Clip- > Limit -> Output

[Joe_caithness]

Hi just wondered if anyone has experimented/implements a clip then limit stage for extra loudness, and what you have discovered? I just started trying to get an extra 0.3 to 0.5 db gain reduction using this technique and am interested to see what the more experienced ME has to say about it!

[Sunim Koria]

Just for 0.5dB I simply don't think it's worth the degradation. But then again I'm not really an "experienced" ME.

SK

[engmix]

I have done it with good results.

[Darius van H]

A valid tool in the loudness jihad.

[Waltz Mastering]

I try to limit my use of hard clipping...

[mobius.media]

Apparently a big part of the Sterling sound
Ted Jensen.. Whose Watched Him?

[24-96 Mastering]

Originally Posted by Waltz Mastering

I try to limit my use of hard clipping...

lol

[Jesse Graffam]

If you need to limit after you clip, then you're not really clipping, you're probably saturating or just distorting. Actual clipping (including in the analog domain) has relatively perfect peak control, and limiting after-wards will end up clipping the edges of the clipping which can sound really bad, and in some cases you can lose loudness too.

But yeah, limiting heavily saturated or "pleasantly" distorted audio is something else. If you gain peak volume from limiting "clipped" audio, then your "limiter" is a better clipper than your "clipper".

[Joe_caithness]

Originally Posted by uncajesse

If you need to limit after you clip, then you're not really clipping, you're probably saturating or just distorting. Actual clipping (including in the analog domain) has relatively perfect peak control, and limiting after-wards will end up clipping the edges of the clipping which can sound really bad, and in some cases you can lose loudness too.

But yeah, limiting heavily saturated or "pleasantly" distorted audio is something else. If you gain peak volume from limiting "clipped" audio, then your "limiter" is a better clipper than your "clipper".

I don't really follow your point, you are suggesting you can only have one end limiter? it's perfectly possible to run two limiters, two clippers, one of each etc.

I am more interested in the sonic results of performing the operation this way round, Limit -> Clip is possibly a more logic order, and from my experiments had good results with the thread topic!

Joe @ Subsequent

[Jesse Graffam]

Originally Posted by Joe_caithness

you are suggesting you can only have one end limiter?

Certainly not. I'm saying that if you're using an effect that is not as good at clipping/peak-control as the effect before it, then you will be undoing at least some of what you had previously done - if peak level/loudness is the goal. That is all.

I'm not saying any which way is "better" or "worse". That's much too generalized without specifics.