digital clipping driving me insane!

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wjgypsy

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It's been doing it for a while now. mostly on electric guitars and bass. The drums, vocals (mostly) and acoustic guitars come in clean a warm. but when i record electric guitar, i get this clipping noise. i checked my levels on my vf-16 and they didn't show any cliping so i figured it must be in the outboard gear. I'm running my guitar through a composer pro, and a ultra graph pro into the record and it doesn't show any clipping there. So i just run it true the art tbs tube pre amp and record it and it's still there! How can i get rid of this stuff?

Zeke
 
Zeke,

you're going to have to go through your signal chain, one piece at a time, to find the culprit. First, turn down the input gain on the vf16 quite a bit. Then, run a test recording, and see if you're still getting digital distortion. If so, it's not your input gain. Then, go to the next link in the chain, and turn it down. Is it gone, if so, you've found your culprit.

This can be kinda time consuming, but necessary. One thing I've discovered is that the digital meters don't always peak (or redline) when the signal is being clipped, so you've got to give yourself a little extra headroom on the input gain.

good luck!

-mg
 
Ok. i'll try that this afternoon. What really pisses me off thought is the fact that the guitar track is not even loud enought to be useibal anyway and it still clips.
 
...Has less to do with digital clipping and much more to do with the fact that you're overloading the inputs of something in your signal chain.

As was pointed out - start with a bare-bones signal path and add a piece one at a time until you narrow down the culprit.

Also - pay close attention to your gain structure as you interconnect your gear. You always want to make sure each input is getting a signal within its usable range.

More info on gain structure here....
 
Basicly, you want to get as much gain in each of the out board gear without it overloading. am i right or if you do that, will it all overload the recorder's gain?

Thanks,

zEke
 
Each piece of gear you connect has an optimum operating rainge in terms of signal level - you want to be within that range.

Don't forget that extreme peaks can cause you to "blow that range" - the idea is to get the level "hot enough", but also conservative enough so that you don't clip the gear's inputs.
 
Yo Zeke:

Just a shot in the dark but you mentioned your ART mic pre. Do you, by accident, have the +20 db button pushed in?

If so, you will have too much push.

As someone mentioned here on this site, first turn up the input on the ART until you get a green line or touching warm yellow. Then, turn up the OUTPUT until you have a good test signal.

Try the above even if you have the +20 db button off.

Green Hornet :D ;) :cool:
 
with really hot preamps (the dmp2 for example), i've come to find that i get that when trying to record a really hot source (really loud electic guitar, kick drum, etc.)..

the solution is -10db pad, or -20db pad, or -30 db pad - as high as you need to go! ha
 
Now i'm not even sure if it's clipping. it could be something else, because i scolled the wav of the guitar track and on quit, soft guitar riff, their was the cliping noise! I have also found that even if i do get a clean signal, when i mix in outher instruments, it's starts to distort and clip. But if i back the instruments down, then i can not hear them as good.
 
the entire mix will clip if it is too loud, aka clipping. haha.

in other words, a track soloed may not reach 0db (digitally). However, when 3 other tracks that are also very loud are added to the first soloed track - you get the final mix (which kinda adds up all that sound...) So, if 3 of the 4 tracks have a really loud mid range sound, it will clip. Your VU meters should track the loudest volume, whether it be in the bass freaquencies or high end or middle or wheverever. It tracks the loudest point(s).

So, you mix may still clip, even if your individual tracks do not. One major step in the art of mixing is getting the mix volumes to sound good, without clipping.
 
One more ideas to the valuable tips before...

I'm not sure whether I got you right, but guitars may be bitches to record directly (do you do that?). The thing is that their attack will be so short that you won't see it on a meter, but you'll hear the clips... I would think of limiting when going in...

Even if you don't have clips in the original the huge peak of the guitar may caus e a mix bus clippinng afterwards...

aXel
 
Most times i'll use a POD for direct recording. but right now, i've been micing the cab (peavey tnt-100) with a sm57, runing that into the pre--compressor----and into the recorder.

I understand that when alot of loud sources are added together they will clip but if i turn them down, it don't sound right. i think that main idea is to use compression or limiting. i've tryed that but it sounds like a gate. any good settings?
 
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