To be honest, I already felt in love with the sound of Renoise’s internal master bus soft clipping, but people told me to limit instead… Now it seems that clipping is again a officially approved way to limit transients in a better sounding way.
I have seen that vladg limiter no6 also has a clipping section, in his blog he writes he uses 4x oversampling… Also the “protection” section seems to work just fine…
Do you know a freeware alternative (cross platform OSX / Win) besides limiter no6, that achieves similar sound quality?
Hey Jurek, have you tried using Renoise Distortion DSP for that purpose? (As it will have oversampling in 3.1) Razor = Hard Clipping, Shape = Soft Clipping.
As a side note I usually prefer saturation over clipping for crushing peaks.
emre: thanks! Only tried hard clipping of distortion so far… Didn’t know/forgot that shape works like soft clipping… So I am looking forward to the release of 3.1 for having this with oversampling.
I’m especially quite allergic to soft clipping as that usually seems to cut off the low frequencies as you increase drive. I like it as a color/shaping effect but for mixing it’s just confusing IMO. Each to his own of course
Clipping/saturation can work with different algorithms. I.e. a way different waveshaping curve, and other optimised parameters. I sometimes use the shape distortion with very low distort value for limiting peaks. But it colors the sound a bit even in that mode.
I guess the clipper in this thread works by some magic, tuned for its purpose. It’s interesting how it seemingly won’t add harmonics to the bass while clipping/saturating the sound. Even when the sound starts breaking up by intermodulation, the bass still seems clean. Maybe it’s also the kind of music used in the vid - very “traditional” stuff, with probably lots of peaks and rather weak bass - this clipping only chops off peaks then? The gain in loudness by this effect on that example is fascinating, but maybe it won’t work so well with other styles. Also I found both modes (hard/soft) seem to make the high end tinny/synthetic sounding a bit in the video.
But I’m wondering the most how such a saturator/clipper can boost the bass this way without audible harmonics…
Hm, most waveshapers will map 0…1 in digital range, and quasi-clip peaks above 1. When you want to master with a soft clipper, you have peaks above 1, but probably don’t want to have them clipped to flat but rather weakened, still having the charakter in the overshoots present a bit. A limiter would lower the whole volume, leaving stuff intact but weakening everything else relative to the peaks. Maybe the clipping curve being very soft in keeping harmonics in peaks instead of just making them flat (like atan which will never reach pi/2 but get closer and closer till infinity), combined to charakteristics which will keep a sine input always very close to a sine in output even if overdriven, is the key to boosting sound reasonably with a soft clipper without fucking it up.
My problem is when i limit, the signal goes above the threshold and turns into some awful sounding clipping instead of smooth limiting, wtf do i do wrong? Only FerricTDS really works for me, is it about the device or is it the user? Haha, i’m such an old noob.
i don’t know but ferrictds seems to be a quite accepted standard? sadly i cannot use it on OSX. maybe the most optimal approach would be using a multi band compressor with custom curves, where you could “add transients” on the high band, but limiting only low bands?
use aom limiter, simply the best limiter i’ve tested and i’ve tested them all. this bad boy can make your records loud and clear without crushing dynamics and transients like others do (like well known L2 which is a joke to me).
UPD: oops, this is not freeware, but really worth every penny.
use aom limiter, simply the best limiter i’ve tested and i’ve tested them all. this bad boy can make your records loud and clear without crushing dynamics and transients like others do (like well known L2 which is a joke to me).
UPD: oops, this is not freeware, but really worth every penny.
Can’t afford plugins atm, but how woulod you compare this to FerricTDS?
I also think the Maxwell Smart is quite allright. Would i experience a significantly better result with the AOM?
Can’t afford plugins atm, but how woulod you compare this to FerricTDS?
I also think the Maxwell Smart is quite allright. Would i experience a significantly better result with the AOM?
FerricTDS is a tape dynamics emulation, not a limiter at all, but for the tasks it do this plugin is magic, i even would say top notch. (the closest i’ve tested was Slate Digital VCC but it costs alot)
You better try Limiter No6 by vladg sound, its simply the best freeware limiter available. Period. It’s a little complicated on user interface, and cpu hungry sometimes, but there is no free alternatives yet.
Ferric TDS has a limiter though and it does limit the signal and you can choose to use only its limiter by turning all the other knobs down, so i wouldn’t say it’s ‘not a limiter at all’.
My problem is when i limit, the signal goes above the threshold and turns into some awful sounding clipping instead of smooth limiting, wtf do i do wrong? Only FerricTDS really works for me, is it about the device or is it the user? Haha, i’m such an old noob.
In my experience softer sounds (pads, pianos, ambient stuff, whatever) distort much easier than beats & basses when limited. I find that turning up the release of the limiter usually helps in this case. I can usually get away with automating it during the breakdowns but that wouldn’t be true for all kinds of music, obviously.
Ferric TDS has a limiter though and it does limit the signal and you can choose to use only its limiter by turning all the other knobs down, so i wouldn’t say it’s ‘not a limiter at all’.
true too, honestly there is not that much strict rules, if it works for you - use it. ) So sad there is no VOS plugs for osx =(
