I want to know all major applications of clipper. And which clipper do you prefer?
Kclip vs Invisible Limiter?

 

Distortion, waveshaper, limiter? What do mean? Be specific.

 

Well it depends what you do. In mastering or mixing clipping can be use Prior to limiting in order to avoid to limit too much, it's a nice mastering trick. (Edit : more here on the matter : http://onlinemixingmaster.com/secret-mastering-techniques-they-dont-want-you-to-know-1/ )
A nice unit to do that is limitless which includes a very nice clpping area (oversampling up to x64 !) which allow you to perform that trick. But that's mastering application, you can also as Baxter underlines use clipping creatively but then usually you use more creative distortion units...

 

Last edited: Apr 8, 2016

It does what it says on the tin, it clips peaks off, this way it reduces the strain on the limiter allowing you to push it more.

 

In case of limiter.

 

Can you guys recommend any great clipper for mastering.
I've heard a lot of Kazrog Kclip. But in an older thread, people were saying that AOM Invisible Limiter is better than Kclip in master clipping.

 

Ah, like a brickwall limiter?

I personally like Sonnox Oxford Limiter Native (still) and DMG Limitless.
Fabfilter Pro-L isn't too bad either.

 

Last edited: Apr 8, 2016

AOM Invisible Limiter, in my opinion, is the cleanest limiter out there. No saturation unless your push it really hard, and no coloration, I really like it.

 

A clipper before AOM makes wonders. I find that clipping individual tracks works better than clipping the entire master track. A very good clipper is the one in Ozone's own limiter (IRC III and newly added IV). In dance music, don't stop clipping until the goniometer gets a diamond shape

 

I usually use MDA limiter on every channel, just push some channels more and some channels less. Usually between +12 to +24dB [gain staging part 1]. I also mix into MDA limiter on the buses another +6 to +12dB [gain staging part 2 ;)] and another MDA limiter on the master, just set up lightly to shave off the rest of the dynamics another 6dB or so...

...and then I woke up! What a nightmare! Whoa!

 

after listening to a range of clipping and soft clipping tools. The FL soft clipper is by far the most transparent and less degrading to the original signal. Excellent little tool.

 

The best software clipper on the market is in The Glue compressor by Cytomic. Definitely better than KClip. Read this:

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/11382610-post2563.html

 

What the hell is a clipper? I know I use one for my toe nails but I recon that's not what this is about

 

yeah I really don't get the point either, I always figured that it was brickwall limiter whith such fast settings it is sounding like your speakers are beeing ripped out.

Edit got it:

 

"Signal Clipped" definitely is distorted, but is "Signal Limited", too? isn't it just reduced in gain but unchanged in wave shape and therefore NOT "distorted"?

 

Last edited: Apr 9, 2016

Clipper is not a limiter or compressor. Clipper... well, clips the peaks. It's a rather destructive audio process. That's pretty much all there is to it, eh? It doesn't change the gain of the audio in any way, unless there is a gain control knob.

 

Well, it is changed compared to the original signal - you've essentially compressed everything above threshold REALLY hard (20:1 ratio or more). That basically removed any dynamics above it. It is NOT an unchanged waveshape.

 

So it's a brickwall limiter + nonharmonic distortion. Why on earth would I want that?

 

I mean it's kind of done all over the place, clipping (and again it is a different stage than limiting) can be an elegant way to get rid of overshoot without having to compress or limit. You might have a problem here or there and yet you don't want to mess with with your dynamic balance and pull out your big gun yet..
And it is very much used even in plugin we all use quite often : if you engage the soft clipping in Satin for example (and a lot of tape simulator if not all do that) it gently clips overshoots, and indeed that's what the glue does, and it does glue tracks together.