I’ve a question about clipping. I do a mixdown of my tracks to a separate track. Then I add a limiter plugin to post fader of this track, fastlookahead limiter by steve harris. I add two db of volume and limit to -0.2 db with half second release time. When I look at the master level meter with this configuration I don’t see any clipping and the signal is limited to -0.2db as it should be. I even remixdown this mastered track to a new track to be sure there are no glitches. Then I export the mastered audio to a flac file from the first mixdown track with limiter. The problem is when I open this file in audacity and do a clipping detection or just listen to it I see clips here and there. How is it possible that in ardour master level there’s no clip and audacity shows clipping? Thanks
This may have something to do with intersample peaks.
It’s possible for the reconstructed waveform to have a peak value between two adjacent samples that is bigger than either of those sample values. A good clip detector can use oversampling to get a better estimate of the real peak value. My guess is that the fast lookahead limiter is not doing this, and neither is Ardour’s metering, but Audacity is.
You’ll reduce the discrepancy by setting your limiter a little lower: -0.5dBFS or even -1dBFS will probably sound no different , but you’ll get fewer clips showing on Audacity.
Alternatively find a better limiter that does oversampling to get closer to the intersample peaks.
If you still need some small corrections of your “normalized” Audio Content, you wont have any “room” or space to “move” inside it. (EQ-ing and so on).
I recommend not to normalize.
Switch it off.