How is Digital Clipping Bad? (Formerly known as "Eh????????)

Personally i don't...but would like to know about it....

Dunno how this post got started....nothing to do with me...ha ha!!!!!!

Xaf

[Macc]

didnt people used to use digital clipping on the old school samplers like the emu? (like source direct woooo dun dun duuu! <ghostly special effects>)

i used to do it when you dont have any effects just a crappy wave editor, if you do it really subtely it kind of does the same job as a compressor but i wouldnt do it anymore

the difference between digital clipping and limiting is that limiting is applied in an envelope i think? also clipping will just kill every sample above a certain value, whereas limiting is more about scaling down all the samples for a while

digital clipping will also introduce new frequencies quite drastically which probably explains all those eq woes although i didnt really understand quite what was going on there (cutting everything above 300hz?! )

[Macc]

the difference between digital clipping and limiting is that ... clipping will just kill every sample above a certain value, whereas limiting is more about scaling down all the samples for a while

digital clipping will also introduce new frequencies quite drastically which probably explains all those eq woes

(scuse my editing tyler)





Tyler knows! I'll get some pics done asap....

[Macc]

Czech it;

Just some kick hit off a break. Didn't spend ages on it, but the amount of limiting is equal to the amount of clipping.

Two things to mention;


1) LOSS OF INFORMATION

2) INTRODUCTION OF SHITE, WAY MORE THAN LIMITING

In a rush, but I wanted to post this to get some discussion going. Sorry but one of them is a jpg and so looks a touch different colour wise. I'm a musician, not an artist

[Macc]

Notice the increase in gain in the initial stages, where the high freq info is before the kick starts properly.

That is almost exactly the same (I can't see much difference) in the clip and limit versions.

Now check the hedgetrimmer business on the actual peaks, the parts that cross the threshold, in the clip example.

What have you done to my beautiful kick

Some things are more important than pure loudness. I could put white noise in and limit it, and say it's great cos it makes people's ears bleed

Another thing to notice; The rise section of the kick in the clip example is obviously louder than the limit (see tyler's post), but that's what we use compression for, rather than ONLY limiting.

[subvert]

Czech it;

classic

Sorry just returned from being away for my birthday.

Seems Ive missed much of this.

Macc has done a very good job of explaining why digital clipping is NOT good under any circumstances.

Bhima - id still like to see you answer some of those questions I posed though. i think it will help your understanding...

[subvert]

Both analog and digital media have an upper limit beyond which they can no longer accurately represent amplitude. Analog clipping (or overdrive or distortion) varies in quality depending on the medium. A tube amplifier, for example, has a much warmer distortion than a solid state amplifier. In each case the upper amplitudes are being altered, distorting the waveform and changing the timbre, but the alterations are slightly different. Digital clipping, in contrast, is always the same. Once an amplitude of 1111111111111111 (the maximum value in a 16 bit resolution) is reached, no higher amplitudes can be represented. The result is not the smooth, rounded flattening of analog clipping, but a harsh slicing of off the top of the waveform, and an unpleasant timbral result.

[subvert]

A very good article:

http://www.digido.com/portal/pmodule_id=...age_id=36/

and an unpleasant timbral result.

which i am sure ashes eats for breakfast on top of his nine inch flakes

[subvert]

yuk

[Macc]

That's some serious dandruff.

I use these for clipping

These aren't bad either.

Stacks

[subvert]

Stacks

Well that clears that up....nice one !!!!!!

[Macc]

Not cleared up, but clearer

Have a shufty at this thread too...

http://www.subvertcentral.com/forum/view...hp?t=15373

Hmmm... Listen to this...

I'll answer your questions when I have time but for now, understand that I clipped the drums in this tune to fuck and I don't think it sounds bad.

Slow it down if you have the facilities to do so and you still wont hear any narsty distortion. I find that if I slow my beats down (by resetting the sample rate to about 37KHz, not pitching down), and it doesn't sound shit there, It doesn't sound shit at 44100Hz; it's my way of telling where the limit is.

File is here:

http://s44.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=2VFT2...GPMPHLJEG5

[Macc]

Can't get to yousendit from here.

However, I can guarantee that the drums will lack punch due to the removal of nearly all transient information.

I am also guessing that in the tune you spammed loads of us with :P a while back, the drums were done this way. They certainly sounded like it to me - they sounded digitally clipped with very little punch (only vaguely compensated for by sheer volume). The sort of soft drums you get from over limiting, or dare I say it, overclipping. I didn't say anything at the time, as I didn't know who the hell you were. Louder doesn't always equal better.

If you LIKE the sound of digital clipping then fair enough. but to 99.9% of people (basically excluding Ashes ) I have ever had this conversation agree that digital clipping sounds ugly. And while they say 'if it sounds right, it is right' and all that, it takes a number of years before knowing what really does sound right. Ask any producer to listen to something they made in the first three years of producing, and I bet you they wince when they hear it, despite it sounding 'right' at the time.

You carry on, do whatever you want to do. But please don't come on here asking for answers and then essentially telling us we're all wrong.

[Macc]

Okay.

I got someone to download that file and send it to me to see what's going on here. Erm, it is a 440k file - why didn't you just attach it?

After listening to and looking at the file, I have to ask you again, why do you want to clip? I really have to say that I don't think you know.

Even more pertinently, why do you only want to clip above 300Hz?

'There's some punch in the kick drum,' I thought as I was listening, 'how's he done that then?'. It had some transient information in there - the kick at some points had a noticeable increase of volume, like a transient would (I remember you saying you clipped everything above 300Hz, it must be something to do with this, not doubling....? It sticks out like a sore thumb either way though ).

The snares however, were not so good, exhibiting the behaviour I alluded to in my post above. Oversquashed, soft sounding drums were what I heard.


So opened the file in Wavelab to have a peek.

Forgive me not understanding excatly what method you used to do this, but to me it looks like you clipped your break, then layered an extra kick (either clipped or not), over the previous one and ran all that to your master out. Or was this done using your 'clip everything above 300Hz' method?

The extra kick would have been layered to provide punch, right? It shows as much in the attached 'bhima tune' pic I have attached. the kick not only sounds noticably louder, it IS noticably louder because of the layering/non clipping.

That's fine, but by doing that, you're negating the POINT of clipping, that is to increase overall volume at the cost of punch. There is no point clipping to enable you to increase volume then putting a clean or doubled kick in (or simply not clipping low frequencies) which increases the peak to RMS ratio back to the point where you may as well have not clipped.

What I mean is, look at the picture. The kicks stand out where they have either been unprocessed or doubled. You won't be able to get loads of volume out of it because of the peaks from the doubled kicks, BUT LOOK WHAT IT HAS DONE TO YOUR SNARES!

Or to put it another way - WHERE ARE YOUR SNARES?

I'll carry on in another post, I want to attach this file

[Macc]

So you can see there that you have, by doubling/turning up/not clipping your kicks, negated your own argument for clipping as a form of dynamic control that enables extra loudness.

And if you remove or turn down the doubles, or clip everything (not just below 300Hz) by the same amount you have done, you're left with flat sounding everything. As it is you have dynamic kicks, and totally snares - a mile away from what Can We Rap is capable of.


I selected (from that same clip pictured above) a single snare hit. I can hear the hit, but it has no punch AT ALL, as demonstrated perfectly by the picture.

Where is it? There's a tiny amount of high frequency info where the hit starts, but if I had no speakers I would never have found it (it starts one half of a wave cycle after the start of the selection);

[Macc]

As you can see, that snare hit is at almost exactly the same level as the surrounding material. They are drums, not a string/pad. They SHOULD stick out.

Removing the punch of the attack portion - unless you are very careful, using the right tools, in the right way, in the right combination in order to play 'tricks' on the ears -leads to unexciting, 'flat' sounding drums.

BTW, The tricks I am referring to still don't do the job of a nice natural attack/punch, but are pretty much good enough while still allowing the extra loudness things like dnb require ( another topic). Without losing the life.


Finally, as I thought of it at the time, my tune called Dilations uses the same break. I found a bit with a string and drums, as similar as I could find to your clip. I located exactly the same hit from the break, and compared the two. The selection (purple) bit shows the hit, selected in each tune.


Even allowing for the difference in level, look at the difference dynamically - and I can hear it plain as day (I'll get some sound clips up).

My drums are very much under control (see how they don't go above a certain level), but still posses lots of detail and punch (by way of the tricks I mentioned earlier). Look at the high frequency content at the start of the hit.

Remember - this is the same hit from the same break. Also bear in mind that I'd probably change that if I went back to that tune

[Macc]

Two things;

Sorry about the low quality image editing - Paint cru

The selection (purple) IS exactly the same hit, I assure you.