Clipping

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
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rythmc
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Clipping

Post by rythmc » Thu May 24, 2012 1:59 am

Is a track clipping in ableton when small bits of orange flicker in the level or only until it turns red? Sorry for the n00b question but I am having minute glitching sounds in my tracks when uploaded online and want to make sure I do everything to prevent this in the future!

Whats the best practice for avoiding clipping on tracks in ableton... I use limiters or compressors when needed, but as a general rule I find that its best to keep levels rather low so I don't blow everything up, especially when I have a lot of tracks.

Any advice in this area is appreciated! thanks.

Da hand
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Location: Montreal, Canada

Re: Clipping

Post by Da hand » Thu May 24, 2012 2:36 am

Live peak meters also have numeric indicators (expand the volume fader upward). If your levels go above 0 dbfs you are distorting / clipping your sound. So make sure you are not going above 0 dbfs. Good practice is to have your levels peak a bit below, say -0.1 to -0.5 dbfs.

Now this is true for a WAV or AIFF file that you export from Live. If you then render it to a compressed format like mp3, for example, your peak levels may rise in the rendered mp3. How much will depend on your mastering techniques, encoder you use and the compression quality of the mp3.

If you are posting things online that get compressed to a low quality format, you might have to lower the volume levels even further of your initial WAV or AIFF render to compensate for the mp3 compression process afterward.

Da hand
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Location: Montreal, Canada

Re: Clipping

Post by Da hand » Thu May 24, 2012 9:07 am

Just to clarify, all the above is concerning the Master volume level when you render the song.

Mage2k
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Location: Portland, OR

Re: Clipping

Post by Mage2k » Thu May 24, 2012 2:41 pm

To further clarify on what Da Hand said, the sound will only clip from Live if the Master channel hits red. It's somewhat okay to hit red on the other channel meters as far as clipping goes but best practices dictate not doing that. If you wanna say fuck it and use the red on the channel meters for extra visual range just make sure the meters aren't hitting the top, because then you don't know if they are just hitting the top or shooting way over.

As to your original question, if your Master channel isn't hitting red and you're still getting distorted sounds then I've found it's likely an over-driven effect or too low attack setting on some bass sound's envelope or effect.

Syncretia
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Re: Clipping

Post by Syncretia » Thu Jul 12, 2012 2:04 am

Download and listen @ http://www.syncretia.com

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