Clippers - What's the fuss about?

[Boy Wonder]

I use clippers but not for saturation. I use the visual kind so I can see and trim off those pesky little transients to obtain a flatter mix. Some clippers are more transparent than others. Right now, my preferences are for the V-Clip and StandardClip. I'm aware of Newfangled Audio's Saturate but haven't demo'd it yet.

[LFO8]

The clipper on Limiter 6 GE by Tokyo Dawn labs is great. The one by Voxengo; OVC-128 also great.

[legendCNCD]

I use clippers but not for saturation. I use the visual kind so I can see and trim off those pesky little transients to obtain a flatter mix. Some clippers are more transparent than others. Right now, my preferences are for the V-Clip and StandardClip. I'm aware of Newfangled Audio's Saturate but haven't demo'd it yet.

All the clipping plugins should have GR meter at least for the visual side and yeah, a lot of times there are some huge peaks eating bandwidth, cut those off and nobody knows they even were there in the first place and get much better mix.

[MogwaiBoy]

Like many other processes, it's about "taming". Some signal sources (especially transient-rich sources) have random peak overshoots that are far above the rest of the waveform. Clipping just helps to make the waveform more uniform, so you can get more predictable results out of downstream processing like compressing/limiting, without unexpected peaks tripping the threshold.

That's the practical use for them - and that's mostly how I use them, as a problem solver in mixing (for example on the snare channel just shaving those crazy 3db overshoots that only happen a few times in the song).

You can get creative with them too as they can have a 'sound' of their own, especially when pushed.

I like V-Clip.

[AtomOfScent]

Like many other processes, it's about "taming". Some signal sources (especially transient-rich sources) have random peak overshoots that are far above the rest of the waveform. Clipping just helps to make the waveform more uniform, so you can get more predictable results out of downstream processing like compressing/limiting, without unexpected peaks tripping the threshold.

That's the practical use for them - and that's mostly how I use them, as a problem solver in mixing (for example on the snare channel just shaving those crazy 3db overshoots that only happen a few times in the song).

You can get creative with them too as they can have a 'sound' of their own, especially when pushed.

I like V-Clip.

This is precisely how/why I use them too.
Especially with drums/percussion stray peaks often sum together which can significantly reduce downstream headroom. Compressors often don't react fast enough for momentary peaks, and limiters can reduce the "punch" or otherwise negatively impact the transient. A clipper is often the best tool for the job.

For years I used Schaak Transient Shaper for this task as the drive knob shaves off peaks without raising the volume and it's easy to adjust the transient knob to end up with something that sounds as punchy with much more headroom which matters with many layers and dense productions.

At the moment I'm mostly using Stillwell's Event Horizon with 2x OS with a bit of soft-clipping (Lavry Gold type sound). It holds up quite well and is extremely CPU efficient.

(like this but the threshold/ceiling usually have the same value)


For sustained tonal sounds I use DMG Track Limit in a similar fashion to gain a few dB of extra headroom while leaving everything but the peaks alone.

Personally I think every clipper should have ganged threshold and output to easily tame peaks without changing the volume in the mix.

[plexuss]

In my experience, for my productions, I don't need or use clipping. I master to -16 LUFS which I have found to be good balance between managing upstream clipping issues and loudness. However, my priority is creating as much fidelity as possible (not loudness). I only use clipping when mixing for effect. I do use a master limiter and that will essentially clip. What is a clipper. Is a limiter a clipper. Everyone has an opinion. I just need one stage of limiting or clipping or whatever you want to call it.

But. If you are after loudness and/or you dont care about fidelity, specifically audible distortion, then clipping is a good way to get there. Clipping and limiting in multiple stage can achieve a more pleasing sound, just like master buss compression before limiting can also help to get more fidelity.

It all depends on your ears and brain work and also what your "audio aesthetic" is (style / "sound").

I'd say use a clipper as part of a multi-stage master loudness strategy and/or as an effect to grind out some musical sounding distortion.

[ramseysounds]

I just need one stage of limiting or clipping or whatever you want to call it.

...which is usually the last insert on your master buss / stereo buss, or whatever you choose to call it. I've got clippers; never use them. I always put an L2 as the last insert. Am I limiting? Am I clipping? Who really knows

[counterparty]

Here's a video course on clipping for loudness at Groove3 that people might find useful if they don't want to run the YouTube gauntlet (it's on Kazrog KClip but the principles will work on any hard clipper): https://www.groove3.com/tutorials/KClip-Explained

[Andreya_Autumn]

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 etc etc etc etc

This post has the most thumbs up here, for good reason!



Also worth noting though, if you're gonna watch those Baphometrix videos, is that he's working in genres where producers have collectively decided to shoot for -7 LUFS and louder. If they all say that's where that music sound best, I'll take their word for it, they know their genre better than me.

And if you wanna make music that loud probably Baph's clip-to-zero method is the way to go. It teaches you to always check your sounds into hard limiters already at the sound design stage, making sure that each sound you put in your track has the potential to go loud enough. Discarding every sound that won't work in that context because decreasing its dynamics enough destroys it too much.

That way, when it comes time to master the track, the mix is already close to the insane loudness target, and you won't need to squish it hard with a mastering limiter to get there which leads to better-sounding insane loudness.


Most music does *not* benefit from being produced to be that loud though, and so I can't really advice going this route if you're not in those mega-loud EDM styles. The same principle still applies though, but with gentler and more "colorful"/less transparent distortion styles.
The common goal is the same = the mix should pretty much be loud enough by the time the mastering engineer gets it. It's just that for most other genres "loud enough" = from -18 to -12 LUFS kinda.

Which character of clipper/distortion/compression that's used to get there will depend on the context, but the overall idea holds water regardless. Many little distortions across the mix > lots of distortion at the mastering stage.