Hey guys,

Lately I've been doing a lot of research on clippers and found these videos to be very useful.

He talks about how using multiple clippers along your track is way better than simply clipping everything together in the masterbus.

Really eye opening stuff, in my opinion.

Watch these two short videos first:

Then, if you are interested, this guy I follow on youtube, Baphometrix, has two incredibly detailed videos on the subject. More like masterclasses, to be honest. A lot of practical and theoretical info here (You should follow this guy. Incredibly useful videos with info you don't come across easily on the web):

I hope you guys like it!

M.

 

Last edited: Feb 21, 2021

I use only two clippers: one for the feet nails, which is bigger, and the smaller one for the hand nails. Sometimes even one is enough, the bigger one, of course.

 

Mine's bigger.

I've actually never thought to use a clipper when I mix but will check iut the videos posted to check out wassup wit dat.

Thank you RMorgan for the info.

 

it makes sense , I can clip 5 db easily from a snare without hearing any difference , but low end content change dramatically with clipping

 

Obviously you want to clip individual tracks and use clipping at multiple stages VS exclusively clipping the entire mix at the final stage. That doesn't require an advanced understanding of audio, it's the reasonable approach to anyone who understands the mere basics.

 

Well, that would very much depend on your professional circle and producing genre, I guess.

I come from a non-edm background and most producers I know don't use clippers like this, but yes, when you think about it, it obviously makes a lot of sense.

Thank you for letting us know this is old news for you, this really adds to the content of this thread, but I bet this info will be useful for a lot of people here.

 

Are you talking about actual clipping, where the top of the wave is made flat, or is this another case of defnitions changing due to popular use (even if technically incorrect) ?

 

I followed baphometrix techniques and I got hyperacussia and tinnitus as a prize. When you start making everything loud to its sweetness point your brain start treating sound as meth. Don`t be like me, turn down the volume before going full baphometrix.

 

used to do this, but dropped the matter in favor of cpu power.

 

I really want to hear a pro level EDM mixer mix a full symphony concerto or a jazz trio like he would a competitive dance chart & vice versa. Just to hear the difference. We’ve been told for years how different those production worlds are, but I don’t think we’ve ever heard a real pro level comparison.

 

When I learned this about 13 years ago it was like "wow, makes sense". A mentor told me "have several doing little, than one doing a lot". I've done it since. It applies to everything though, even mastering.
Edit: I first heard about mastering engineers (in the 90's) clipping their converters since the days of the early DAT tapes. Not clipping per se, but it's no wonder the Fairchild 670 is the holy grail of mastering compressors/limiters (and cost a fortune).

 

Last edited: Feb 23, 2021

Could we apply this philosophy to girlfriends too?

 

the first two videos are about actual waveshaping, cubic and (flat-making) hard. but i dont know a single reason for waveshaping a bus, or the whole mix.
the other two videos are way too long for in-between watching.

 

I think this is too subtle of a technique for me unless I want to crank shit up big time. I mean, oftentimes I do have several saturators in the chain like a synth internal one, cranked pres and then a saturator in the mixbuss, but still...

Kind of like some clever cookies can run multiple compressors in series to achieve smooth "multi-knee" compression, way too understated for me to understand.

 

Yes, actual clipping, but the real trick is to know to which kind of material to apply it and which part of the waveform is going to be flattened by it.

For instance, percussive material can take a lot of clipping, while melodic material can't.

That's one of the reasons it makes sense to clip elements individually, if your target is to have a loud mix, instead of crushing the whole thing on the mixbus.

Anyway, I know Baphometrix' videos are long, but at least the first one is worth watching. He makes a lot of comparisons between compressors, limiters and clippers and makes a lot of interesting observations. Very insightful, in my opinion.

 

i use clipshifter vst often, mainly for single drums in sounddesign, but looking for something similar in addition for softclipping... i never have something on my aster channel but i don't do mastering and stuff like that ...

what do you use to "flatten the curve" ?

 

people been using summing mixers these days because they can "take a lot of heat" (among other things) which IMO equivalent to clip every tracks individually before summing it up together, it totally make sense and I've been doing that for a long time now, especially for percussive elements and I like the sound of it.

 

I really like Boz Digital Labs Little Clipper and Big Clipper because they get the job done and use very little CPU.

Saturate, from Newfangled Audio, is excellent (and the one Baphometrix recommends on these videos) but is considerably heavier.

Oh, and the clipper from TDR's Limiter 6 is really nice as well.

 

is that not the point usually though to clip the percussive elements i.e. kick and snare? so applying this on the master is only going to clip the elements you want to clip as, for example, standardclip can visually show the elements the clip is applied to.
so the rest of the audio isn't effected anyway? this is in context to mixing stage clipping vs master stage clipping. I agree that spreading the computational processing between more than 1 plugin is beneficial same as compressing limiting etc, but why would clipping at the master stage not yield just as good results if the only elements that was wanted to be clipped were the ones that were more higher transient peaks on the master?
personally I would only do this is special circumstances as for the most part I would want my drums hitting hard but obviously can achieve better perceived loudness by clipping. so therefore if I only want the drums clipped, which 90% of the time that's what I'm looking at in the clipping stage, why not just do this during mastering?

 

Because percussive elements can take a lot more clipping without sounding obvious than melodic elements.

So, if you clip on the mixbus, unless you apply very limited clipping, you may end up harming other elements of the mix, which is undesirable.

This is, of course, if your production genre involves getting things as loud as possible.

For more dynamic genres, it's not necessary to clip more than 1 or 2 db on the mixbus, if clipping is necessary at all.

Also, watch the first two videos for more technical explanations on the subject. The first and most important one is only 5 minutes! There are more sonic theorizations involved, like intermodulated distortion buildup.

 

Last edited: Feb 21, 2021