Digital Clipping

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Hey all,

I get this is sort of a contravention topic, but I am simply looking for facts rather than opinions here. :)

Obviously clipping the master and rendering your song to a WAV/MP3 as is, is viewed in a very negative light. However there are plenty of producers with superb songs out there, which are clipping heavily. But they say themselves "if you do something like that, just be careful". Be careful of what exactly? I get clipping causes distortion, but if it sounds fine in the DAW will it have a chance of suddenly sounding terrible after rendering it?

Like this song from virtual riot, he said himself in a track breakdown that the drop is clipping 14db in the red. But it sounds great on every playback system.
https://soundcloud.com/virtual-riot/prayforriddim

And this other song Servo from Kompany. He showed the project file in a stream of his, and it's clipping 9db yet sounds just fine even in clubs.
https://soundcloud.com/neversaydie/kompany-servo

What should you look out for when doing this, what are the risks and how should one know if its okay while in the DAW before rendering?..

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Oneyejoe wrote: Mon Nov 12, 2018 10:51 pm I get clipping causes distortion, but if it sounds fine in the DAW will it have a chance of suddenly sounding terrible after rendering it?
No, it doesn't have anything to with "before rendering" or "after rendering".

It is just: If you use sounds which are intended to sound like "digital distortion"
you can push them over the 0 dB-clipping-border without changing the already
distorted sound. And that's what they do here.
free mp3s + info: andy-enroe.de songs + weird stuff: enroe.de

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I'll take your word on the quality of the tracks - on laptop right now. Just be careful not to overdo and use clipping only on appropriate material.
Oneyejoe wrote: Mon Nov 12, 2018 10:51 pm Like this song from virtual riot, he said himself in a track breakdown that the drop is clipping 14db in the red. But it sounds great on every playback system.
How exaggerated were the drum transients? Was that +14dBFS over the clipping threshold a single peak? Did he clip the drum buss or the whole mix?

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Unaspected wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 12:03 am How exaggerated were the drum transients? Was that +14dBFS over the clipping threshold a single peak? Did he clip the drum buss or the whole mix?
It was the master channel, he explains it here. I've added the time marker too so it should start the video at the right spot. (if not skip to 3:52)

https://youtu.be/HAutHPUcWDI?t=232
Last edited by Oneyejoe on Tue Nov 13, 2018 2:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

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enroe wrote: Mon Nov 12, 2018 11:18 pm
Oneyejoe wrote: Mon Nov 12, 2018 10:51 pm I get clipping causes distortion, but if it sounds fine in the DAW will it have a chance of suddenly sounding terrible after rendering it?
No, it doesn't have anything to with "before rendering" or "after rendering".

It is just: If you use sounds which are intended to sound like "digital distortion"
you can push them over the 0 dB-clipping-border without changing the already
distorted sound. And that's what they do here.
Ohhh... That actually makes perfect sense. The answers to my questions like these have typically been super simple haha. Thank you for putting that to rest for me :) greatly appreciate man.

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Obviously clipping the master and rendering your song to a WAV/MP3 as is, is viewed in a very negative light. However there are plenty of producers with superb songs out there, which are clipping heavily. But they say themselves "if you do something like that, just be careful".
To bring some more light into the dark: it also matters where you see the clipping.
Sample values can be stored on different formats.
On WAV file you will find values stored as integer (most likely). Bit depth decides what's the biggest number that can be stored. Example: if you render as 16bit WAV, –32768 to 32767 are the values that samples can have and 32767 is 0dB. So technically it is impossible to exceed 0dB on a interger WAV file. If you see red level meters when playing it, you see intersample-peaks (google it).
A DAW on the other hand does not work with integer numbers, but with floating point numbers. 1,0 is 0dB... but a floating point number can also store 1,1 or even 10,0.
Means, "internal clipping" inside the DAW is no problem. No distortion will occur, because nothing of the signal value is cut - it may exceed 0dB, floating point numbers can handle it.
Now signals are mixed to master channel and renderd to WAV and this where you need to be carefull.
As said, the WAV cannot store values above 0dB, but the master channel delivers it. So the DAW must limit / clip it and distortion might occur.

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When they're writing they probably don't care about clipping. Before it was sent for mastering they may have put a limiter on the master, lowered the vol or sent 32-bit FP files which could be safely lowered - or they didn't care :)

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Does it sound good? If not, back it off until it does.

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Actually "WAV": You mean RIFF WAVE, and in fact the standard formats for uncompressed RIFF WAVE pcm are: 8-bit integer, 16-bit integer and 32-bit float.

RIFF WAVE can store 24-bit using the extended format specifier as well as numerous compressed formats using compression codes (invalid = code 0, pcm = code 1, ms adpcm = code 2, float = code 3, ...), so that's 4 out of 65536 possible format codes.

RIFF WAVE can't store 24-bit in standard format and it uses a special "extended" "fmt " chunk to describe how the 24-bits are packed whether as 24-bit or into a 32-bit container. It's entirely possible to specify 32-bit integer format (although it's non-standard) and pad the numbers with zeros or repeat the MSBs to "pack" the bits. Any tool that can handle non-standard 32-bit integer files could then load 24-bit "packed" files too, although you'd need to manually convert back from 32-bit to 24-bit inside your software after loading the files.

Technically only 32-bit float is supported officially... but that doesn't mean you couldn't include 16-bit float, 64-bit float or any other formats you wanted (80-bit?) just that they might not load correctly in software that didn't support that.


Regarding the original question: yes exactly as MogwaiBoy said, they may export as float format RIFF WAVE and the master processing could include a limiter that handles those peaks.

A red meter is not clipping. A red meter is only a red meter. What that means exactly depends on the tool/meter you're using. It's like the orange LEDs for "-3 dB warning" or red LEDs for "0 dB clip/warning". They're just warning lights to inform you about what's happening.

A mix that includes red LEDs doesn't magically become bad. Before you make judgements based upon blinking lights, you should definitely learn what the lights mean when they blink first!

:)
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Digital clipping generally sounds disgusting. Especially on bass. Kick and bass just become an unstable mush. That's why he said be careful.
Clipping a snare in a track like that, obviously no problem, but clipping something like female vocals, then yes, we have a problem.

To be honest, with music like that, you can pretty much throw away the rule book. Just remember that clipping like that will affect your overall frequency balance if it's not controlled

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_al_ wrote: Wed Nov 21, 2018 4:39 pm To be honest, with music like that, ...
Haha, it's a matter of taste! :hihi:
free mp3s + info: andy-enroe.de songs + weird stuff: enroe.de

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The general principle seems to be that hard clipping is tolerable on transients and intolerable on tonal content. So it's "too much" if it's adding harmonics to audible notes, but if it's just robbing energy from your transients then it's an artistic choice.

To some extent it's quite useful to level out strong transients and clipping will do that more transparently than limiting. But overdoing it is how you get the fatiguing soulless sausage effect!

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sounds sloppy to me.
if i wanted digital clipping then i would personally use an effect to achieve it.
i bet their mastering engineers hate them :D

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He mixed this HIT TRACK with one simple trick!

Mastering engineers hate him!

CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT MORE!!!
Free plug-ins for Windows, MacOS and Linux. Xhip Synthesizer v8.0 and Xhip Effects Bundle v6.7.
The coder's credo: We believe our work is neither clever nor difficult; it is done because we thought it would be easy.
Work less; get more done.

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aciddose wrote: Sat Nov 24, 2018 4:48 am He mixed this HIT TRACK with one simple trick!

Mastering engineers hate him!

CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT MORE!!!
:lol: :lol: :lol:

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