Digital Clipping: So What?

[DavidK]

Thanks guys for all this help, its great

Glen, what happens if I just turn the whole thing down? I mean put the output at less than zero? Is that the lazy mans way out?

Those Massive Chords are going WAY over the scale. I dont hear any "clipping" per se, nor am I entirely happy with the results.

You make Tomita sound like he is playing with rocks and animal skins.

Yeah, Tomita didnt add 39 real violin parts to his.

I am going to at least comprimise a bit: I am going to "try" to keep everything within a reasonable ballpark. I will change some of the envelope automation stuff ( which will take forever) and just slightly back off of the overall output volume. Thanks again.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Glen, what happens if I just turn the whole thing down? I mean put the output at less than zero? Is that the lazy mans way out?.

If those parts are indeed "going way over scale", then I'd have to say - after giving it a couple more listens - that it is most likely the clipping that I am hearing. It certainly has a sound characteristic of clipping.

As far as just turning down the gain, that could be a good and easy solution, but I couldn't be definite without seeing what you see and hearing what you hear on yur workstation. If it takes you 6dB of reverse-normalization (so to speak) to tame those peaks, you could be driving the rest of it lower than you need to.

OTOH, using extreme limiting can take away dynamics useful to this kind of arrangements. Envelope following may be in order as you say. Another possibility might be attacking just the high frequency components of those particular peaks with some MBC to try and reduce the shrillness.

These are all possibilities, but without being able to examine your pre-mixdown project it would be impossible for me to say which one might be the best, other than making sure your treat it surgically and not with saturation warfare; in other words, fix just the peaks without harming the rest of the mix.

HTH at least a little. Love your work .

G.

 

[DavidK]

That's some good advice Glen, thanks.

I indeed want to keep the dynamic range I have. I guess I am just going to have to live with the limited range that recordings have. I played this piece 5 times this year alone, and in the orchestra we simply dont have volume limits. We go from whisper-soft to ears bleeding within .005 seconds, and perhaps my expectations are unreasonable.

I have another piece that is more of the culprit ( one of The Planets). I need a five minute crescendo to get to a point so loud that you are begging it to stop. I cant do it. I am trying to do it with my orchestrations instead, so that it keeps seeming louder with tricks like making it wider etc.

Again, lots of good stuff guys, you kick ass.

 

[mshilarious]

I am sending my weirdo stuff to some small independent labels. I am gonna assume they dont master stuff. would you? They are used to violin Sonatas et al, I doubt they are gonna master it so I am thinking I have to do some kind of a reasonable facsimile of this on my own. Actually, one company already has most of it and is considering it already.

Then I would probably consider letting somebody else take a crack at mastering it before pressing the CDs. There are a lot of cheap shops out there these days, some of them are even reputable

If they have any experience working with this sort of material, I'd think they could improve the final mix, so long as you send them something that isn't already clipped. Just turn down your master fader by 3dB so you aren't clipping and let 'em make up the difference.

 

[Farview]

My levels are fine on the individual tracks, in the -6-3 range at the most. Its the combination of 150 tracks thats the problem I do some big stuff!

Yes, I am talking about the output buss ( I guess, I call it 'the thingy on the far right that says M-audio firewire on the bottom of it).

To put this into perspective:

Here is a track that IMHO is done. I know its not Kosher to judge by a lousy mp3, but I dont hear any distortion or clipping on the mp3 or the wav. Umm, does anybody else? If so I need to change some stuff.

link to mp3 of Firebird- final version

I would really appreciate it if one of you rapscallions could check it out. The first 20 seconds is all you need, Its as loud as the rest.

All you have to do is turn down the master fader until it doesn't go over 0db anymore.

 

[chessrock]

Digital clipping sounds great.

Years from now, when everything is recorded via static electrical impulses on laundry socks and hair brushes ...

... we will look back on the digital age and wax nastalgic over how nice digital distortion sounded.

.

 

[SonicAlbert]

Glen, what happens if I just turn the whole thing down? I mean put the output at less than zero? Is that the lazy mans way out?

Those Massive Chords are going WAY over the scale. I dont hear any "clipping" per se, nor am I entirely happy with the results.

All you have to do is turn down the master fader until it doesn't go over 0db anymore.

Farview is correct. The procedure I would follow is this:

Turn down the mix until it is no longer going over the scale. Get it a bit below the top, not just barely under.

Then hit it with a brickwall limiter. Set the Maximum to -.5 to -.3. Set it to increase the volume by 3-4 dB. If it has a release setting, put that at around 3 seconds.

A good digital brickwall limiter should be transparent up to 3-4 dB of gain even when hitting it hard. More than that and I think you can start to hear it. At least I've been able to with pretty much every limiter I've used, including hardware.

This approach should give you more apparent volume, a feeling of more volume, and at the same time get your mixes out of the digital clipping realm. If you want more dynamic range back, then only set the brickwall limiter threshold to give you 1-2 or 2-3 dB of gain.

I enjoyed listening to your solo guitar tracks. They have sort of a "mad scientist" vibe about them.

 

[Dogman]

David, as a side note, from a home listener, I'd say you have done something right. I've listened to this, and several of your other tunes in both cars, and on my home stereo, and my pc with monitors. At 128K, it is still very good sounding. Plenty of dynamics, a TON of different frequencies, many moving parts, and it's actually quite loud. I think you have a good dynamic range, between soft and loud parts. Going louder, too loud, even if the music doesn't suffer from distortion, or overcompression, it might lose the subtleties of the quiet parts. If they become too loud, the impact of what they mean in the tune could be convoluted. As it is, your tunes are very dramatic, and have what I consider, very good emotion and mood to them. And they sound damn fine.

Just some comments from a listener........
Ed

 

[DavidK]

I enjoyed listening to your solo guitar tracks.

Those are actually violin tracks I have an electric violin, a J-Station and I practiced a lot of scales as a kid

Geez Louise, I am glad I posted this thread. Tons of info and stuff to consider from everybody, thank you ye recording brethren

From everything I read here and know, I think the best solution for me is a "compromise". I think an "occasional" foray into having one or two peaks go overboard wont make me lose that 7 figure recording contract with Sony but I will try to keep the overwhelming majority of stuff within the confines of normal recording practices

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I think an "occasional" foray into having one or two peaks go overboard wont make me lose that 7 figure recording contract with Sony

When you get those seven figures from Sony, don't forget your friends here on HR...

JK! Good luck with it!

G.

 

[Dogman]

When you get those seven figures from Sony, don't forget your friends here on HR...

JK! Good luck with it!

G.

7 figures...is that anything like $1, $2,$3, etc....up until $7?

 

[DavidK]

7 figures...is that anything like $1, $2,$3, etc....up until $7?

Dollars?

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

Dollars?

Typical record company. The only seven figures they'll give you are a circle, triangle, square, pentagon, hexagon, octagon and elipse. You'll be greeked!

G.

 

[Dogman]

Dollars?

Yeah.....I wasn't talkng about 7 gallons of gas.............