Clipping it.

Do you prefer clipping over limiting ?
When do you choose one over the other ?

What is the clipper you love the most and what is so special about it ?
Do you know any clipping tricks that you would like to share ?

 

clipper -> limiter
interesting thread, follow. THanks.

 

I clip on stages, a clap or snare I clip it until I hear it cracking then back it up a lil bit to taste, then in the drum bus I would put another clipper to shave things a bit and in case any other perc gets on the way would do a clipper on the individual track.
I use it this way so I can put my song on -5 -7 lufs where Im asked to do things if thats not your case then maybe you only want to use your clipper on the master bus or in group busses where needed.

this video here sums it up pretty quick

 

if track genre ends with style limit clipping else normalize (vinyl recording)

 

I like asymmetrical slightly biased semihard clip. You know, a fuzz pedal.

 

Do you prefer clipping over limiting ?
- no preference, situational for individual tracks/buses but both for full track. Maybe slightly on limiting I guess.

When do you choose one over the other ?
- I don't clip vocals, I limit. Everything else is in the sound, ie snare, kick, sometimes it calls for limiting, sometimes it needed soft clipping. Some snare just sound weird if clipped. Kick most of the time changes its tone when limited but didnt when clipped. Depends. I don't clip sustained element, that's just weird. I don't clip drum bus, I limit those, rarely tho.

What is the clipper you love the most and what is so special about it ?
- AA Ash - it sounds different than the others and has various of flavors. Sampled transfer curve is not mathematically perfect like the digitally generated one. It's a funny/clown-y concept (considering clipping is digital domain specialty) but I happen to enjoy the joke very much.
- TDR Limiter 6 - for low end clip, I like the sound.
- Arturia BUS-Peak - been liking this plugin a lot recently, the clipper section has built-in Inflator and Lavry Gold modeled clip. Plus the awesome Tonal section.

Do you know any clipping tricks that you would like to share ?
- idk much because I dislike the process but have to use it to stay competitive. Also I found that I use the De-Clip module in Izotope RX more than I actually clip individual tracks.

 

Last edited: Aug 16, 2024

Copy/paste from a previous reply of mine :

It really is as simple as :

> Limiter (somtimes called brickwall compression) : Distorts less but squashes the transients.
> Clipper : Preserves the transients as much as possible but distorts heavily.

My favorite limiter/clipper BY FAR, is AOM Invisible Limiter G3, as I can adjust the ratio of the "soft limiter" (which is a compressor) so that I can feed more or less to its clipper. I find that this is one of the most intuitive way to do great limiting. It's a single knob to adjust between less distortion/squashed transients and more distortion/cleaner transients.

 

all in one, https://www.sonicacademy.com/course...ion/tutorial-01-what-is-distortion?autoplay=1

 

soft limiters and hard limters
flanger->chorus

 

i think 90% who use clippers on master c have both in the chain

 

Do you prefer clipping over limiting ?
At times, yes, but generally i use both.

When do you choose one over the other ?
I clip everything, all the time, I dont limit everything. Like Stevie said, i dont clip vocals, i limit them.

What is the clipper you love the most and what is so special about it ?
Also what Stevie said, Acustica Ash. Its just great.
I also second TDR Limiter.
Kazrog K-Clip is great. Lightweight, with additional functionality like MB. Sometimes the multiband really comes in handy.
Recently, the Clipping programs from some of the Tim P nebula libraries are outstanding.

Do you know any clipping tricks that you would like to share ?

Clip basses, synths, or even drums and guitars in parallel. Clip them to shit, then shape that with an eq / bpf to add nice mid range fullness.

Clip before limiter on master, to allow for less work on the limiter.

Clip on the way to master, for the same reason as above. Clip at track level, as well as sub groups, and groups.

Use a transient shaper after a clipper on drum tracks, to reintroduce transients as needed.

 

To me it's situational depending on the genre, but the last 3 stages of my mastering chain are KClip, then Oxford Inflator, then FabFilter ProL2. Kclip does a great job of clipping those initial peaks and adds as much crunch as I desire, oxford brings out the lower elements up even louder and ProL2 does the final limit to what LUFS i want it at, depending on the genre.

 

is kclip a soft or hard clipper .which is lighter , standart clip or kclip ?

 

Kclip is both and anywhere in between. It also has various models.

Not sure which is lighter.

 

KClip is both and anywhere in between* as stated by shin, in hard clip mode is the lighter clipper I've ever seen. Standard Clip is a beast that I really love, will write more, it is pretty light as well if used without high oversampling or linear phase.
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*KClip has also some "interesting flavours" like the tube or diode or tape if I am not wrong, and has a feature that works REALLY REALLY well, the MIX KNOB. Thats something that doesnt work on every clipper because it's risky, many clippers dont even have the mix knob because it can bring big phase issues, so developers just avoid it. The mix knob on KClip it's a masterpiece, you can distort AS HELL your STEREO BUSS and mix with the dry signal with no issues (better activate the linear phase in this case!). Only the ORANGE CLIP has a mix knob so precise for me (dont know if GOLD CLIP has the same perfection because I didnt study it yet, will do soon)

 

Last edited: Aug 16, 2024

the first thing I will write is something that I value about clipping, seems to be not listed in this interesting thread

Clipping and Limiting are similar but different, pepole before me have wrote amazing examples, no need to add more.
But I think that we have to sub-divide the clipping galaxy in 2 VERY VERY separate systems:
SOFT CLIP and HARD CLIP

for me these are 2 different beasts, even if you make em with the same plugin mostly. They both shave peaks (maybe better say CUT peaks), but with different results and sound

SOFT CLIP is more like a tone box, this way you can really "feel the sound" of a clipper, then it's reasonable to have different plugins to choose when sofclipping. In this mode the peaks are CUT, obv, but not as much as in hard mode, or at least not as abruptly as the hard mode

HARD CLIP is more (lets say) transparent, it distorts anyway, but with different harmonics and cuts the peaks with "less noticeable pleasant distortion", so it's the perfect choice if you are looking for extreme loudness and control

it can happen that you use 2 clippers, one as tone box/saturator and another one right after in hard clip mode to CUT the peaks. Lets say that soft clipping is more on the musical side and the hard clipping is more on the technical side, the first one adds tone the second one is for controlling the peaks

 

It works well for drum and bass

 

Tryed a few but keep goin to this one
https://www.siraudiotools.com/StandardCLIP.php

 

I like K-Clip3 on individual channels. Sometimes on buses. There are a number of reasons why, but I think the proximity of the button to solo the delta being so close to the in/out controls is probably the biggest one of them. You can link and unlink the in/out controls, and I get decent results with it. It's not a big heavy plugin with unnecessary features for the context I use it in.

I like the Black Salt Audio clipper because it is small and even lighter. I usually only use it on tracks that are not fundamental to my mix. It has very few features and I use it almost like you would with a Stock utility plugin in your DAW. It frequently gets changed out later.

Not pictured, and I'm unsure how; I like Sir Audio Standard Clip. Mostly I will use it in a high oversampling mode offline, and frequently after my final limiter plugin. Very low distortion and never results in overshoot.

I demo'd both the Gold and Orange Clip plugins from Schwabe and I like both quite a bit. But nowhere close to buying them at their current prices. I have not used the Flatline clipper, but maybe I will try that one out soon. I like the bx_clipper but haven't used it enough yet as it only showed up in June.

 

Usually i clip something when i want distortion, or some heavy saturation.