Clippers - What's the fuss about?

[NAD]

It seems that clipping is very much standard practice nowadays, whereas not that long ago it was considered very taboo, or at least controversial.

What I have trouble understanding is why there are so many different plugins dedicated solely or mainly to clipping. I would think that algorithmically it's quite a simple process aside from perhaps any fancy anti-aliasing methods involved. And surely different methods for rounding the corner to get soft clipping can't make such an audible difference, right?

So why are there so many different clipping plugins on the market and what could possibly be making such a difference between them? Is is all down to marketing and placebo?

There must be something that I'm missing, please educate me!

[greententacle]

just like the X thousand vintage compressor.
if its a hype, we can sell it.
look at xfer lfo tool. there must be 10 similar now.
people buy it.

[Trancit]

It seems that clipping is very much standard practice nowadays, whereas not that long ago it was considered very taboo, or at least controversial.

What I have trouble understanding is why there are so many different plugins dedicated solely or mainly to clipping. I would think that algorithmically it's quite a simple process aside from perhaps any fancy anti-aliasing methods involved. And surely different methods for rounding the corner to get soft clipping can't make such an audible difference, right?

So why are there so many different clipping plugins on the market and what could possibly be making such a difference between them? Is is all down to marketing and placebo?

There must be something that I'm missing, please educate me!

If you really want to learn about this you should definetely watch the series of Baphometrix as it´s most likely the most comprehensive one out there:

[dubguy99]

I'm not quite sure what the technical reasons are but none of them really sound the same, even when purely hardclipping. Now, do you need 10 of 'em? Of course not, the differences aren't THAT big, but it's not just placebo.

[bmanic]

It seems that clipping is very much standard practice nowadays, whereas not that long ago it was considered very taboo, or at least controversial.

As with many things audio, the "taboo" status and discussions were started by amateurs and audiophiles.. whereas saturation and heavily clipping things have been an industry practice since the very beginning. Ever heard of smashing stuff onto tape? Yeah, that's clipping.

Same thing with inter sample peaks. No actual mastering engineer until very recently really cared about these at all. Most consumer media has been able to deal with quite heavy overs since the 90s. It became a bit of an issue when needing to encode stuff to lossy compression formats though and later became a no-no in the world of streaming.

Did the industry take it way too far? Hell yes. The loudness wars were (and still are) real. But just clipping some tracks a little here and there is the most transparent way of getting rid of short peaks. It's basically an infinitely fast limiter. You get a short burst of distortion (basically noise) when it happens but if the timing window is very short and not constantly rhythmically repeating, your brain wont have time to notice.

Also there has been this strange misunderstanding by people that actual square waves are coming out of your speakers/headphones. That's not happening due to how filtering works in the Digital to Analogue conversion stage. You get a somewhat skewed representative of the original waveform but it ain't nowhere near "square".

[Examigan]

If you wanted to have clipping as an effect on purpose (versus unwanted clipping while recording through an A-to-D converter) is one form of what's usually called saturation. There's a recent tutorial on that subject I found to be pretty informative. Check it out here:

https://soundbytesmag.net/saturated-fac ... stigation/

[Googly Smythe]

Sometimes it's not simply about "The Sound". Sometimes it's about ease of use. Some plugins, for example, have very sensitive controls, which I find a pain. Sometimes it's the colour scheme. If you have to work with a plugin that is finicky or offends the eye, it can interfere with the creative process. These are not trivial issues.

[imrae]

What I have trouble understanding is why there are so many different plugins dedicated solely or mainly to clipping. I would think that algorithmically it's quite a simple process aside from perhaps any fancy anti-aliasing methods involved. And surely different methods for rounding the corner to get soft clipping can't make such an audible difference, right?

Think you've answered your own question here really. Antialiasing is tricky; there are lots of options to consider and users want decent performance at low CPU/latency.

I wouldn't discount the effect of different soft clipping curves entirely; they will determine the balance of harmonics produced. This will be more audible when clipping heavily (e.g. saturating 808 kick drums) than for shaving transients.

[Agreed]

You could make a similar case that methods of clipping a signal for the purposes of pleasing distortion, say for electric guitar, couldn't possibly be that different and little differences in how they round the waveform couldn't be that important, but that's wrong, you get really different feels and behaviors out of different clipping styles and so people want fuzz, or overdrive, or distortion, and they might have a preference for diodes, or op-amps, or tubes, etc., etc. - our ears are pretty sensitive and our brains love making distinctions in otherwise similar patterns, that feel like "our" sound. If you try out some different clippers you might indeed get a feel for the difference and start having a favorite for this or that task. That isn't to say it's worth an incredible amount of handwringing but all of these things are tools with enough differences to sustain a market that can be selective, you know?

[Debutante]

Maybe you should take a look at a few in an oscilloscope. The differences between them on transients is definitely not placebo. Should be most audible there. Good ones are apparent, but yes, beware of marketing and these days I check what plugins are doing more often...

... I was there. 3000 years ago. I remember the "Pushtec" equalizer fiasco

[s28]

To echo some comments and emphasise, it's not a new thing.

Hitting samplers outputs hard, recording hot, hitting tape hard, all clipping.

Clipping in software isn't new and in lots of genres and communities it's not been taboo at all.

Jungle for example, lots of things smashed into samplers/mixers.

Theres a variety of plugins because they do things differently and sound different. Take airwindows for example, there are a few clippers that sound quite different to one another.

[Vortifex]

Edited

[astralprojection]

ive come to realise that clipping is absolutely essential. Both for mixing and mastering. At least if loudness is something you have to achieve. For mixing using clippers instead of limiters on a bus can be much more transparent. And for mastering putting a clipper before the limiter means you can get a bit more out of the limiter.
Sometimes shaving off pesky transients will be completely inaudible- but will increase your RMS alot. (While those same pesky transients on the limiter might add distortions at those moments, if you drive your limiter hard.)

In the analog domain it is my understanding the the natural saturation of consoles and effects; when driven a bit, sorta kinda acts like the clipper does in a software scenario. But the clipper tries to not add audible saturation when driven slightly.
As opposed to actually clipping going over 0dfs; its more 'musical'.
You could do your clipping using distortion units but thats probably not always what you want, and thats where the clipper comes in. In SW its all about doing 1 thing, and doing that 1 thing very well. In the analog domain you kinda get lots of things using 1 thing.

[crickey13]

In the analog domain it is my understanding the the natural saturation of consoles and effects; when driven a bit, sorta kinda acts like the clipper does in a software scenario. But the clipper tries to not add audible saturation when driven slightly.
As opposed to actually clipping going over 0dfs; its more 'musical'.

It's basically soft-clipping. Most saturation plugins emulating analog are some kind of variation on your basic soft-clipping.

I really like the way straightforward digital soft-clipping sounds; as a matter of fact, I frequently prefer its sound to dedicated saturators which often tend to make things too mushy. Not as transparent as hard clipping obviously, but if you want some subtle "compression", glue and saturation in a single process, it's really cool, unpretentious and classy.

[astralprojection]

In the analog domain it is my understanding the the natural saturation of consoles and effects; when driven a bit, sorta kinda acts like the clipper does in a software scenario. But the clipper tries to not add audible saturation when driven slightly.
As opposed to actually clipping going over 0dfs; its more 'musical'.

I really like the way straightforward digital soft-clipping sounds; as a matter of fact, I frequently prefer its sound to dedicated saturators which often tend to make things too mushy. Not as transparent as hard clipping obviously, but if you want some subtle "compression", glue and saturation in a single process, it's really cool, unpretentious and classy.

Poetic Couldnt agree more, and in fact youve even given me an a-ha moment there.