Ableton Forum

Recently while messing around in Ableton, I get distortion as if something in my song/mix is clipping. This happens when the meter on the master fader is only around -8 db. I tried messing around with my sample rate and that doesnt seem to effect anything. Any ideas?

Hmmm very odd. You should contact Technical Support.
http://www.ableton.com/support/contact_ ... al_support

Maybe it goes above 0dBFS in an earlier point than fader.

Maybe you have some vst-effect in there that doesn't like being fed to hot?

Ive tried soloing every track to see if one of those was the problem. Unfortunately its not. Only when sounds with similar frequencies are played does it happen, just like you would expect clipping distortion to work.

Any channelstrips, saturators, (multiband) compressors around? Especially in the master channel? Try bypassing each of them separately.

Some effects, especially vsts that don't handle 32 bit signals well may actually clip internally without showing in any output meter.

nothing is clipping by itself and there's no group with those kind of plugins on it. The interesting thing is that I can play everything with the fader down, and turn the speakers up. Then I can turn the master fader back to 0, bounce the mix, and the file sounds fine . . .good for production, still a huge problem for live stuff

Are you limiting the Master track?

nope

It's a good idea to use Limiter on the master track - it will keep your peaks in check. From there, try using EQ Eight and Multiband dynamics (inserted before Limiter) on the Master to get a mix that sits better.

would a limiter on the master track be necessary if the audio is staying well below peaking levels? I understand how to use the mulitband dynamic plugin, but will that help eliminate distortion if its peaking at such low levels?

No, a limiter won't do anything if the audio is staying below the peak threshold. So you're hearing the clipping distortion, but your faders aren't going in to the red? Which plug-ins are you using?

Yes, thats correct. Im not using anything on the master fader. I have some overdrive and saturate plug ins on a couple instruments, but when solo'ed they dont distort at all. (or come anywhere close to clipping) I tried turning those plug ins off and they still distort when the whole mix is played. Other than those two, there are a bunch of eqs, autofilters and a couple delay/reverb return channels

It sounds like a sound card driver issue.
you may have chosen too small latencies buffers or the wrong driver in your setup!?!

What soundcard, driver, latency in/out and buffer do you have??

Im using a Profire 2626 firewire interface for my sound. Ive tried adjusting the buffer size and have not heard any changes with this problem at high or low levels.