Cumulative Clipping w/ Mixdown?

  • Thread starter Thread starter mark4man
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mark4man

mark4man

MoonMix Studios
In Cakewalk (Pro Audio 9), I mix several audio tracks into a .wav file ("Mixdown Audio to File".) The levels are all just right. When I open the .wav file in Sound Forge (v4.5), the waveform is incrediblly fat, with the upper & lower extremes clipped off. Thing is...it sounds fine!, just a (very) little bit muddy, but it certainly doesn't sound nearly as distorted as the waveform looks. It sounds almost identical to playing the tracks simultaneously in Cakewalk. Very little difference. Is this a cumulative effect in graphic representation only? I don't know how that could be, since the waveform represents the audio, but I would hear clipping, right? Is it somehow a graphics adjustment in Sound Forge, or an output adjustment in Cakewalk? I would appreciate some input. Thanks.

Sincerely,

mark4man
 
This has never made sense to me. Sometimes while in cakewalk my meters will not register a track in the read, but SF will show clipping. It was suggested to me that it might be a plug in somewhere on the virtual mains, but that wasn't the case. I do hope somebody will know why things don't look the same in both programs...


Vice
 
Mark, I would suggest you do the following just to confirm a rather important thing. Create a new 'dummy' project within Pro Audio and load the same wave file that you're loading into Sound Forge. Take a careful look at the waveform as it appears within Pro Audio and verify if it does, or does not, appear the same as it does within Soundforge.

If it appears the same, then you can safely assume the following - your exported sound file has been clipped and as such, it does NOT sound perfect.

Now, a funny thing about clipping - sometimes it seems as though you can't hear it, but here's what counts - when you are seeing what I refer to as 'invisible' clipping, what you're actually missing are the super duper impressive transients which make music so exciting - things like the crispest of crisp cymbals and rich guitar tones and mother kick drums. Those glorious transients are the first to get sacrificed with 'invisible clipping'.

If this is happening, do your self a favour and drop your main bus volume within Pro Audio by 1.5db per main bus. I find that working in 1.5db increments is the most effecitve yet not drastic measurement.

Your finished product within Soundforge will sound better for it. You simply need to lower your headroom threshold within your Sound Forge mastering levels to compensate.
 
Problem solved?

Guys,

I opened the problem .wav file in Cakewalk; & it looked the same. This eliminates Sound Forge. I then listened to it at lower volumes; & I can definitely now hear the clipping. Has to be the Buss in Cakewalk (which had been set at 0db.) I'm going to pull back the output gain 1db at a a time to mixdown new .wav files, unit I get a file with little or no clipping. Thanks to everyone.

mark4man
 
so then cakewalk and sound forge both have clip overflow set to ON. that way you don't hear the overflow, even though it is there.
 
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