Inconsistent clipping during playback

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Level 1

8 points

Inconsistent clipping during playback

I'm doing a final mix on a 20 track recording and eliminated all clipping except for a few brief (fraction of a second) hot spots on the master volume where the red clipping light is coming on during playback. I can't hear any distortion listening through headphones or playing through external speakers connected to the MacBook Pro headphone jack. In each of these spots, the clipping light comes on sometimes and at other times it doesn't. It's more likely to show clipping if I play the song from the beginning, less likely if I start play near the clipping, but in both situations, sometimes it clips and sometimes it doesn't. Does this mean that it's borderline clipping and not a problem or is something else going and what should I do about it?

Thanks for any help or advice.

Peter

MacBook Pro, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Jul 19, 2013 12:27 AM

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Answer 1

Jul 19, 2013 2:01 AM in response to PeterFolk

You often don't hear a nasty clipping effect when you play the song in GB, but it is on the exported audio (maybe due to the fact that GB renders the sounds at a higher resolution internally than on the CD quality mixdown.) So be careful. In the end, let your ears decide - if you don't hear distortion on your exported file, it's fine. (You might also want to take a look at the mixdown's waveform though.)

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Answer 2

PeterFolk Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 19, 2013 2:27 AM in response to Christoph Drösser

Thanks for that observation, Christoph. I agree. Would sending it to iTunes and listening to an MP3 be a good way to assess if there's any distortion? Because I don't hear any doing that. The thing is, why would the clipping be inconsistent and what should I believe, when the clip indicator lights up or doesn't? I don't want to diminish the overall master volume, because it's already somewhat low (-3.1 dB), so I've automated the master volume to drop slightly at the points (a small fraction of a second) where I've noticed clipping. It's the last 3 or so points that are behaving inconsistently.

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Answer 3

Jul 19, 2013 6:14 AM in response to PeterFolk

If your track only clips at some points, rather than lowering the overall volume (which might make the whole song too low in volume) you would use a compressor that squeezes down the peaks, or a limiter.

Listening to the song in iTunes is a good idea - make sure you don't use an equalizer or the "sound enhancer". You can also just locate the file in the Finder and press cmd-y to listen to it.

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Answer 4

PeterFolk Author

Level 1

8 points

Jul 19, 2013 8:28 PM in response to Christoph Drösser

My issue isn't simply that clipping occurs at several points in the mix, but that the clipping indicator lights up at these specific points on one playback and then if I play the song or those passages again, it won't light up on one or more of them. That's what I mean when by inconsistent. Sometimes a specific point seems to clip (according to the light), sometimes it doesn't. So I don't know which playback is giving me a correct reading, whether, in fact, there actually is clipping at these points. 😕

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Answer 5

Jul 20, 2013 3:02 AM in response to PeterFolk

The best way to see what happens is create a mixdown and open the audio file in an audio editor - then you see exactly where your mix is clipping (by looking for cut-off waveforms.)

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