Deftones: Clipping in mastering or mixing or whatever?

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Some years ago I listened to Deftones album "White Pony". It sounded good
and strange for a "rock" album.
I imported the second track (which I like most) "Digital Bath" in Wavelab
3.0 and I looked at the waveform...
A little surprise there: every (every!) kick and snare hit is clipped (20 to
80 samples). The Clip is at -0.03db!!
I am trying to figure out how that was done... In mixing or during
mastering? What is your opinion about it?
I tried to reproduce the thing but it is actually very difficult with the
tools I have...
The clipped waveform is clipped both on the "upper side" and the "bottom"
side....
Preamp clipping should usually not appear that way, should it? Digital
compression and limiting during mastering can produce such a clipping but
can produce it on EVERY drum hit? Was it maybe a clipping of the console
master section during mixdown?

I hope you can give me some hints....
Thank you
F.

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Hey Federico,

first of all, excuse my english, i am not a native speaker.

But to give you answers:

Digital clipping is relative. As it is in the analoge world.
Several devices have several ways of indicating clipping.
What is digitally clipping on the one machine is not clipping on he
other.
Digital clipping means only to count a self defined number of samples
at the the highest value.
One example: If you are recording a (it doesn´t matter which) Popsong
digitally directly to a proffessional Sony DVW 800 Beta Video machine,
it indicates clipping the whole song long.
But it is not distorted.
So what I think is that this particular song is compressed very hard
and then
mastered with the highest possible level.
And this is maybe art :-)

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

It's not clipping.

jb


"Allen Corneau" <allen@esmastering.com> wrote in message
news:BF212D98.267AB%allen@esmastering.com...
> On 8/11/05 12:57 PM, in article caOdndBEl4_TEmbfRVn-jw@adelphia.com,
> "reddred" <opaloka@REMOVECAPSyahoo.com> wrote:
>
> >> A little surprise there: every (every!) kick and snare hit is clipped
(20
> > to
> >> 80 samples). The Clip is at -0.03db!!
> >> I am trying to figure out how that was done... In mixing or during
> >> mastering?
> >
> > Mastering.
>
> Possibly, but it's impossible to say unless you can look at the
pre-mastered
> mixes.
>
> >
> > So your answer is the mastering engineer does it, it's impossible to do
> > during mixing and you really don't want to give a mastering guy
something
> > that's already maxed out like that.
>
> No, it's not impossible during mixing. Just jack up the faders on a
digital
> console (or DAW) and watch it clip!
>
>
> >> The clipped waveform is clipped both on the "upper side" and the
"bottom"
> >> side....
> >> Preamp clipping should usually not appear that way, should it? Digital
> >> compression and limiting during mastering can produce such a clipping
but
> >> can produce it on EVERY drum hit?
> >
> > Yes. It's not really clipping, it's audio that has been compressed and
> > limited to the point to where it is flat.
> >
>
> It's very possible that the kick was clipped during tracking, most likely
> when going to a digital multitrack or when an analog tape is transferred
> into the digital realm for ProTooling.
>
> Allen
> --
> Allen Corneau
> Mastering Engineer
> Essential Sound Mastering
> Houston, TX
>

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

On Fri, 12 Aug 2005 01:07:32 -0400, "reddred"
<opaloka@REMOVECAPSyahoo.com> wrote:

>Wouldn't there be some artifact if this were distortion as opposed to a
>product of compression?

Does a flat-line "peak" caused by aggressive compression sound any
different to one caused by clipping? Even if it is a couple of bits
under maximum level?

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On Fri, 12 Aug 2005 17:09:32 -0400, "reddred"
<opaloka@REMOVECAPSyahoo.com> wrote:

>Whenever I get any sort of clipping from the DAW, it's pretty easy to hear.
>If a snare sounds like a weasel fart, it's clipping.

Ah. So THAT'S what a weasel farting sounds like.

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"Chris Cavell" <chriscavell@cavellstudios.com> wrote in message
news:1123892024.332749.146750@g44g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
>

>
> The description smells exactly like typical Waves limiter usage during
> the mastering stage.
>

Or during mixing - slamming the kick, snare and / or drum sub with an L1.

Not uncommon......


Geoff

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

On 12 Aug 2005 17:13:44 -0700, "Chris Cavell"
<chriscavell@cavellstudios.com> wrote:

>> Does a flat-line "peak" caused by aggressive compression sound any
>> different to one caused by clipping? Even if it is a couple of bits
>> under maximum level?
>
>Absolutely, if that "agressive compression" is actually a digital
>read-ahead limiter.

I what respect would the two truncated signals sound different?
Could you look at a flat-top waveform and tell if it had been clipped
or aggressively limited?

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Laurence Payne wrote:
> On 12 Aug 2005 17:13:44 -0700, "Chris Cavell"
> <chriscavell@cavellstudios.com> wrote:
>
> >> Does a flat-line "peak" caused by aggressive compression sound any
> >> different to one caused by clipping? Even if it is a couple of bits
> >> under maximum level?
> >
> >Absolutely, if that "agressive compression" is actually a digital
> >read-ahead limiter.
>
> I what respect would the two truncated signals sound different?

It depends on the extent to which it has been pushed, and the tools
used to do the pushing. But, in the extreme scenarios, one would sound
like digital distortion (outright clipping of your converters or DAW
summing buss) compared to lifeless dynamics-lacking audio without the
harsh digital distortion (read-ahead limiter). There are exceptions to
this, but I think this makes a pretty good generalization of the
matter. If pushed too hard, a read-ahead limiter will also begin to
create outright distortion as well. A simple google search on how
read-ahead digital audio limiters work compared to a google search on
the effect of digital clipping of converters (or digital summing
busses) would probably provide you with a more in depth answer than
what I've stated here fairly easily. The best way for you to really
get a handle on it is to try both techniques yourself and hear it, b/c
then you'll KNOW for certain which you're listening to and be able to
fairly easily associate the typical sound of each.

> Could you look at a flat-top waveform and tell if it had been clipped
> or aggressively limited?

Probably not by sight alone, but in my experience, if the result looks
lopped off just barely below full scale (like -0.2 or -0.3 dBfs), it's
usually a read-ahead limiter; if it is full scale, it's probably
converter clipping. I doubt the average program would draw the two
resulting graphical representations of the waves so differently that
you'd be able to tell just by a quick glance...you'd probably have to
make the track rather large and zoom in quite a bit to be able to see
the difference b/w 0dBfs and -0.2 or -0.3dBfs...and depending on your
daw, I wouldn't necessarily trust the peak readout of the meters (look
at this article by Nika Aldrich for an explanation why:
http://www.cadenzarecording.com/pa [...] tion.pdf).

Again, we're talking audio...so ignore the eyes and trust the ears.
The differences are pretty noticeable if you know what you're listening
for, so give it a go with your favorite DAW and interface.

Cheers,
Chris

Archived from groups: rec.audio.pro (More info?)

Laurence Payne wrote:
> On 12 Aug 2005 17:13:44 -0700, "Chris Cavell"
> <chriscavell@cavellstudios.com> wrote:
>
> >> Does a flat-line "peak" caused by aggressive compression sound any
> >> different to one caused by clipping? Even if it is a couple of bits
> >> under maximum level?
> >
> >Absolutely, if that "agressive compression" is actually a digital
> >read-ahead limiter.
>
> I what respect would the two truncated signals sound different?
> Could you look at a flat-top waveform and tell if it had been clipped
> or aggressively limited?

I don't know, but for my purposes, I woulnd't care. The type of wave
form your describing has a certin type of sound regadless of how it was
created. If you want that sound, then great. If you don't then it's a
problem.

If I saw a mix that looked like protools in it's block view mode, I
would bet it was due to the mastering.

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"Jeff Chestek" <jchestekYouKnowWhatToRemove@verizon.net> wrote in message >
> I sat in while an album I mixed a lot of was mastered (at a very
> well-known NY mastering house) and unless the engineer was lying to me
> AND concealing a limiter somewhere out of sight, he was NOT using
> brickwall limiting. He told me he was deliberately clipping the
> converters, and I've every reason to believe that was pretty standard
> procedure for him. He's done tons of major-label work...you've probably
> heard his work if you listen to current popular music.
>
> Needless to say, there are obviously clipped waveforms all over that
> album.
>
> 'nuff said.
>
> Jeff C.
>
> --
> Anti-Spam email address in effect.
> My real email should be pretty obvious to an actual human being.


Hi Jeff,

I've heard that alot - I think someone mentioned that the Panasonic (cant
recall the model) converter sounds great for modern Metal and Rock when you
clip it.

Sort of "Brutal" brickwall limiting.....


Geoff