It’s absolutely worth learning, you don’t need to apply this technique on every project but it is very useful when needed, you can achieve massive drum sounds with it
Short version is clipping your master sounds nasty because you get a lot of inter modulation distortion which does not sound good in equal temperament. So you wanna clip each of the drums separately.
I tried watching the playlist but honestly could not endure it. The content seems mostly inapplicable whenever live instruments and/or analog gear/emulations are central to the workflow and “zero” seems arbitrary. Baphometrix actively disregards certain tools and workflows and, in doing so, seems unwilling to extend the branch to other fields.
That said, it has made me less fearful of clipping and I think a lot of the ideas _could_ apply to “organic” music but I’m not keen on adapting it myself.
I feel like at this point I’m so used to having to translate audio advice to the styles I usually mix. All the tutorials are EDM, Christian Rock, or horribly corny pop rock 😂
I was just talking to someone about this. It's true that I rarely see as many "how to mix upright bass in a big band context" tutorials than "FILTHY SERUM LEADGROWLXORS - midi pack download in description" ones.
😭😭💀
I’ve actually never had a YouTube video suggested to me that focused on live-group music like jazz. Any info on how to handle upright, saxophones, vibes etc have been written articles I’ve found through a direct google search
I don’t think it applies to many genres, just club stuff where shit needs to be LOUD, maybe I’m wrong.
This seems helpful: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxik-POfUXY6i_fP0f4qXNwdMxh3PXxJx&si=Ffs80t7Ng_GLUgGW
I have a different take. I think the cascade bus system can work well for almost any modern genre. I’m finding using the cascade bus system I can get away with less limiting on master to achieve same loudness results and I generally prefer the CTZ approach.
could you elaborate on this "system". do u mean a limiter on each instrument bus and then a clipper after each of those limiters? or multiple clippers on each bus?
Cascading bus system is where you have multiple bus stages between individual tracks and master. For example, instead of having a few busses (drums/vocals/guitar/synth/bass —> MSTR) you might have extra stages where you slowly combine all of your tracks before hitting master. Every time you combine tracks, you introduce limiting or clipping on the combined peaks only. In other words, if a kick peaks at -3 and a bass peaks at -6 and they combine to 0 then you’d clip/limit the bus so the peak was still nailed to -3. The idea is that a lot of small clips throughout the entire project can often sound a lot more transparent than letting the them build up and handled on the master. This allows you to mix for loudness instead of trying to achieve loudness in the master.
To me, this is the worst place to make things into sausages. Such big and wonderful sounds systems can do much more than play square waves. There is a reason Billy Jean still slaps on any big sound system.
The norm for club music is very different to Billy Jean. You're supposed to *feel* the music running through your body, in a quite literal way (e.g., feel the bass vibrations). Not all styles of music have the same function, and they shouldn't all be mixed/mastered in the same way.
Just going to chime in on one point. Not the mastering part because I agree on that. The drums on Billy Jean (Linndrum I believe) so absolutely thump. In fact funk, dub and disco music blows most modern music away when it comes to body feel because of the dynamics. Most younger ears won't listen to this stuff on big systems, so only hear the cheesy side, not enough loop repeat or big drops. But trust me you hear something like Billy Jean on a well set function 1 it will feel like Tyson is thumping your kidneys to a beat! Also just to add. This music was I deed club music. This was being played in all-night venues that welcomed all the colours of the night from the mid 70s running right up to the birth of acid. It was all about Soundsystem and body feel and always has been.
Totally agreed. I’ve played some tracks on normal PA systems and function 1’s. I’d never even heard of the functions until I was listening to some openers that night and was like “why is this the greatest sounding bass i’ve ever heard”. I could play some tracks on normal systems that could sound fairly weak that would just feel SOOO good on the function 1’s.
A lot of dance music isn’t made with those type of systems in mind which makes sense because at least in my scene it’s rare we have something that good. But man.. when you do have an amazing system.. So much fun
Hence why they shouldn't be just "loud".
Dynamics is what creates "feeling" the sound. Vibrations come in many different flavors, not just square waves. When you master to -3 LUFS, that's all you're doing, square waves, ruining ALL feeling and consequently, damaging sound systems.
Sound quality is very much objective. Music is not the same thing, per say.
You can have the best song ever that you love playing out of a sound system with out of phase subs and it will not sound good, no matter how much your boner for the music affects your perception.
Mixing is an objective art, and sprinkles of subjectivity based on content of the music being mixed. You don't mix songs one specific way just because its a song in a specific genre. Every song gets it's own little touches and choices. Being objective to what needs to be done to the song to make it sound the best is a great skill to have that will have you put out better mixes.
Disagree, you just sound like a bitchy old man.
No one is stopping you from listening to music with dynamic range, but no one wants the music to get drowned out by the crowd noise because some random redditor is afraid of redlining.
You loudness at all cost people forget there's this thing on the listeners end called a volume knob. Utterly ridiculous to argue with any sincerity that a massive club PA could ever be overpowered by non amplified human voices talking. They could play classical through those things and blow your eardrums out.
Been doing dance music probably longer than you've been alive.
And you should care, your elders are the ones that created this music and run the companies that provide these experiences.
Your opinion does not align with how dubstep and several other EDM genres are produced/mixed/mastered right now.
If anyone wants to earn a living in that field the music will be LOUD.
In my experience, DJs don't give a shit how things sound. As long as all the meters on their mixer are as far in the red as humanly possible, they're happy.
I think the issue is that many people aren’t great DJs and simply think louder is more energetic. It’s not totally wrong but I’ve noticed that as you get later in the night, each DJ will just keep slightly making things louder and louder and it’s pretty tough to turn it down without it feeling like you’re losing a ton of energy. The only way to prevent it is to basically force DJs to not touch the trim knob lol
Just set the limiters further down the chain so they can't effectively turn it up louder past a certain point and hope they realize they are just making it sound worse and not louder...
It's fair to say this about some DJs, but it's also equally fair to say other DJs care about this a lot. In other words, people are different and you can't generalise like that.
Here's Mr Scruff spending hours getting his turntables setup to his standard which he does for every gig to ensure good quality sound:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxWBAV4JsWE
And here is an amazing mini documentary about LCD Soundsystem who were so disappointed with the sound and experience of modern clubs, that they created an event that placed high fidelty music at the centre of the experience and relegated the DJ behind a screen, so that the crowd were forced to concentrate on the music and each other, rather than the usual worship the DJ thing that happens in lots of events these days:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5z6lG8AAyk
I think its worth learning and understanding just so you know and understand it.
You can then make the decision if it's something you want to incorporate into your workflow or not. But I feel like it's a bunch of concepts within a concept the mesh well together but learning it for the sake of learning has it's positives as there are transferable concepts within it that I feel is good to have somewhat of a grasp on no matter the genre you're generally working with.
But I'm not gonna lie to you, that's pretty much my standard advice for every single concept within music production haha.
Clippers are extremely useful for managing atonal transient peaks, allowing you to push your tracks louder and get a good balance between peaks and RMS volume. They are in these specific scenarios vastly more transparent than limiters. This knowledge is useful for any style of music, even when not pushing stuff massively loud, as transients and knowing how to shape them is incredibly important for getting mixes with clarity and definition for each instrument.
The Clip To Zero method specifically is intended for very loud stuff, but the general knowledge on the usefulness of clippers is universal. I would recommend sitting through the whole series, as it is very well articulated free knowledge right at your grasp, but you can also just take the time to experiment with clippers on your own.
So turns out I have actually been doing this with drum busses and bass busses the whole time lol. However, those two busses are usually sitting anywhere from -8 to -12 each. Also I never do this with other groups though, I can’t imagine clipping piano strings or acoustic guitar haha. Also I think it’s worth mentioning that I DO make dance music but it’s on the more minimal side of uk 140 dubstep so the only thing I canter about is loud bass and drums with dynamic range. I can’t stand the overcompressed 150hz snare drum, I need groove, swing and volume changes in the hats/ percussion. Some reference artists for this style are hamdi, hypho, dmvu etc
Concept has been around for a long time. I found myself experimenting with it before clip to zero came about.
Clippers have been useful to train my ear to hear dynamics better. Try using them for a while and see what you discover.
CTZ is a technique to control dynamics and that’s all it really is, it goes around the idea to applying little clips and limiters across your entire chain instead of slamming everything hard into a final limiter is better, and it is. So, it’s a method to work and think about dynamics at your reference loudness (whatever that may be). It will make you consider your arrangement and sound design choices at reference loudness.
It’s not necessarily just for loud music. Just helps one think and control dynamics through their workflow.
>I don’t really like my music screaming loud the whole time.
To your credit. If it's *always* loud, there are almost certainly insufficient dynamics for an actually impactful, emotionally effective track.
*Loudness* is always a comparative quality. (Just as decibel measurements always depend on a *reference standard.*)
Definitely a long, ranty and draining tutorial series where most of what is talked about only applies to music that is absolutely slammed, plus there are better clippers with more functionality out there than the ones used in the series (StandardClip). You're better off just learning how to use clipping properly and going from there, especially if you are already a trained engineer.
If you have absolutely no idea how people manage to push loudness dumb hard without or with minimal audible clipping, it MIGHT be an okay series to check out. However, any trained engineer just needs to be told that using clippers at the channel and bus levels to cut off peaks before summing at the final mix bus allows for more headroom when they sum together. Similar idea to using multiple limiters on a master to share the workload, but on a more structured level within the mixdown itself.
That's a really interesting way to put it, and I'd not considered it like that before. I've used clippers and buss cascades for a long time simply to manage peaks and headroom effectively, but I suppose there's another hidden benefit in it.
In bringing up the average level element by element across the whole mix, you can gain a good insight into how note tails and ambience will sound together as when they'd otherwise be brought up by a master limiter later on in the process, meaning you can address "issues" sooner in the mixing stage, and hopefully get cleaner results in the end. So making it loud first kind of facilitates finding fixes sooner, with the added bonus of getting things loud and clear from the get-go.
Have you read the Google doc she posts in the comment section of every video? It summarizes the series really well.
One thing she demonstrates in the videos is a way to reduce all clippers simultaneously, and she shows how less dynamic range really does sound worse. You'd still use the technique because it often sounds better than only limiting the 2 bus, but the only reason she slams her music that hard is to not be jarringly quiet compared to other artists in her DJ sets
It's really helpful. Even for music that doesn't require crazy loudness units. I think transparently clipping unnecessary peaks is always worth it, even if it's only a db, you basically get free loudness when only clipping a little amount. Your waveforms will be more consistent and also prevent downstream processors like compressors from overworking. And when mastering, I will almost always want to pre clip before the final Limiter (and before mastering compression).
I gave it a go and I thought it sounded ridiculous. Maybe I can’t figure it out or maybe I just need to focus on a couple of important elements and have contrast.
Always trust your ears
To me it was one of the most relevant techniques I've learned... NOT because I want my music to be loud, but because I wanted to control my dynamics better. And yes, he maybe aims to be loud, but by teaching you to control dynamics.
Very valuable lesson I think.
If you make EDM where competitive loudness means low dynamic range, then yes. It's also good for learning about controlling dynamic range as well, which is useful to know. Regardless, it's good to know how to utilize clipping.
CTZ is legit. It’s basically just a systematized way of doing what producers in the heavy bass music genres have been doing for years anyway. It’s absolutely worth watching the whole series. There’s an immense amount of knowledge in there. Pay attention, take notes, and pretend it’s school.
I’m not trying to make music at -2 LUFS but I still found many aspects of the framework incredibly valuable. It depends what you’re making of course. Nobody’s going to produce folk music this way. But I’ve started putting a clipper last in the chain on every track and mixing into everything at 0 dB and it definitely works as a gain staging for loudness technique. I also never realized you can absolutely hard clip the shit out of some things with no audible change to the signal at all. I regularly clip my kicks by 10 dB and you can’t even hear it. Drums in general and distorted mid basses of the kind you find in regularly in EDM can handle a lot of clipping. In fact it’s hard to get that modern sound at all without a lot of saturation and clipping. Highly recommended.
I got to episode 8 and had to stop. It’s a lot of long winded rambling about basic mix concepts. Not bad if you’re new I guess.
In short, this person has simply discovered that controlling dynamics in stages gets a cleaner and louder result than slamming a limiter. Dave Pensado talked about that over 12 years ago. Every mixer in any modern genre does this. Compress in stages here and there. Clip individual sounds to reduce effects of inharmonic distortion. This is basic stuff.
It's a whole lot of worrying about a lot of very specific things, all to get a louder mix, when you could just be actually worrying about getting a good mix first and then decide how loud the mix feels like it should be, by doing a few very simple things.
This whole clip to zero thing is just one guy's workflow who decided to make a youtube series on it, and it's blown up because everyone seems to prioritize having a loud mix over a good one. I'm personally not a fan his workflow for a bunch of reasons, but if it works for some, great.
Don't get me wrong, loud mixes are great if they're mixed well, but it's more than likely going to sound harsh once you push past a certain point. Which is fine for some songs, but a lot of the time it's not what the song calls for. This kinda workflow incentivizes you to 'optimize' everything for loudness sake, which just doesn't make sense to me.
Most of the stuff Baphometrix says is totally fine and valuable to know, but damn, it's not hard to get a good mix sitting as loud as it needs to be. It's not something you need a 31 part video series for lmao
I thought so too. Tried it on a few demos I produced and it’s…interesting.
I’m a producer not a mixer so I’m just mixing ‘demos’ to be sent on. A lot of the time publishers/labels react more to louder demos, I suppose they feel more finished to an untrained ear.
I prefer my non CTZ mixes, but perceived loudness wise I’d say they’re 2-3db quieter, even though I tend to slam my normal mixes.
It’s just a tool in the box I suppose. But it’s not dumb.
Love it. I work in a hybdrid set up and think the cascading bus system here isn’t crazily different from the brauner multi bus system.
I will say that dynamics are overrated on a lot of mixes. Did a mix for a rock group that had a lot of strong feelings about loudness wars ruining music but they always mixed the least dynamic mixes I sent them.
What makes you say that? I'd be shocked if that was the case. I will research it and report back.
EDIT: Damn, it looks like you're right. Her voice definitely read as male to me, but, but super manly male I guess.
> Her voice definitely read as male to me
That's the point. She consciously makes her voice sound masculine so people will take her more seriously. (Something she's indeed tested out)
I hate that. If people don't take you seriously because you sound like a woman, let them not take you seriously.
There are bigots and sexists, for sure, but I feel like pretending you're male just sort of encourages them. Let them miss out on good information because they won't listen to a woman.
It’s what I’ve been told and when I relayed the information, others have looked into it and apparently it checks out. I was as surprised as you were honestly.
I only remember being taught by my instructors that the only time clipping is good is when you're pushing certain hardware or software to get their character and some distortion, but if it's something for radio or streaming you definitely don't want to. Personally, I say always leave headroom, listeners can turn it up if they want, or streaming services can get good and functional normalization.
It's available in text form : https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ogxa5-X_QdbtfLLQ_2mDEgPgHxNRLebQ7pps3rXewPM/edit?usp=sharing
It's a highly recommended video series to digest as one video at a time however. There's a WEALTH of great information in there, clearing up popular misconceptions, showing every pitfall to avoid, explaining concepts and giving you basically everything you need to mix in loud genres. The videos however are not just about getting the loudest mix possible, but everything regarding dynamics management.
Clip each track to maximum loudness without introducing distortion.
Now you can raise or lower the volume of each individual track knowing the audio is already optimized at its loudest volume.
I’d think of it more as an exercise for understanding than something you’ll really apply to much music, unless you make that type of EDM that needs everything pushed to the absolute max. Then you need to spend more time on wave shaping the kick and bass, and getting the best phase alignment possible etc. Hard clipping is a pretty straightforward concept, either pushing into 0 or lowering the threshold to free up headroom. It’s about listening at the end of the day.
So basically, if you know his technique, you would have optional knowledge to boost your loudness by soft/hard clipping where, you will eventually test human ears to see, if u can tell whether it 'sounds' digitally distorting or not? so if you go in-between that, u will be at ease to control your own loudness, 'push & pull' technique I guess.
His CTZ methodology works great on phat hiphop/pop/house drum along with bass.
If you could get ur low end good, catching peaks as much as u can without sounding harsh, then it is fairly easy to get ur final result around commercial perceived loudness, say, -7 to -8 is lufs with firm 'bottom'.
It’s absolutely worth learning, you don’t need to apply this technique on every project but it is very useful when needed, you can achieve massive drum sounds with it
Can you summarize it?
take your shit, clip it to zero till it sounds good. if it sounds bad, back it off.
Real
I mean, you might want to describe what "clip it to zero" actually means.
Short version is clipping your master sounds nasty because you get a lot of inter modulation distortion which does not sound good in equal temperament. So you wanna clip each of the drums separately.
Yes. And not just drums. Clipping individual tracks that have spiky transients is much more transparent than clipping the master.
Ya but depending on the instrument soft clipping or analogue emulations can sound nicer. You don’t wanna clip things like clean vocals, pads, etc… imo
That is covered in the “saturate from the bottom” portion of the CTZ approach.
Interesting. I haven’t watched the whole thing.
I tried watching the playlist but honestly could not endure it. The content seems mostly inapplicable whenever live instruments and/or analog gear/emulations are central to the workflow and “zero” seems arbitrary. Baphometrix actively disregards certain tools and workflows and, in doing so, seems unwilling to extend the branch to other fields. That said, it has made me less fearful of clipping and I think a lot of the ideas _could_ apply to “organic” music but I’m not keen on adapting it myself.
I feel like at this point I’m so used to having to translate audio advice to the styles I usually mix. All the tutorials are EDM, Christian Rock, or horribly corny pop rock 😂
I was just talking to someone about this. It's true that I rarely see as many "how to mix upright bass in a big band context" tutorials than "FILTHY SERUM LEADGROWLXORS - midi pack download in description" ones.
😭😭💀 I’ve actually never had a YouTube video suggested to me that focused on live-group music like jazz. Any info on how to handle upright, saxophones, vibes etc have been written articles I’ve found through a direct google search
I don’t think it applies to many genres, just club stuff where shit needs to be LOUD, maybe I’m wrong. This seems helpful: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxik-POfUXY6i_fP0f4qXNwdMxh3PXxJx&si=Ffs80t7Ng_GLUgGW
I have a different take. I think the cascade bus system can work well for almost any modern genre. I’m finding using the cascade bus system I can get away with less limiting on master to achieve same loudness results and I generally prefer the CTZ approach.
could you elaborate on this "system". do u mean a limiter on each instrument bus and then a clipper after each of those limiters? or multiple clippers on each bus?
Cascading bus system is where you have multiple bus stages between individual tracks and master. For example, instead of having a few busses (drums/vocals/guitar/synth/bass —> MSTR) you might have extra stages where you slowly combine all of your tracks before hitting master. Every time you combine tracks, you introduce limiting or clipping on the combined peaks only. In other words, if a kick peaks at -3 and a bass peaks at -6 and they combine to 0 then you’d clip/limit the bus so the peak was still nailed to -3. The idea is that a lot of small clips throughout the entire project can often sound a lot more transparent than letting the them build up and handled on the master. This allows you to mix for loudness instead of trying to achieve loudness in the master.
Great reply tysm!
That's not the full clip to zero method though. The method isn't just cascades. But that's a part of it.
To me, this is the worst place to make things into sausages. Such big and wonderful sounds systems can do much more than play square waves. There is a reason Billy Jean still slaps on any big sound system.
The norm for club music is very different to Billy Jean. You're supposed to *feel* the music running through your body, in a quite literal way (e.g., feel the bass vibrations). Not all styles of music have the same function, and they shouldn't all be mixed/mastered in the same way.
Just going to chime in on one point. Not the mastering part because I agree on that. The drums on Billy Jean (Linndrum I believe) so absolutely thump. In fact funk, dub and disco music blows most modern music away when it comes to body feel because of the dynamics. Most younger ears won't listen to this stuff on big systems, so only hear the cheesy side, not enough loop repeat or big drops. But trust me you hear something like Billy Jean on a well set function 1 it will feel like Tyson is thumping your kidneys to a beat! Also just to add. This music was I deed club music. This was being played in all-night venues that welcomed all the colours of the night from the mid 70s running right up to the birth of acid. It was all about Soundsystem and body feel and always has been.
Totally agreed. I’ve played some tracks on normal PA systems and function 1’s. I’d never even heard of the functions until I was listening to some openers that night and was like “why is this the greatest sounding bass i’ve ever heard”. I could play some tracks on normal systems that could sound fairly weak that would just feel SOOO good on the function 1’s. A lot of dance music isn’t made with those type of systems in mind which makes sense because at least in my scene it’s rare we have something that good. But man.. when you do have an amazing system.. So much fun
Dub and disco are included in "club music".
Hence why they shouldn't be just "loud". Dynamics is what creates "feeling" the sound. Vibrations come in many different flavors, not just square waves. When you master to -3 LUFS, that's all you're doing, square waves, ruining ALL feeling and consequently, damaging sound systems.
This is simply false. Modern club bangers are loud.
Lol, "modern club bangers" sound like shit. The bass literally has no texture and the mixes lack depth. Its music made for cell phone speakers.
This thread is about club bangers though. I'm not talking about whether they're good or not. Why are you acting as if your identity is under attack?
I'm not, I'm just appalled that people think that no dynamics sounds good
What constitutes "good" music is entirely subjective.
Sound quality is very much objective. Music is not the same thing, per say. You can have the best song ever that you love playing out of a sound system with out of phase subs and it will not sound good, no matter how much your boner for the music affects your perception. Mixing is an objective art, and sprinkles of subjectivity based on content of the music being mixed. You don't mix songs one specific way just because its a song in a specific genre. Every song gets it's own little touches and choices. Being objective to what needs to be done to the song to make it sound the best is a great skill to have that will have you put out better mixes.
Disagree, you just sound like a bitchy old man. No one is stopping you from listening to music with dynamic range, but no one wants the music to get drowned out by the crowd noise because some random redditor is afraid of redlining.
Sounds like you need a bigger pa
You loudness at all cost people forget there's this thing on the listeners end called a volume knob. Utterly ridiculous to argue with any sincerity that a massive club PA could ever be overpowered by non amplified human voices talking. They could play classical through those things and blow your eardrums out.
I work with 60k watt systems or larger. You need to learn what an amp is.
You also work with grandpa era music it sounds like, so I don't care
Been doing dance music probably longer than you've been alive. And you should care, your elders are the ones that created this music and run the companies that provide these experiences.
What nonsense. The power of the sound system is what matters, the more clipping you induce to a mix at different stages the more low end is lost.
Does being that stupid hurt?
Is being poor fun?
I wouldnt know. Whats it like having no actual friends?
Your opinion does not align with how dubstep and several other EDM genres are produced/mixed/mastered right now. If anyone wants to earn a living in that field the music will be LOUD.
Are modern club systems not able to handle dynamic range and just like... turn up a bit? What are DJs doing it not uhh... mixing the levels of things?
In my experience, DJs don't give a shit how things sound. As long as all the meters on their mixer are as far in the red as humanly possible, they're happy.
I think the issue is that many people aren’t great DJs and simply think louder is more energetic. It’s not totally wrong but I’ve noticed that as you get later in the night, each DJ will just keep slightly making things louder and louder and it’s pretty tough to turn it down without it feeling like you’re losing a ton of energy. The only way to prevent it is to basically force DJs to not touch the trim knob lol
Just set the limiters further down the chain so they can't effectively turn it up louder past a certain point and hope they realize they are just making it sound worse and not louder...
It's fair to say this about some DJs, but it's also equally fair to say other DJs care about this a lot. In other words, people are different and you can't generalise like that. Here's Mr Scruff spending hours getting his turntables setup to his standard which he does for every gig to ensure good quality sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxWBAV4JsWE And here is an amazing mini documentary about LCD Soundsystem who were so disappointed with the sound and experience of modern clubs, that they created an event that placed high fidelty music at the centre of the experience and relegated the DJ behind a screen, so that the crowd were forced to concentrate on the music and each other, rather than the usual worship the DJ thing that happens in lots of events these days: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5z6lG8AAyk
Noise regs. dB meters in clubs now round here
Yes, it will work for dubstep, EDM etc.
I think its worth learning and understanding just so you know and understand it. You can then make the decision if it's something you want to incorporate into your workflow or not. But I feel like it's a bunch of concepts within a concept the mesh well together but learning it for the sake of learning has it's positives as there are transferable concepts within it that I feel is good to have somewhat of a grasp on no matter the genre you're generally working with. But I'm not gonna lie to you, that's pretty much my standard advice for every single concept within music production haha.
Clippers are extremely useful for managing atonal transient peaks, allowing you to push your tracks louder and get a good balance between peaks and RMS volume. They are in these specific scenarios vastly more transparent than limiters. This knowledge is useful for any style of music, even when not pushing stuff massively loud, as transients and knowing how to shape them is incredibly important for getting mixes with clarity and definition for each instrument. The Clip To Zero method specifically is intended for very loud stuff, but the general knowledge on the usefulness of clippers is universal. I would recommend sitting through the whole series, as it is very well articulated free knowledge right at your grasp, but you can also just take the time to experiment with clippers on your own.
So turns out I have actually been doing this with drum busses and bass busses the whole time lol. However, those two busses are usually sitting anywhere from -8 to -12 each. Also I never do this with other groups though, I can’t imagine clipping piano strings or acoustic guitar haha. Also I think it’s worth mentioning that I DO make dance music but it’s on the more minimal side of uk 140 dubstep so the only thing I canter about is loud bass and drums with dynamic range. I can’t stand the overcompressed 150hz snare drum, I need groove, swing and volume changes in the hats/ percussion. Some reference artists for this style are hamdi, hypho, dmvu etc
Yeah I feel that! I never understood using it in a build up scenario as well.
Concept has been around for a long time. I found myself experimenting with it before clip to zero came about. Clippers have been useful to train my ear to hear dynamics better. Try using them for a while and see what you discover.
CTZ is a technique to control dynamics and that’s all it really is, it goes around the idea to applying little clips and limiters across your entire chain instead of slamming everything hard into a final limiter is better, and it is. So, it’s a method to work and think about dynamics at your reference loudness (whatever that may be). It will make you consider your arrangement and sound design choices at reference loudness. It’s not necessarily just for loud music. Just helps one think and control dynamics through their workflow.
>I don’t really like my music screaming loud the whole time. To your credit. If it's *always* loud, there are almost certainly insufficient dynamics for an actually impactful, emotionally effective track. *Loudness* is always a comparative quality. (Just as decibel measurements always depend on a *reference standard.*)
Definitely a long, ranty and draining tutorial series where most of what is talked about only applies to music that is absolutely slammed, plus there are better clippers with more functionality out there than the ones used in the series (StandardClip). You're better off just learning how to use clipping properly and going from there, especially if you are already a trained engineer. If you have absolutely no idea how people manage to push loudness dumb hard without or with minimal audible clipping, it MIGHT be an okay series to check out. However, any trained engineer just needs to be told that using clippers at the channel and bus levels to cut off peaks before summing at the final mix bus allows for more headroom when they sum together. Similar idea to using multiple limiters on a master to share the workload, but on a more structured level within the mixdown itself.
It's basically a version of the "make it loud first then fix whatever needs fixing" strategy. Works great for loads of people
That's a really interesting way to put it, and I'd not considered it like that before. I've used clippers and buss cascades for a long time simply to manage peaks and headroom effectively, but I suppose there's another hidden benefit in it. In bringing up the average level element by element across the whole mix, you can gain a good insight into how note tails and ambience will sound together as when they'd otherwise be brought up by a master limiter later on in the process, meaning you can address "issues" sooner in the mixing stage, and hopefully get cleaner results in the end. So making it loud first kind of facilitates finding fixes sooner, with the added bonus of getting things loud and clear from the get-go.
Have you read the Google doc she posts in the comment section of every video? It summarizes the series really well. One thing she demonstrates in the videos is a way to reduce all clippers simultaneously, and she shows how less dynamic range really does sound worse. You'd still use the technique because it often sounds better than only limiting the 2 bus, but the only reason she slams her music that hard is to not be jarringly quiet compared to other artists in her DJ sets
Works well in EDM, SoundCloud rap, and occasionally metal or hard rock.
It's really helpful. Even for music that doesn't require crazy loudness units. I think transparently clipping unnecessary peaks is always worth it, even if it's only a db, you basically get free loudness when only clipping a little amount. Your waveforms will be more consistent and also prevent downstream processors like compressors from overworking. And when mastering, I will almost always want to pre clip before the final Limiter (and before mastering compression).
I gave it a go and I thought it sounded ridiculous. Maybe I can’t figure it out or maybe I just need to focus on a couple of important elements and have contrast. Always trust your ears
To me it was one of the most relevant techniques I've learned... NOT because I want my music to be loud, but because I wanted to control my dynamics better. And yes, he maybe aims to be loud, but by teaching you to control dynamics. Very valuable lesson I think.
If you make EDM where competitive loudness means low dynamic range, then yes. It's also good for learning about controlling dynamic range as well, which is useful to know. Regardless, it's good to know how to utilize clipping.
CTZ is legit. It’s basically just a systematized way of doing what producers in the heavy bass music genres have been doing for years anyway. It’s absolutely worth watching the whole series. There’s an immense amount of knowledge in there. Pay attention, take notes, and pretend it’s school. I’m not trying to make music at -2 LUFS but I still found many aspects of the framework incredibly valuable. It depends what you’re making of course. Nobody’s going to produce folk music this way. But I’ve started putting a clipper last in the chain on every track and mixing into everything at 0 dB and it definitely works as a gain staging for loudness technique. I also never realized you can absolutely hard clip the shit out of some things with no audible change to the signal at all. I regularly clip my kicks by 10 dB and you can’t even hear it. Drums in general and distorted mid basses of the kind you find in regularly in EDM can handle a lot of clipping. In fact it’s hard to get that modern sound at all without a lot of saturation and clipping. Highly recommended.
I got to episode 8 and had to stop. It’s a lot of long winded rambling about basic mix concepts. Not bad if you’re new I guess. In short, this person has simply discovered that controlling dynamics in stages gets a cleaner and louder result than slamming a limiter. Dave Pensado talked about that over 12 years ago. Every mixer in any modern genre does this. Compress in stages here and there. Clip individual sounds to reduce effects of inharmonic distortion. This is basic stuff.
It's a whole lot of worrying about a lot of very specific things, all to get a louder mix, when you could just be actually worrying about getting a good mix first and then decide how loud the mix feels like it should be, by doing a few very simple things. This whole clip to zero thing is just one guy's workflow who decided to make a youtube series on it, and it's blown up because everyone seems to prioritize having a loud mix over a good one. I'm personally not a fan his workflow for a bunch of reasons, but if it works for some, great. Don't get me wrong, loud mixes are great if they're mixed well, but it's more than likely going to sound harsh once you push past a certain point. Which is fine for some songs, but a lot of the time it's not what the song calls for. This kinda workflow incentivizes you to 'optimize' everything for loudness sake, which just doesn't make sense to me. Most of the stuff Baphometrix says is totally fine and valuable to know, but damn, it's not hard to get a good mix sitting as loud as it needs to be. It's not something you need a 31 part video series for lmao
Seems dumb to me
I thought so too. Tried it on a few demos I produced and it’s…interesting. I’m a producer not a mixer so I’m just mixing ‘demos’ to be sent on. A lot of the time publishers/labels react more to louder demos, I suppose they feel more finished to an untrained ear. I prefer my non CTZ mixes, but perceived loudness wise I’d say they’re 2-3db quieter, even though I tend to slam my normal mixes. It’s just a tool in the box I suppose. But it’s not dumb.
Love it. I work in a hybdrid set up and think the cascading bus system here isn’t crazily different from the brauner multi bus system. I will say that dynamics are overrated on a lot of mixes. Did a mix for a rock group that had a lot of strong feelings about loudness wars ruining music but they always mixed the least dynamic mixes I sent them.
Not to mention it’s incredibly difficult to watch her** videos anyway.
Pretty sure it’s *her*
What makes you say that? I'd be shocked if that was the case. I will research it and report back. EDIT: Damn, it looks like you're right. Her voice definitely read as male to me, but, but super manly male I guess.
> Her voice definitely read as male to me That's the point. She consciously makes her voice sound masculine so people will take her more seriously. (Something she's indeed tested out)
I hate that. If people don't take you seriously because you sound like a woman, let them not take you seriously. There are bigots and sexists, for sure, but I feel like pretending you're male just sort of encourages them. Let them miss out on good information because they won't listen to a woman.
100% agree I suspect she does it for her own sake to not have to deal with belittling comments, more than anything else
It’s what I’ve been told and when I relayed the information, others have looked into it and apparently it checks out. I was as surprised as you were honestly.
Ya, her socials refer to her as female. Not sure if she is CIS, but she does appear to be female now, at the very least.
One of those things where the face is never seen so you can only make inferences from what you have
Ya
There are principles I find noteworthy, but unless you're doing EDM and prioritizing being loud, you can't really do it. Not fully, anyway.
I only remember being taught by my instructors that the only time clipping is good is when you're pushing certain hardware or software to get their character and some distortion, but if it's something for radio or streaming you definitely don't want to. Personally, I say always leave headroom, listeners can turn it up if they want, or streaming services can get good and functional normalization.
It's available in text form : https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Ogxa5-X_QdbtfLLQ_2mDEgPgHxNRLebQ7pps3rXewPM/edit?usp=sharing It's a highly recommended video series to digest as one video at a time however. There's a WEALTH of great information in there, clearing up popular misconceptions, showing every pitfall to avoid, explaining concepts and giving you basically everything you need to mix in loud genres. The videos however are not just about getting the loudest mix possible, but everything regarding dynamics management.
Clip each track to maximum loudness without introducing distortion. Now you can raise or lower the volume of each individual track knowing the audio is already optimized at its loudest volume.
I’d think of it more as an exercise for understanding than something you’ll really apply to much music, unless you make that type of EDM that needs everything pushed to the absolute max. Then you need to spend more time on wave shaping the kick and bass, and getting the best phase alignment possible etc. Hard clipping is a pretty straightforward concept, either pushing into 0 or lowering the threshold to free up headroom. It’s about listening at the end of the day.
It’s nonsense, I’m trying to do less limiting now anyway
So basically, if you know his technique, you would have optional knowledge to boost your loudness by soft/hard clipping where, you will eventually test human ears to see, if u can tell whether it 'sounds' digitally distorting or not? so if you go in-between that, u will be at ease to control your own loudness, 'push & pull' technique I guess. His CTZ methodology works great on phat hiphop/pop/house drum along with bass. If you could get ur low end good, catching peaks as much as u can without sounding harsh, then it is fairly easy to get ur final result around commercial perceived loudness, say, -7 to -8 is lufs with firm 'bottom'.