Ableton Forum

hello
here is the issue during my mixdown i made shure to give my self plenty of headroom on the master channel (mixed down at -5db). i did this so i can then put the redered file into Pro Tools to do a little ghetto mastering job to it.. I set the export options No Normalize, and No Dither.. now the problem is when i import the file into protools I notice that during my loud dynamic parts the tippy tops of the wave form are choped off, i dont know why this is happening because there was no clipping on the master during the export. i was hoping someone might be able to explain why this might be happening.

thanky
ryjan

bumptiy bump bump

i guess it dosent sound bad it just kind o looks choped

was there a compressor/limiter on your master track ?

This is what brick wall limiters do.

They suppress any transients above a certain threshold. Mostly you should consider the peak outputs of the individual channels and turn those down, rather than just have a limiter on the mastering channel lopping off everything above -5db, this will look clipped (on your waveform) and have an impact on transients / punchiness.

Go back to your track channels and turn everything down in increments of -0.5 dB until the peak output in Live's Master channel meter (or the limiter) is not often straying above that -5dB threshold, and then the master channel limiter is only working lightly on the occasional peaking transient, rather than having to work hard and introducing audio artifacts like pumping.

And it's also better set the limiter on a light or medium setting if you want to preserve dynamics, rather than the 'ultra maximizer' setting etc, so the limiter will still allow some things through a little above -5dB but kind of 'soft clip' rather than harshly cut the transients.