Soft Clip question...

[Imagine]

Is it recommended to check the Soft-Clip box? According to the info, it allows higher levels to disk for punchier, hotter recordings.

Anyone have any opinion regarding this?

Thanks

[Ozzie]

Don't do it!

Just record quieter, you wont lose punch trust me!

[thin ice]

Yes record a bit quieter as you won't lose anything noticable at 24 bit, but do use soft limit. I have it on the Apogee 800 to collect any spikes. Why not have a safety net? Also, I think a lot of plugins respond better with a little more headroom.

[frenchman]

I have soft limiting on my ad 8000 and noticed it actually has an effect on the sound much below peak, probably due to some "soft knee" thing. (I hate soft knee limiting, I find it much more conspicuous to my ears than hard knee ...)
So I don't use it although I admit that occasionally I wouldn't mind having a safety net

Even truer is the fact that my recordings have been getting better from since I stopped loading tracks very hot.
Many reasons for this that have been debated to death here, but a less publicised one beeing that the interfaces are calibrated "out of the box" in such a way, that recording hot means asking your analog chain upstream to deliver some VERY hot levels indeed, something that only top notch stuff can do... Do the db maths and you will be in for quite a surprise ! We are talking about levels quite enough to drive some small speakers !