 2 dB in a hip hop song with a big 808 may produce super noticeable, horrible distortion. Whereas clipping 5 dB on a DnB song may be completely okay and actually increase the perception of punchy and loud drum transients, while masking the distortion. Edit: Clipping on the master also produces intermodulation distortion due to driving a complex, full range signal into a single-band distortion device. So it's the last place you clip. Clip first on your individual sounds and be the most heavy handed here, then clip your busses next, and finally - only if you need to - clip the master very carefully and more gently. In regards to that, watch this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/jXOahZ5rgsh7qq8

[@NATFROMBESTIES]

This is an amazing video, instantly subscribed. Impressed by the quality and depth of insight!

[@warpacademy]

Welcome aboard! Thanks for subscribing.

[@medicinal_soul]

Does the whole room shake with those speakers in the walls? 😅

[@warpacademy]

Perhaps it would if it was built wrong. But it doesn't, because...mass, rigidity, decoupling. The speakers aren't in contact with the wall. There's a gap of several mm, and the speakers are on a support assembly with decouplers. The floor they sit on is floating, so there's no noticeable structure-bourne transmission or resonances.

[@medicinal_soul]

@@warpacademy heyyo, sorry for giving you such a hard time. I appreciate the genuine response. You obviously know a lot and I don't mean to get out of hand with my trolling. 😅

[@warpacademy]

All good! I didn’t take it as trolling. Cheers!

[@delta-9969]

Just curious, what exactly is the rationale for the pursuit of "loudness" in a world of 24-bit recording? Isn't this just a holdover from analog recording where signal had to be as hot as possible because of the noise floor? Why not just normalize to 0dbfs and if the listener wants it louder they can just turn up the volume, no?

[@warpacademy]

Hey hey. Yeah this is a big topic and one that comes up a lot. I kind of get tired of answering it over and over again so I made a video that explains my perspective. Check it out here: Loudness Trumps EVERYTHING! kzbin.info/www/bejne/i3nbfIRpnq6Dr6M I would also say that you’re assuming all modern playback systems have tons of headroom to just “Turn it up”. That’s not the case. In the 70s and 80s maybe people would listen to music on home hifi systems with huge amps on big 3 way speakers in their living rooms with a very low amount of background noise. Not the case today. Today people listen on Bluetooth speakers, car audio systems, phones, laptops etc. Many times these systems are battery powered or use very small speakers so they’re portable. You cannot simply turn it up. There isn’t massive headroom. They distort. Especially when trying to produce sub. So today we master and mix with less dynamic range and then use production and mixing techniques that still allow the song to sound punchy and clean. It can be done and it is being done.

[@CB-td4fz]

Great video - did not know about this

[@warpacademy]

Thanks! Glad you're looped in. This also happens on every single plugin that has oversampling, not just clippers ;). It's just usually hidden by a non-oversampled final hard clipping / limiting stage.

[@bohn_aus]

Thank you for this Homie, absolute gold👌🏽💽

[@warpacademy]

No problem 👍

[@HighwayNegative]

Do you have a recommended plugin for monitoring crest factor in real time?

[@warpacademy]

Sure. You can use anything that uses a PLR (peak to loudness) meter. ADPTR Metric AB does this. So do many metering plugins. They'll basically calculate the peak to short term or peak to integrated (long term) LUFS calculation.

[@HighwayNegative]

@@warpacademy Great news since I have Metric AB and didn't know that was there! Thanks a lot

[@warpacademy]

Sweet. It's a great plugin. I love that one. Cheers!

[@amseth]

Great video, thank you for the R&D

[@warpacademy]

You bet. Thanks.

[@-.K.I.-11]

Can't I just use ozone 11 on master and clue compressor, limiter all good in Ableton?

[@warpacademy]

Good question! I’m talking about using clipping all through your mix. That’s critical. Also Ozone is not a clipper and doesn’t have a clipper. It has a nice limiter but not a clipper. You can of course get great masters in Ozone 11. Don’t use the Ableton limiter. It’s not meant for mastering. The Glue compressor is pretty nice though. On busses or in mastering. Hope that helps. Cheers!

[@modapit]

man it's abot time SOMEBODY said this

[@warpacademy]

Thanks. Nice to see you around the channel. Congrats on all the releases and growth of your channel. Looks like you've got a nice following. Cheers!

[@BVSISofficial]

Nice knowledge. Checking out that DMG plugin

[@warpacademy]

Glad it was helpful! DMG Limitless has a unique algorithm that’s amazing. It’s one of my top limiters. In fact I find I use it most frequently.

[@cook-music]

Are you using both orange clip and gold clip? Since I saw your last video I've considered getting gold clip but now that I see you have orange clip which I know is more affordable. I'm just wondering what you would recommend, gold or both?

[@warpacademy]

It’s a good question. I do have both. Gold Clip is a best in class mastering and buss clipper. But it’s too heavy to use all through my mix on many individual sounds. So you need a track clipper that’s more lightweight and that’s what I use OC for. If you can just get one, get Gold Clip. Also, stay tuned on my channel as I’ll have a video coming out soon with Ryan, the creator of both clippers. We did an interview.

[@cook-music]

@@warpacademy thanks for the quick response, you're a gem of a resource for this community 🙏

[@warpacademy]

Much appreciated. Thanks for being a subscriber!

[@mariabr8954]

Could you please go more in depth about hard clipping during mixing?

[@warpacademy]

Thanks for the request. Absolutely. This is one of my planned next videos. I want to show you what I did in the mix to transform this song from A to B. Stay tuned on the channel. Make sure you subscribe and enable all of the notifications so you see the uploads. Cheers!

[@EDawg_32]

Great explanation thank you

[@warpacademy]

Glad it was helpful!

[@threethievesmusic]

Very interesting.

[@warpacademy]

Cheers!

[@bobbystarchild975]

I flippin love the AB tests in mastering videos 👌

[@warpacademy]

Me too!

[@pirate0jimmy]

Before committing to clipping a track, or adding a clipped track to a mix, compare the track to a clean version, a (hard, multiband, like Aphex Dom II) limited version, and a fast attack high ratio compressor. Adjust for identical "loudness" to your ears not level with the same general amount of clipping. . Decide if you like what you hear. All level shaving is not the same.

[@warpacademy]

Good insights! Always be willing to experiment and try different effects and settings. I've done this day in and day out for years. For me, I'm very familiar with how limiting sounds (love it last in chain and sometimes on busses) and how compression sounds (usually not my favourite tool as it produces modulation distortion when set fast enough to catch small transients, but I love it on vocals, basses, pads and more sustained material). Thanks for the comment!

[@jasonherdmusic]

Great video!

[@warpacademy]

Thanks!

[@sukekiyo2945]

!0:56 - Is the DMG Limitless 'infamous' ? That's a worry. Don't you mean 'famous' ?

[@warpacademy]

Infamous in this context works. Like calling someone “badass” as a compliment. It may not make sense if you try and interpret it with a textbook understanding vs how it’s used in casual speech. Also it’s famous. So really both words work.

[@hasegawamusic3931]

Amazing video! ❤

[@warpacademy]

Glad you liked it!!

[@XabisoNcanywa]

Had to subscribe, this is gold

[@warpacademy]

Thanks for subbing to the channel!

[@DJeMo]

This is great, more of this please, detailed videos on all the nuggets and trinkets, 👊 Cheers

[@warpacademy]

Will do! More to come. Thanks for watching and commenting.

[@graywyot]

Such a great video, Vespers. Thanks for it!

[@warpacademy]

Glad you enjoyed it. Cheers!

[@cholkymilkmirage4984]

Dammmiittt now my entire system is gonna change after hearing the differences lmao. Prolly gonna get my hands on gold clip and change up my master chain. Question tho, what do you think about over sampling using using a saturation plugin? Also what about using Oxford inflator on the master? I imagine it would be better used spread on the sun bud tracks instead.

[@warpacademy]

Hey hey. Good question. Definitely oversample in saturation. That’s when I 100% do use it. Oxford Inflator, I don’t use that plugin so I won’t comment on it.

[@cholkymilkmirage4984]

@@warpacademy cool thankyou!

[@warpacademy]

You bet!

[@benitocotrulia]

Great video, Drew. Thanks for sharing ✨ Studio looks amazing 🎉🚀

[@warpacademy]

My pleasure. Thanks for the visit!

[@dallas-cole]

Hey can you take a look to Voxengo's OVC-128, it is a Hard/Soft clipper with x128 oversampling. Can you maybe, do a comparison with other clippers as you did in this video? Voxengo is usually unknown or underrated to producers, but they have GREAT high quality products.

[@warpacademy]

Hey Dallas. Thanks for the tip. In general I have a lot of respect for Voxengo and their tools. I use many of them and love them. I took a look at OVC-128. I can tell you right off the bat, I would never use it. The interface is really not well thought out and it's missing a huge amount of features that make working with a clipper fun and powerful. Look at plugins like Gold Clip or Orange Clip, even K-Clip. They show the transfer function, they have linkable inverted input and output gain, they have a waveform display showing peak information, they have A/B states so you can compare various settings, preset management etc. Clippers are simple devices, easy to make, so many companies make them. But it's so rare to see a company that actually puts a concerted effort into expanding the feature set, building a thoughtfully designed UI, and making the workflow truly professional caliber. Only a handful consider the workflow that an actual engineer would go through with them, and so they fall flat. Others try to look analog (such as the Acustica ones) and therefore they have all the bad drawbacks of limited analog interfaces. When you use a clipper day in and day out like I do, on hundreds of tracks, you need something that you can flick around fast and get results, plus enjoy looking at and using. The only 3 clippers that fit that bill for me are K-Clip, Orange Clip and Gold Clip. I've ditched everything else. They're all so clunky.

[@dallas-cole]

@@warpacademy I'll try them out. Thanks for the detailed response!

[@warpacademy]

My pleasure!

[@athornsound304]

Very useful info, thank you. In the digital domain we tend to overshoot to what we think are standards and decisions for better quality, and those decisions can bring your CPU to its knees. When really it is a slight transient defect you can’t even hear. Always look forward to your videos.

[@warpacademy]

Glad it was helpful! Yes you make an excellent point there. When using plugins in your mix you’re using a lot of them. If you oversample them it’ll consume way too much CPU and in this case it’s totally unnecessary. Cheers!

[@webguitars]

Awesome vid. Thanks!

[@warpacademy]

You bet!

[@thomas_rellum]

This is gold. We need more of that content!

[@warpacademy]

Thanks Thomas. I've got LOTS more of this stuff coming down the pipe soon. Subscribe to the channel and stay in touch!

[@DanFrancisco76]

Didn't realize what I really wanted to do with my life until now. I'm 35 only a year into learning mixing and mastering. Learned more than I thought I could on my own but with the really advanced stuff like this I am lost. No wonder I can't get my mix loud enough for release.

[@warpacademy]

Don't feel bad. I've been at this since 2001. I didn't start focusing on mixing and mastering until about 5 years ago, and there is still much for me to learn as well. Thankfully there's so much good stuff on KZbin or on paid sites these days in the form of online courses from really good engineers. I wish you all the best in your journey mate.

[@DanFrancisco76]

@@warpacademy Thank you! Made great progress so far. Looking into getting some more exclusive paid plug ins like the ones you mentioned in this video. Thanks again.

[@warpacademy]

Right on. All the best with your mixes and see ya round the channel!

[@MR_Cellarpop]

Thanks!

[@warpacademy]

My pleasure!

[@fatherxjake]

Thoughts on FIRE THE CLIP?

[@warpacademy]

Hey hey. That plugin is pretty bare bones. I wouldn’t use it. For me I want the waveform display and loads more control. Control over the knee shape and amount etc.

[@Eliyahillel]

Great video. Thanks

[@warpacademy]

Glad you liked it! And thanks for being a subscriber to the channel.

[@TeeDubz]

Great help! Also, wow man, how on earth do you get your You tube uploads so loud and perfect stats for nerds? "Volume / Normalized 100% / DRC (content loudness -0.1dB)"

[@warpacademy]

Ha! I think you're the only person who's ever noticed that. Good catch! Why? Because....audio engineer nerd ;) I'm well aware that KZbin's loudness normalization runs at -14 LUFS, and when I master my audio for the video I target that exact loudness number. Or at least I did in this video. Since then, I've been experimenting with compressing my voice a little less as I think -14 LUFS may sound a little overcompressed to some people. -16 LUFS to -14LUFS seems to be a good sweet spot for loud mastered voice audio. Cheers!

[@TeeDubz]

@@warpacademy Fantastic, man. Yeah I've been nerding out on your vids and experimenting (and failing for that matter) What if it is just a music video with no voice over type thing? Just a song with vocals. Would you still aim for those LUFS on the final limiter? Would you then normalise it to 0.1db? My limiter often is down to -11LUFS before I even really start the mastering process.

[@warpacademy]

Hey hey. Glad to hear you've been experimenting and having fun. You should know that KZbin only turns things down and not up. So if it's -10 LUFS, KZbin will turn it down by 4 dB, but if you're -18 LUFS, it will not get turned up. So it's likely best to just output -14 LUFS unless you're talking about music. Also research something called KZbin Stable Volume. It's new dynamic range compression they're adding to voices and other non-musical elements when they're too quiet. For music, if you're doing -11 LUFS mixes (that is very loud) then you may not even want a mastering chain. If you think that sounds good, leave it be. Don't try to master to insane levels of loudness for KZbin given that you know -14 LUFS is the target.

[@TeeDubz]

@@warpacademy Fantastic! I'll try it out. I've been mixing into Gain>Clipper>EQ>Comp>limiter

[@warpacademy]

@@TeeDubz Yep, that's a good chain to start with. Try ditching the compressor and see if you like it ;)

[@RealNuruMusic]

With headphones on imma say standard clip is the best for my taste. Actually just purchased it today

[@warpacademy]

Enjoy!

[@svenengelhard1819]

How do you even get to a Mix with a Loudness of - 11 LUFS before Mastering. I don't get it.

[@warpacademy]

Hey hey. By using a very specific set of engineering tools and techniques to manage peak levels, while retaining quality, crest factor, and transient punch. Not every mix needs to be set up like this. I only do it with electronic bass music that needs to be mastered to the levels mentioned in the video. I'll be doing another video very soon about exactly how I took this mix from the artist version to my re-engineered version, showing all the plugins and techniques used along the way. Stay tuned. Cheers!

[@svenengelhard1819]

I'm excited to know. There are things everybody already knows: some serial or parallel compression, saturation, the right balance between highs and lows, not getting fooled by louder signals after processing, maybe some Transient Shaping. Clipping or limiting single instances and if not in the busses. But...what's the sauce? What - is- the- secret? I already use all of this but still... Anyway thank you for your kind answer. :)

[@warpacademy]

Hey hey. Yeah, it's a deep dive into this stuff. It's one thing to know what tools are used and to own them; it's a whole different ball game to know when and how to use them in a variety of scenarios. That takes intentional practice and experience. A couple of things I can share. First, I never use compression to contain peak level. It's the wrong tool. Clipping or limiting or saturation are better. And in fact, many times I don't use any compression at all because I use saturation or soft clipping to achieve the same results that one may use compression for (increasing perceived loudness, bringing up low level information, adding harmonics, increasing density). Transient shapers are much more significant than most people think. As soon as you start mixing loud, and you bring down peak level while bringing up low level information, you can easily get an overcompressed garbage sound. For example with drums, the bodies and tails can swell up making the drums sound blown out in a bad way. Transient shapers can allow you to bring up the attack into a clipper, for example, to increase punch and harmonic density of the transient without increasing peak level. Then after a clipper or limiter, you can decrease the sustain of drums to bring down the body and tail so they don't sound overcompressed. This type of shaping is very effective, but I rarely see anyone use it exactly like this except for a few expert mixers.

[@svenengelhard1819]

@@warpacademy Okay, this is pretty new for me. So if you don't use compression on vocals, you just saturate them and get rid of the peaks by clipping and limiting? I hope I got it right. And also the technique of pushing the signal with a transient designer. You increase it, cut the peaks, make it denser and the cut off the sustain to make it sharper? Pretty cool. I have to try it. Thank you for sharing your knowledge or perspective.

[@warpacademy]

Vocals are one of the few things I don’t clip. And I do use several stages of compression and a limiter. But for most other things (except sub) I use clippers and saturation.

[@TheDurden-l7o]

Great knowledge and well explained. Keep on going.

[@warpacademy]

Thanks for watching.

[@kozihoppy]

Gold content. Thanks for sharing Vespers!

[@warpacademy]

My pleasure!

[@marceloribeirosimoes8959]

Thank you! There's a great playlist about this subject at Baphometrix channel, too

[@warpacademy]

Thanks for the visit! And yes the Baphometrix content is great.

[@BigStereoVR]

Yes, I could hear aliasing. People focus on the main tone strikes for distortion. That's not where it's evident. Focus on the spatial effects. Oversampling sends the problem out of range. You're right- oversampling doesn't change your signal. It moves a signal competitor off the field of play.

[@warpacademy]

Hey hey. Thanks for joining the conversation. Maybe one day I'll do a fully blinded test for people. That would be fun. On the master, it's typical for me to use Gold Clip with oversampling (you can't turn oversampling off in Gold Clip anyways) so any aliasing on the parts you mentioned would be reduced or completely inaudible. I went with Gold Clip in my version of the master. What I'm talking about mostly in this video is using clippers all throughout the mixing process, as well as the master. Especially on drums. And for that, it's nearly impossible to hear aliasing, and if you do, it's actually not a bad effect at all. Referring to what David Gnozzi said, and what Dave Gamble said later on in the video. So for track clipping, it makes no sense to me to activate oversampling. But yes on the master, if you hear aliasing. Cheers!

[@zeridium9129]

Thank's for going so deep into that topic

[@warpacademy]

Thanks for watching and commenting.

[@AVDRE]

whhaaatttt I've never seen this demonstration before. great info

[@warpacademy]

Thanks. Glad you enjoyed it.

[@ryde2012]

Thanks great video

[@warpacademy]

Glad you enjoyed it