• From: Portugal
  • Registered: 2019-09-14
  • Posts: 19

Topic: clipping the AD converter

Hi all,

I wondered for a while if it would be possible to clip the AD converters on my ADI-2 PRO Fs. As an electronic music producer this is quite common to remove "peaky" audio and control dynamics while bringing loudness, I use a few plugins to do this. I know its possible to do it with hardware where I can raise the level that goes to the AD converter, but as I don't have any hardware is there any way I can slam the converter input and clip 1 or 2db's? Would love to try this without any outboard gear perhaps using the built in loopback feature? Is there a way to control the input gain on this converter? let me know your thoughts, thanks.

  • KaiS
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  • From: Germany
  • Registered: 2020-02-05
  • Posts: 3,525

Re: clipping the AD converter

Analog circuits clip nicer than AD-converters.
Better clip an amp.


To clip the AD simply raise the input level higher than the set Reference Level.

• I/O / Analog Input / Settings / Ref Level: ## dBu
• I/O / Analog Input / Settings / Auto Ref Level: OFF

KaiS's Website

  • From: Portugal
  • Registered: 2019-09-14
  • Posts: 19

Re: clipping the AD converter

KaiS wrote:

Analog circuits clip nicer than AD-converters.
Better clip an amp.


To clip the AD simply raise the input level higher than the set Reference Level.

• I/O / Analog Input / Settings / Ref Level: ## dBu
• I/O / Analog Input / Settings / Auto Ref Level: OFF

Thank you for the input (no pun intended wink

Not aware of clipping amps? many top mastering guys usually clip the AD of the Lavry, a quote i found online:

“The soft clipping on these is supposedly excellent for increasing loudness fairly transparently.”

When time permits will test the clipping of the RME with the different filters it offers.

4 Reply by KaiS (edited by KaiS 2023-09-06 20:24:19)

  • KaiS
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  • From: Germany
  • Registered: 2020-02-05
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Re: clipping the AD converter

djoder wrote:

...many top mastering guys usually clip the AD of the Lavry, a quote i found online:

“The soft clipping on these is supposedly excellent for increasing loudness fairly transparently.”

The Lavry AD-24-200 Savitr has:
• MX soft clipping
• Soft saturation, 4 levels

The ADI-2 doesn‘t, so:
• Check with a sine wave 400 Hz and a two-tone signal like 400 + 997 Hz.
• Compare the spectrum and sound of analog and AD-converter clipping by the same amount.


BTW: personally, to me all those clipped masters you hear these days sound like s***, simply distorted.

Know what:
With loudness normalization having become the norm these days you end up with a bad sounding master that isn’t the slightest louder than any other.

A highly dynamic Beethoven symphony has the same loudness now as any hard core metal band - only that Beethoven has more punch, if the metal producer still fights the lost loudness war.

KaiS's Website

  • From: Milan, Italy
  • Registered: 2012-02-19
  • Posts: 213

Re: clipping the AD converter

Clip it however and how much you like for the best sound for the artist/track/genre. If I didn't clip things I'd immediately lose half my clients. Service industry, communication etc. There's a real art to making things sound loud AND good. The ones telling you all modern pop sounds like shit are just jealous they haven't worked out how to do it yet, IMO...

Check out Schwabe Digital Gold Clip, has a load of different clipping/limiting/'loudenating' functions, including one modelled on the Lavry Gold converter. Do it all ITB. Then you can also preserve/curate non-clipped masters for future re-issues/vinyl re-releases etc. If you clip an actual ADC then it's baked in forever.

https://www.schwabedigital.com/

https://musicwall.app/hermetech

Babaluma's Website

6 Reply by KaiS (edited by KaiS 2023-09-07 00:00:51)

  • KaiS
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Re: clipping the AD converter

There’s a big difference between compression/limiting versus clipping.

Clipping without prior limiting is hard to control.
You can get a nice sounding track, but spoiled occasionally by one-sided (left or right) obvious uncontrolled hard distortions, specially prominent when listening on headphones.

This can happen with limiting too, but at least the channels can be linked, making the distortions better embedded into the music.


Hey - and of course I’m using all kinds of dynamic processings, including real tube saturation and such - even invented and sold compression algorithms.

But you have to use it deliberately and with an open ear.
Specially in the light that you now have, in music production, an at least 14 dB peak to average ratio to use for dynamics.
https://support.spotify.com/us/artists/ … alization/

Of course it’s different if you produce for low res media like communication lines, but that’s probably not what the topic starter is after.

KaiS's Website

  • From: Portugal
  • Registered: 2019-09-14
  • Posts: 19

Re: clipping the AD converter

In general I prefer to clip instead of limiting but it depends on the type of track or genre, this is why I wanted to test the clipping on this converter.

Funny you mentioned “linked channels”, i also prefer the “unlinked” sound, it sounds a little wider/better, but as always this is subjective!

Understand the side effects/distortion of this process but the type of music I make is mastered stupidly loud so without clippers here and there and on the master bus I would not be able to get the level of loudness and cleanness of comercial releases in the same genre.

I’m using AA Ash for clipping ITB, it has several clippers “sampled” from Lavry to Bettermaker and a bunch more, would love to try out Gold Clip and compare it to Ash, previously Ash won to Standard Clip!