hey there,
when i’m mixing a song nearing -0db and activate “DC filter” on the master the clipping indicator will go into red. it’s not really audible but it seems the signal gets effected after the limiter? and then causes clipping…?
is this normal behavior?
thanks
i… think … what’s happening is that some of your tracks or sends are riddled with low frequency Hz (<20Hz), which make the waveform “rise” or kinda “weave” up and down while you play them. by this i mean that you can have a sinewave that just plays, or a sinewave with a realllllly low frequency aspect to it also, which affects and lifts or weaves the primary waveform up and down in an oscillating or wavy fashion.
some plugins, sounds, samples, anything could cause it. when they get filtered out, there’s more dynamic space. it’s possible that this removal somehow affects the sharp spikes or transients of the sounds that you are working with, and this somehow induces clipping. altho, normally, putting a dcfilter onto these types of sounds should lower the overall volume. but if you are working with completely dc’d out sounds (high rate pulse width modulation tuned to that “tight” sound you get when you are using DC so much that the sound “eats itself”, so to speak) and have distorted &processed them, and then you run the dc filter, it’s possible that the sounds get an additional oomph from the original non-dc’d out aspects of the sound.
now, this is just a possibility, i really don’t know. but low frequency oscillations i’ve encountered with samples, some really wonky efx (especially buzz tracker), and if you use really short chip sounds that steer more to the “left” or the “right” of the sound, playing tons of them at the same time will eat up dynamic space by quite a bit.
You’re not able to control the DC correction on the master, because it’s applied as post-effect after your last device (usually a Maximizer). So, take my advise and forget about DC on the master channel. Do your DC corrections on the individual tracks (using a DC device) instead and only if really needed.
Or of course leave the master DC off and add a DC device within your master chain, before the Maximizer/Limiter. But I’d personally prefer to do individual correction, where necessary only.
cheers for explaining, i will apply it on a per sound basis from now on. still don’t fully get why it makes the master signal clip though. because it’s a post fx?
Yes. When you maximize your signal and a “wrong” DC offset originally lowered the volume of your signal, then the DC correction - right AFTER you already maximized - might lift the volume beyond 0dB. And since there is no limiter cutting the peaks then anymore, it results in clipping.