How much clipping is good clipping ?

[jaunmanuek]

Dear digi family,

Usually when recording drums (actually any instrument..) you get peak levels to hit the upper red limit and audio becomes clipped. Of course, inmediately we control out gain setups and try to fix this before or during the recording session.

When this happens thru analog, tube equipment, usually we hear this clippings as something acceptable, sometimes overdriven, but mostly acceptable to our ears, and since our taste will be the final meter that will set up every gain stage to get the sound we want, we let them be.

When using digital audio, like in our protools sessions, we can clearly see on the meter indicator that the red light turned on, warning our audio has been "destroyed", rectified... and when we zoom in the audio track we can see those square peaks, sometimes, just for milliseconds, but clipped..

Following my ears, many times that clipped wave does sound good. Many time the snare channel hits the red light almost on every hit, and the sound still rules.

So, my question to you is:

How much clipping is good clipping ?
Do you have a rule for this ?
A clear concept ?

Thank you !

Juan Aguirre
Argetina

[albee1952]

Don't equate the red clip indicator with an actual clip. It indicates no more headroom, which could be absolute -0(not clipped), or anything above(trashed to some degree). Since digital offers no soft-clip or anything remotely "analog" in character, there is really no reason to bother going to the edge as you gain nothing(other than maybe that last tenth of a db). Since a truly clipped digital signal tends to sound like crap, I look at yellow as the new red. Its not like we're trying to get every last bit of S/N to fight tape hiss

[jaunmanuek]

That's a comparision with tape S/N.
Thank you !

Originally Posted by albee1952

Don't equate the red clip indicator with an actual clip. It indicates no more headroom, which could be absolute -0(not clipped), or anything above(trashed to some degree). Since digital offers no soft-clip or anything remotely "analog" in character, there is really no reason to bother going to the edge as you gain nothing(other than maybe that last tenth of a db). Since a truly clipped digital signal tends to sound like crap, I look at yellow as the new red. Its not like we're trying to get every last bit of S/N to fight tape hiss

[albee1952]

So what are we talking about here? Did I answer the question or miss the point?

[jaunmanuek]

It was a complete answer, but a very good point of view.
The last quote was missing the word "good" for "comparison".
Thank you again.

Originally Posted by albee1952

So what are we talking about here? Did I answer the question or miss the point?

[chrisdee]

Originally Posted by jaunmanuek

How much clipping is good clipping ?

Thats easy. No clipping is good clipping.
Your drums might sound ok alone when clipped, but what happens to the master fader if you clip on all channels.

[MikeLip]

If you have analogue in your history you might be amiable to clipping. With digital, clipping is your enemy. Yellow is the new Red (sorta). imho.

[1ace1]

Another problem with clipping in the digital domain on individual tracks such as the snare, is that when summing the tracks (or stems) for mastering, clipping will be more likley occur at the master fader.

It may sound fine due to the transient speed of the snare sound and the digital clip, however when it is not clipping does it sound any worse?? It may be because it is a little louder that it sounds better. Turn up the monitors and down the snare so it does not clip and have a listen.

So as already said in this thread... No clipping with digital is best.

A:)

[waltz mastering]

Clipping is cumulative in nature. so the more you clip up stream the harsher it will sound downstream.

If on input your signal is hitting anywhere around 0 dBFS, chances are your driving your analog chain way to hard (probably around +20 dBU) this alone isn't great because pro analog gear is optimized to run around +4 dBu (give or take).

[barters81]

Nice thread guys.....I've been wondering about this side of things for a while as well. Thanks for clearing some things up.