Ableton Forum

I am just mastering my new track and I just figured out that my track was way too quiet. I tried compression and limiting but limiting just cut too much. So I decide to use an utilty instead of a limiter (on the master) and see what it does. Result: the master goes in red, the track is loud enought, there are no parts that are cut and there are no clipping and distortion AT ALL! So why exporting when the master goes red is bad? Thanks.

Others will answer this far better than I can. There are a lot of situations where clipped material will sound bad. You can get away with it on parts of highest amplitude but it is still affecting the sound. What you hear as a result will be different than what you mastered.

You didn't use Normalize when rendering at all, did you?

My way of getting things louder is using Saturator on the end. But honestly that is just as bad or worse of advice haha. I use it as a sort of limiter. I mostly just use it for live situations.

are you using audio?

maybe there is a sound or frequency that is being pushed but is not that audible. it could be causing the master to show that something is clipping... in this case though, the clipping would be doing you a favor. when you render you don't hear it

or... maybe it's the end of civilization as we know it.

Im fairly new to Live

But learn't one very important tip, while using another DAW,before coming over to Live.That tip is this;

Focus on getting your tracks to sound great,before you hit the master channel!

In the way of loudness,clean sound,how it sits amongst the other sounds,etc within your track.

What I would suggest is to pick over your tracks.

Solo each one in turn, looking at your tracks fader,see how high or low the levels are.

Look at all your effects (if any I'm sure there will be,he,he) and adjust if needed


Take your time,and check everything step by step,there has to be a reason you master levels are in the red

good luck hope you get it sorted

being in red is what clipping means. you don't have to hear it buddy.

usually clipping tracks won't be problematic but the master should not go in red.

I watched a video by Future Music with Dada Life, and they only had a limiter on the master bus for the sake of the video interview. They said something to the effect of the master clipping on the peaks and its not a big deal. Sounded curious to me, as my intuition tells me this is a big 'no no'. But then again I've not noticed any degradation in sound with a small amount of clipping. Just assumed it was beyond my hearing and everyone else would notice it

It may be that you just don't know what to listen for in the clipping, or you aren't listening to it on an honest enough system. Esepecially clipping in the low end.

even on my good studio speakers, i can run the bass up into the red, but when i play it in the car, it sounds like shit.

In electronic music and especially Dubstep, when trying to get things really really loud, yes clipping is often used as part of the mastering process. If done mildly, it isn't very noticeable, and it reduces the amount of compression and limiting needed to get to an equivalent loudness level. However if your loudness isn't on par with commercial tracks, go back and learn more about equalization and compression. I personally don't think a person should ever be intentionally clipping their master channel if mastering their own track. I would only allow a mastering engineer to do this, because I wouldn't trust my ears.

I personally can hear 0.1 or 0.2 dbs of clipping on my tracks except for parts that are already heavily distorted. If you can't hear small amounts of clipping, I'd suggest getting better speakers or getting more practice producing music before applying distortion where it is probably only ruining the sound.

Also, use headphones, a really quality pair. Headphones are really revealing of distortion and clicks and pops.