Does anyone have a solution to hard-clip a signal in renoise using the internal devices? I would like to set a specific level, for example 0 dB, and everything above that would be cut. Just, like a brick wall limiter.
There may already be a solution inside renoise that I haven’t noticed.
I’ve tried:
Maximizer - it’s too nice, it shapes the clipping. Settings:
Resullt (above = before,below = after)
Distotion, razor setting. Seems to have a fixed bottom at -3.6 db? please note that i have set track headrooms to 0 if that´s part of the behaiour) Settings:
Result:
Below is my desired result… →
If I use external plugin to hard clip (external plugin that I would like to avoid):
Now a gainer at +4.0db applied (no maximizer / no soft clipping on master):
A ‘hard clipped’ (ignoring any ‘red alert’ master flashing as those samples go above 0.0db) output(?)
You gain your signal all the way up to zero without clipping.
If you want louder you gain the signal into the clipper. This will clip everything above zero dB. This works really good for sounds that has high frequency transients.
then you use the mixer post level to position the sound relative to other sounds.
The razor mode in the distortion effect begins it’s hard clipping at -3.6dB. This leads to that in order to have the signal unclipped you have to lower the pre-mix-channel volume by 3.6dB in order to not clip at all and then you need to gain the signal again, after the razor, and when you need to push the signal into clip you have to compensate with the gainer.
Since long-time dsp effects in Renoise usually won’t be changed due backwards compatibility, and since there are a lot of third party (and workaround) approaches, I see little chance here.
Also I would see Baphy’s theory questionable. It might be useful for specific transients, maybe low frequency stuff e.g. unison, but actually these assumptions already contradict the maths. A clipper on a full bandwidth signal will mostly only cut away low frequency transients, since low frequencies are way more attenuated than high frequenies. In other words, low freq wave is the carrier wave for the high frequency, so only on the extreme positions it will also clip high frequencies, and then only asymmetrical. So the whole premise seems to be wrong already.
Also I can’t really hear a good result in Baphy’s examples (with all respect for her tutorials and experiments). All sounds sound too even then, coloration is lost. This might be good for dubstep or so, but I would assume not for the most genres.
The more accurate tool for this approach would be then a multiband clipper, just as Melda’s MWaveshaperMB plugin (or Renoise multiband send with 3 freeclips). Btw. don’t be fooled by those ugly macro skin in Melda plugins. Strangely they do now tease the detail view of their plugins anymore…
Maybe an addition of a hard clipper as a native future device, but, of course, it must serve a purpose.
I think (the theory) it’s mostly to have better control over intentional clipping where the purpose just is to add overall loudness without “destroying” the signal too much.
I actually came across that video from baphometrix before,it’s funny, for how much time and technical knowledge he has,his mixes are completely lifeless,all the colours just drained out of all the sounds,terrible stuff.Renoise internal clipping works great,why do you not just clip in renoise,turn soft clipping off?
baphometrix mixes i dont like also, but it is because i dont like source material, and he is pushing those to extremes. I do use techniques he is talking about in other type of music and way way way less invasive and its usefull.
I agree, do not like the msuic style at all, but as a way of deciding whether or not a certain combination of sound will be pushable in loudness or not in a fast way i thinkis interesting.
I just use the maximizer to clip… seems to work well enough for my purposes. But then again, I’m usually not trying to push levels all the way to zero, but maybe kick/bass/snare to -6. then catching peaks with other maximizers further up the chain set at 0
In your first picture showing the maximizer scope, are you pushing the boost enough?
Are you making bass music? dubstep? some other super loud genre? if you’re not, you may get more musical results not pushing so hard for max loudness.
CTZ is an interesting method for sure, but there are definitely tradeoffs in the dynamics of the finished result vs more moderate squashing… all depends on the sound you’re going for
I thought i pushed it, the input signal (bassdrum) is normalized to 0db. Then i boost it 11 dB and not a sign of a razoredge clipping, just rounding.
My taste of music is some kind of melodic /progressive / psytrance, “Metronome - a million mirrors” is nice. My biggest issues have been in getting some level of loudness and evenness… and, yes, it might be solved as easy using eq and compressors, but i think that a small small level of clipping and compensated boosting is a great way of lifting the “core” of a sound (usually called RMS!?)
prog psy is usually pretty clean, production-wise… I think pushing to zero in that style would be overkill and would make your mixes too harsh/lifeless.
I mostly work in darkpsy and adjacent styles, and even there, you want to keep things as clean as possible. I def don’t always succeed, lol, but for any psy track I wouldn’t aim for zero. Mostly because it’s structured very differently than bass music/dubstep. More layers means more summing of peaks, so, unless you want to flatten your mix to single elements in time (that “checkerboard” mixing approach baphy talks about), zero is not realistic for psytrance, imo
Gain staging makes a huge difference in song element clarity and evenness, though. I would focus there and limit around -6 for psy as a good compromise between loudness and dynamic range. A lot of ppl work their kickbass at -12 for leaving enough headroom for all the psychedelic delay reflections and reverb and such
Try the compressor device. Set Threshold to the max level you want to have. Set makeup to 0.0db. Set attack and release to the lowest setting (slider to the far left), which is displayed as 0.001ms. Set ratio to “LIMIT” (slider to the far right). Then input your sound, and use a gainer (edit: place gainer right before the compressor…) to make it clip like you desire.
If there were some easy way without using plugins.