Waves L2 and Digital Clipping

[jiagap]

Yo, my friends. I am trying to master a few songs. I just aquired Waves L2 and am bouncing to disk. I thought the purpose of a limiter was to limit sound so it would not clip. Yet when I bounce to disk and then listen on itunes, turned up, it clips like crap. I do not claim to be a mastering engineer but what am I doing wrong. It is not clipping within PT. But when bounced to disk, ouch!

Any help would be appreciated.

Richard

[JasonRomney]

Is the actual audio file clipped or are you just clipping your sound card when you turn it up in iTunes?

[ajazzie]

Sounds like the apple\system volume is at its max, turn it down and Ide bet that will fix your problem, I too had this one a year or so ago, this fixed it.

[byteme]

Where are you setting the threshold for the L2. Just because you are not clipping the meters doesn't mean you audio will not have distortion. If you limit it too much, thus raising the make up gain a ton in the L2, you will get distortion. Also make sure you do not clip much, if at all, on mix down.
AJ

[Dirren]

...also make sure the L2 is not still on the masterbuss AFTER the bounce, since you are then "crushing" it 2 times!

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[dkrz]

I have found that you really can't turn up iTunes without a significant amount of distortion. Best thing to to is to burn a test CD and see how it fairs on other systems.

dk

[JasonRomney]

Or you could just take a look at it in Peak or even Pro Tools if you import it back into your session. Just zoom in to almost the sample level. If it's clipped, you'll see it. All the peaks will be leveled off at the top.

[byteme]

Originally posted by JasonRomney:
Or you could just take a look at it in Peak or even Pro Tools if you import it back into your session. Just zoom in to almost the sample level. If it's clipped, you'll see it. All the peaks will be leveled off at the top.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">If you ran it through the L2 then the peaks are going to look like this. It limits these peaks before they clip, so they look leveled. This is totally normal after limiting. Before limiting though, you will see leveled off peaks on clips, this is bad if there is too much. I personally come from the opinion (as do many others) that a LITTLE clipping in Pro-Tools is ok. Like 2-3db on the peaks. Your mixes have more power once they are mastered. This is a raging debate, I know, I think it is just preference.
AJ

[PhiDelta308]

Also, check the preferences in itunes to make sure that the "sound enhancer" option is not turned on. It adds quite a few dB of crap, it doesn't always clip, but if you have a loud song, it will definitly clip.

-Chris