Clipping in the Analog vs. Digital Domain
When talking audio, all types of distortion and noise are not created equal. Some types of noise and distortions sound subjectively “good”, other types not so much.
Having an artistic opinion on the types of noise you do and don’t like in your recordings is critical when making your music. And, understanding the many different types of noise you’ll run into in the recording studio is a great first step towards developing those opinions.
Where to draw the line on good vs. bad noise gets tricky, because it often comes down to a unique combination of personal artistic preference, style, and musical genre, and these will all vary significantly by individual artist.
The first step is understanding that analog distortion and digital clipping are two different things.
Analog distortion
Analog gear: an analog mixing board, an outboard analog mic preamp, an analog compressor, these are all audio tools that clip or distort gracefully. If a signal is too hot and overloads the gear, it might not sound too bad, or might even be something that sounds cool.
Tube distortion in a guitar amplifier is one example of intentional clipping that can sound cool. Hitting the transformers hard in a mastering compressor is another common way of adding character and depth to music, and can also sound cool.
Digital clipping
Digital clipping, if you’re mixing or recording audio using a computer, sounds very different, and doesn’t usually sound cool or add character. It just sounds bad: very harsh and unpleasant.
You can hear what digital clipping sounds like by taking out your phone, making a voice memo, and then yelling into the mic loud enough that it clips. Now, listen back. This isn’t a very pleasant sound, and is probably not an effect that will be enjoyable for most people listening to your music.
It is interesting to note that several modern artists have started to incorporate intentionally ugly digital processing sounds into their music-the opening track to Bon Iver’s album 22, A Million comes to mind. But, the key concept here is that this is an intentional artistic choice. Unintentional, random digital clipping tends to sound, well, like you made a mistake.
Luckily, this is a very easy item to fix.
Solutions to prevent digital clipping
If you’re mixing or recording onto a computer, do not aim at the top of the meter! Instead, aim for the very loudest parts of your mix to hit at around -4-6 dB. Even a tad lower is not a problem.
Don’t worry, this won’t mean your music will sound too soft. We’re not finished yet, and additional volume will be added as we continue on through the music production process. But, understanding where and how we add that additional volume as we move towards the finished product is important, if we want to end up with the highest quality end result.
Yes!
No!
If you want to hear the music louder while you’re working on it, simply turn up the volume on your speakers or headphones-do not adjust the mix itself.
Another helpful piece of general guideline is:
When your final mixes are done, your music should sound exactly how you want it to sound in every respect, with the only exception being final volume level.
Your mastering engineer will help bring your music up to its final level after they receive your mixes, while also making sure that your music sounds its very best across all of the different playback mediums where people might hear it.
How to check for digital audio clipping
Here’s a handy tool available in MacOS that can tell you if you’re clipping any digital samples. You can use this tool to quickly check your mixes for any clipping, before sending them off to mastering:
Open the Terminal application. You’ll see the command line, don’t worry it’s gonna be ok.
Type “afclip”, with a space afterwards.
Drag your audio file into the Terminal window. You’ll see a long file name populate.
Hit Enter.
After a short wait, you’ll see the command line return one of three things: an error message, “no clipped samples”, or a report that pops up that showing detailed information on any samples that have clipped.
If you see “no clipped samples”, you’re good to go!
Fun fact: this is the same Apple-developed command line tool that is used to meet the Mastered for iTunes/Apple Digital Masters specifications.
Additional resources
A short video showing how to use this tool to check a whole batch of songs for clipping all at once can be found inside of my article Preventing Clipping in Your Digital Audio Projects.
And, my Mixing Cheat Sheet resource is another great way to learn to make better mixes on your own. It’s got all the steps to a great mix, clearly laid out in a checklist for you.
