When one device clips another? Fix for mixing?

[Citizen]

Quick question:

When you are late in the mixing process, and you realise that that one device is clipping the next one (see pic) what is the best way to fix?

In this instance, it is certain drum sounds in my drum group that are the offenders.

Do I have to drop the channel volume of the offending drum sounds – and therefore have to readjust he balance of my whole mix – or is there a simpler way to fix this?

[Stromkraft]

Do I have to drop the channel volume of the offending drum sounds – and therefore have to readjust he balance of my whole mix 8O – or is there a simpler way to fix this?

If this is indeed an audio problem — you have after all some head room to use — then the fastest way is probably to lower the volume just before where it clips by -x dB and then put for instance Utility at the end and add back x dB.

It certainly helps to make a habit of gain staging all the way trough to prevent these kind of situations.

I should mention the fact that I believe there is a GUI issue with the meters in Live since 9.5 or 9.6, which indicate sometimes potential clipping where there really is none. I rely on meters like Sonalksis FreeG since a long time and find them more reliable.

[Angstrom]

Quickest way to fix this is to plonk a Utility on the channel after the drumrack.
It's clipping, but only on your final output.
These internal mixing points (the channels/tracks) mix at 64bit /wordlength. The headroom is incredible.
You could literally boost a track to 100db over 0db, and then attenuate it back down by -100db and there would be no clipping.
That's the magic of floating point.

The signal chains in a rack all run at 32 bit, still lots of headroom above 0db

Many people get confused with old-world gain staging from either analogue desks, or they learned ProTools when it was fixedpoint and their teacher told them some nonsense about how integers sound better. All just silliness.
The only places gainstaging matter now is when you go into a device such as a waveshaper, saturator, compressor, etc - which have nonlinear gain. So if you drive them hard they actially sound differently. By intent. For those devices you must watch your gains.
But in general mixing of tracks, you can recover A Lot with a simple Utility. Or send the tracks to a Bus and turn that bus down.

[Stromkraft]

The only places gainstaging matter now is when you go into a device such as a waveshaper, saturator, compressor, etc - which have nonlinear gain.

Gain staging the signal path is a habit that makes everything more predictable. I see only upsides in making use of it. When it's a habit it doesn't take much time either. I don't see the point of adding unnecessary processing stages that are easily avoided, if you don't really have to. When in a hurry you might, but habits like gain staging can work for you.

Clipping is also not the main reason to gain stage. When you don't have control over the gain in an effect it's much easier to fool yourself it's being beneficial to the sound when the major part of what it's really doing that you find attractive is adding volume. I see this often from producers that later complains how their mixes that were so rad yesterday sound so empty today.

That said putting Utility or even better FreeG or similar on the track strip give good opportunities for volume automation.