Clipped masters

[vinyl_junkie]

Bare with me on this one but recently I purchased one of those cheap Chinese DAC's (Topping D50S) hoping to make a streamer using a Pi that will playback files from my NAS. Mostly wav and flac files ripped from CD's, purchased downloads or vinyl rips I have done.

Any way, on my evaluation of all of this I came across few sticking points from weird normalization performed by software which I disabled (both foobar2000 and musicbee), re-sampling which you can't ever turn off (VLC) which all took an eternity to find out.

Now I recently downloaded the last Chilly Peppers album and couldn't get over how loud it was.
On inspection with some files imported into Audacity the master is badly clipped... Square wave city. I even tried the hi-res files but it's the same thing (Looks like the same master but the CD release just dithered and sample rate converted)

But here is the weirdness, this stuff is obviously hitting 0dbfs but what is coming out of the DAC at the analogue output is a LOT louder than if I would feed the dac with a 1k sine at 0dbfs... I know some times this is a thing that happens (inter sample peaks?) but the level coming out from the analogue output is like 1-2db louder.

How the hell is this possible? Also mastering engineers, labels, people, every one... Can we please stop destroying music like this?

[Hugh Robjohns]

How the hell is this possible?

You've already said it... inter-sample peaks.

A decade or so ago TC Electronic surveyed a lot of commercial CDs for a paper on inter-sample peaks. IIRC the highest outlier was +9dBFS, with great many reaching +3dBFS.

Also mastering engineers, labels, people, every one... Can we please stop destroying music like this?

Asking nicely didn't work because them wot pays the bills and call the shots are technically incompetent and don't understand the arguments.

The weird (loudness) normalisation that you turned off is our best hope and, to be fair, it is having some effect... slowly, reinstating the concepts of headroom, transients, and dynamics — at least amongst those with ears and sense.

In the meantime, if you're running everything through a Pi, maybe you can knock the digital level down by 6dB (1 bit shift) That wont fix the ultra-limited mastering, but it will avoid clipping your local DAC's analogue stages.

[RichardT]

I'm with you - it's horrible. The latest Muse album is similar and even the latest Peter Gabriel album is a mastering disaster.

The sad thing is that I'm sure the actual mixes for these albums are really good.

[vinyl_junkie]

Thanks for clarifying Hugh.

I'll be honest I still don't get how it got so bad. I get the whole loud thing and why they do it but at the point we're clipping the A-D I give up.
I'm just glad it's not my job as it would kill me having to do it.

I haven't brought many vinyl records of late (prices any one?) but I have to say I've been pleasantly surprised by the few modern records I have picked up compared to the loud and distorted stuff I have which was cut in the 00's

I just brought the record of that album, we'll see what it sounds like but that clipping present on the digital release I don't think can be successfully cut

[Aled Hughes]

How the hell is this possible?

The weird (loudness) normalisation that you turned off is our best hope and, to be fair, it is having some effect... slowly, reinstating the concepts of headroom, transients, and dynamics

Unfortunately it seems to be getting even worse from what I'm seeing/hearing

[SafeandSound Mastering]

I never clip masters here. I experimented very, very briefly a long time ago and stopped.

I also discourage it in production where for some genres it is common. I discourage it as it is not necessary as I found out by doing. There are other ways if you really must, for whatever reason is touted (various).

Used on occasion, extremely lightly (or maybe not so lightly) by ME's at ADC capture time at the peak of "loudness wars" Then the internet/people did its thing and it gets out of hand because many people misconstrued it, over blown its importance and is picked up by many who don't actually have any clue what they are doing.

It probably came about by pressure from others on the ME's at the time, it likely did not come about as an isolated decision.

Not worth losing sleep over though, everyone finds out what they need to in the end.

It can be inaudible, but as a professional I found out it is not worth the risk. And that there is no point to it anyway.

[Grappa]

Timing of this is quite interesting.

Just installed and configured my new setup and taken to finally ripping all of my CD collection onto the Mac. Playing through some stuff to validate I noticed a load of clipping. After spending some time trying to work out what I'd done wrong everything looked good; turning on inter-sample metering on Digicheck revealed exactly what you've seen.. I was a little surprised to be honest...

[Lostgallifreyan]

For those who insist on pushing the envelope, I think it can come down to duration of clip. In many cases a very few samples of it won't hurt many sounds, even though the sharp peak that's being cut, is being cut back hard, probably because the resultant harmonics on the rise and fall edges make up for lack of the original HF peak. It is highly sensitive to duration though, and it's risky because if bass is reduced, then a peak that arose from a trough in bass wave, will now push beyond limit, broaden the duration, and sound BAD. (With moments of bass alone, broader peaks may work ok, but only because the angle of change from slow undulation to flat, is a less acute angle, and it depends strongly on what sort of bass sound it is too.)

If it be done, do it last, and never without critical listening. Looking at it in Sound Forge may help but what looks like a clipped privet hedge on opening may not look nearly as bad at 1:1 res. I never trust how it looks, except as an indicator that it might actually be bad if it looks clipped.

In cases where I'm sorely tempted to push for loudness this way, I still avoid it, preferring to use a linear and gentle compression, with a slight curve toward flattening at the highest levels only. It amounts to a very soft clip and only on the highest peaks, and it often works, but is difficult to draw in Sound Forge, so I always judge it by ear.

[tea for two]

Bare with me on this one but recently I purchased one of those cheap Chinese DAC's (Topping D50S)

foobar2000

Now I recently downloaded the last Chilly Peppers album and couldn't get over how loud it was.
On inspection with some files imported into Audacity the master is badly clipped... Square wave city. I even tried the hi-res files but it's the same thing.

Sweet to read a post from VinylJunkie sweet checking ooot your utuub from over decade earlier House tunes as : HelloGoodbye.
I was considering one of those Chinese branded Aiyima, Auna, Douk, Fosi, Nobsound lol, Topping.

I have to hold my hand up and say I clipped one of my recent completed tracks by increasing its Gain +8dB at Stereo Out as I'd left plenty of headroom at mixing stage : has 5 deep heevee Kicks stacked.
I think I mentioned couple of thymes way I increase loudness in my stuff is leaving plenty of headroom in mixing stage, thereafter just increasing Gain at Stereo Out. This way dynamics, transients are maintained in my stuff.
There was no audible distortion else I would've reduced Gain. I could've taken it to +10dB Gain at Stereo Out still there's no audible distortion.
Looking at its waveform : not square squashed at all.

[Hugh Robjohns]

I'm not picking this mishmash of confused and misunderstood concepts apart again....

[James Perrett]

Anyone buying a Chilli Peppers album should expect it to be clipped and highly compressed - after all, they pretty much invented the digital loudness wars with Californication.

[tea for two]

I'm not picking this mishmash of confused and misunderstood concepts apart again....

let's not go there again....

[Drew Stephenson]

Anyone buying a Chilli Peppers album should expect it to be clipped and highly compressed - after all, they pretty much invented the digital loudness wars with Californication.

I was trying to remember which of their albums it was that I first noticed this on. Apparently the Japanese pressing was slightly better.
I think the first time I noticed it was on an album by a singer-songwriter chap, I played it first in the car and didn't notice but when I went to play it on my proper stereo it was pretty much unlistenable.
Which is why I can't remember the artist's name!

[vinyl_junkie]

Anyone buying a Chilli Peppers album should expect it to be clipped and highly compressed - after all, they pretty much invented the digital loudness wars with Californication.

I was trying to remember which of their albums it was that I first noticed this on. Apparently the Japanese pressing was slightly better.
I think the first time I noticed it was on an album by a singer-songwriter chap, I played it first in the car and didn't notice but when I went to play it on my proper stereo it was pretty much unlistenable.
Which is why I can't remember the artist's name!

There is an unofficial (I don't think ever released officially) "unmixed" version of this album. I haven't looked at it in a DAW but it does sound much better than the official release.

Other than classical music I come across this kind of audio trash in every genre from the obvious rock / pop and dance to Jazz. Especially re-issues of rare 70's funky stuff that for some reason must be smashed and eq'd to death or my favorite using something like RX to get rid of tape hiss or other so called imperfections but it just sounds like crap.

The most surprising thing lately has been the new dance / Balearic type stuff I've been picking up on vinyl is actually cut really well, not loud or distorted and sounds nice.

[tea for two]

Here's Ian Shepherd's 2008 blog on a Metallica clipped distorted release.
https://mastering-media.blogspot.com/20 ... s.html?m=0
Rick Rubin produced this Metallica album also produced Chilli's Californication.

[vinyl_junkie]

Here's Ian Shepherd's 2008 blog on a Metallica clipped distorted release.
https://mastering-media.blogspot.com/20 ... s.html?m=0
Rick Rubin produced this Metallica album also produced Chilli's Californication.

Lol I remember this and that saga from that album.

Yea Rubin... In nicer words.. Not my favorite of producers

[SafeandSound Mastering]

I'm with you - it's horrible. The latest Muse album is similar and even the latest Peter Gabriel album is a mastering disaster.

The sad thing is that I'm sure the actual mixes for these albums are really good.

That is quite something. What does it mean to be what I can only presume a "top name" mastering engineer in 2024 ? (without researching who mastered what)

I do understand what you are suggesting but it is not a given. Some mix engineers are sending out quite flattened mixes for mastering. I suspect a lot of the younger, trendy producers/mix engineers find it totally normal to saturate and clip, limit, stereo widen excessively (putting up with less mono compatibility) their work on many of the mix tracks/channels.

When I was training up I was taught limiters were extreme dynamic tools and not used very often in music production. Though to be fair limiters of the time (very fast, high ratio compresssors) were rather different than transparent multi algo / look ahead types of today.

This has become a part of modern productions like it or not, right or wrong.

Though sometimes this is simply lacking skill (experimenting/following others lead online), you can judge it through communcations and 10 seconds online research. In mastering, I am not producing but will bring such things up with clients from time to time and I can usually lazer beam pinpoint it because I can speak production effortlessly.

We can debate whether it is good engineering practice or not of course.

New, trendy is not always good or better and traditonal is not always old ways / dated way of doing things. Without fundamental "old school" knowledge it will be very difficult to sound good in what you do. You won't know the rules in order to break them with powerful and useful effect.

We can never generalize with audio, you can only take each piece of audio at ear value if/when you hear it with your own ears /see it in your DAW.

I know for sure it is possible to produce exceptonal mixes with superb fidelity that go very loud and still sound very good. Incredible in fact.

It should all be judged case by case, track by track actually. That's how we learn by study of very narrow and specific cases 1 by 1 as stepping stones.

It is very genre dependent as well. Very difficult to generalize. Everyone of us does it, I did, we all do it at times (look at my "clueless" comment), and its not right as a generalization when you reflect.

Case by case, track by track, always.

You need to make a very good mix for it to go very loud with ease. You can also make a very good mix subjectively/tonally pleasing to the ear that does not go loud easily.

However, a bad mix is just a bad mix. Whether it goes loud though pure luck which is very unlikely, or not. And it is very much more likely to not be easy to make loud.

If your music does not go loud easy that is not a guarantee of it being a good mix. I think occasionally, amateur music producers use the.. "I wanted to keep the dynamics." etc. as an excuse for a mix that is not actually that great.

Just cause your music has dynamics is not necessarily a sign of a good mix.

Very clumsy wording but it's the best I can do before lunch !

Back to clipping, the pay off (arguable anyway) is not worth the risk, especially if you can use other techniques to achieve the same thing it is trying to achieve.

[tea for two]

Could we do with another thread on albums we use as references for our mixing mastering.
We had a thread as this in the noughties.

[vinyl_junkie]

So I received the vinyl copy and the master is hilarious.
Whilst it doesn't have the clipping it's far worse than the hi-res and CD masters. All the people gushing about how good it sounds obviously have cotton ears. Oh my god but analogz is so much better lol

It sounds like a V type eq curve has been applied (mid range is so yesterday) and the whole thing has been band limited to about 15-16k thereafter it's like a brick wall filter has been applied.

The CD master extends all the way up to the Nyquist limit whilst the hi-res master doesn't appear band limited and stuff goes up in the 30k's and over, stuff seems to fall off naturally. There is even a strange constant oscillation at 30k (Tape bias is higher no?)

The vinyl record does another great thing and it was unplayable with a regular budget end Audio Technia elliptical stylus. The hi-hats on some tracks caused a strange distortion (not sibilance) so I had to bring out a £300 micro line stylus cartridge which plays everything fine.

I find it amusing within the popular music segment a bunch of producers and mastering engineers get treated like gods but most of the stuff in my opinion sounds pants. Whilst there are a lot of independents out there past and present pushing out quality stuff and it goes by mostly unnoticed by the general public

[SafeandSound Mastering]

To be reasonable no one needs much 30kHz tone on their vinyl. And brick wall filters at 15kHz do not make any sense either.

I presume you are talking about " last Chilly Peppers album"

FWIW I had some really good feedback the other day from some vinyl premasters I worked with, even compliments from the lathe engineer. I have also heard a .wav file capture of a track I pre mastered for vinyl which was cut on a really cheap cutting lathe < €4,000 and it sounded really decent, client was chuffed and so was I.

It is not really that complicated as long as you know what to look for, job by job.

Granted, things are different than 1980's when the high quality release format was vinyl and only vinyl. Cassette never was. Though I personally loved the format. I suspect all mixes (and the mastering /lathe engineer) were well aware of the what vinyl sounded like and everyone knew what they were working with in professional engineering chains from the start of recording.

These days we must recall that whilst there are high end studios so much pre production is done at home in probably very well equipped but still home studios. The entire industry is very different, vinyl is NOT the primary format.

Also the way vinyl is ordered is often through brokers / third parties and the process can become slow and convoluted at times.

Sometimes you have to work through some questions related to cuts, typically of the "not loud enough" type, as people expect the vinyl to be very loud these days compared with other music. I had one that did not cut loudly (a 7 inch) and there were very clear technical reasons why not.

Significant bass in comparision with a very late suggested reference, a reference which was not even mentioned never mind heard till the job had been completed 3 months prior. (A ref that would have been useful at the mixing stage !) You can attenuate bass for loudness and have a vinyl release that sounds tonally disparate from the digital counterpart, which makes no sense at all for a few dB volume. Or have a good sounding, yet slightly quieter cut.

It's a format with limits and you cannot know exactly what pre masters are supplied for any given vinyl release.

Again making hard and fast judgements are difficult unless you know the specifics of what could well be time critical / time pressurized work. We are under no illusions that loudness is responsibile for a lot of audio ills. Though it is not always so, loud can sound incredible, it's possible. (though not for vinyl) Much depends on genre, and the mixing and the recording as well. Just about everything needing to be sound designed, arranged, mixed, perfected in every detail, tucked in, adjusted, built from the ground up for loudness.

Things are not the same as they used to be and that will continue into the future. Vinyl has a quite long lead time as well.

One thing that will remain the same is the human ear's obsession and sensitivity to volume. (and pitch)

[tea for two]

Mike Senior is a fan of Skrillex: Bangarang which I think is -6 LUFS.
Genre does play a part.
-6 LUFS Ambient Blues Folk Singer Songwriter : I don't think there is. Would kill my ears anyways if there was.

::

I couldn't give two hoots aboot loudness for my stuff until I made a Beatz EDM albuume, after which I've returned to not giving two hoots aboot loudness lol.

I mentioned once or twice, during first lockdown I did an albuume of various styles mixed solely on my el cheapo Superlux Evo deejay headphones. I handed over in person to a Grammy Award winning Mastering engineer this albuume. The ME enjoyed the albuume was happy with the mix happy to master it.
I didn't give a monkeys re Loudness whilst making mixing this albuume.
Making a melodic tune, choosing appropriate sounds, sorting the accompaniment, getting the mix as best as I could were the sole considerations for me.

[SafeandSound Mastering]

Just for information value I was recently presented with a reference track that was -2.7 LUFS integrated. Heavily clipped master, sounded like total trash.

[Hugh Robjohns]

That's scary....

I'd be embarrassed to have that on my CV.

[Drew Stephenson]

And true peak at +2.5dB?

I'm guessing that was an artistic decision?

[SafeandSound Mastering]

This was a reference track not my master just to be clear.

I presented my thoughts on the reference to my client in no uncertain terms.

We settled on a still loud but very good sounding end result (about -6/-7 LUFS integrated) without clipping (I never clip because you don't need to) and I did a secondary set of streaming masters inclusive.

It was a type of music that can somewhat hide unwanted vs wanted distortions if in the right subgenre. (Often heavily saturated and distorted by choice anyway.)

The reference made no attempt to hide the clipping distortion in anyway at all and it has this glassy sheen from 7 through 18kHz. Listening to that at 110dB SPL through a big festival/club system would be like shooting glass shards through the air.

The only goal for the reference was extreme loudness with total diregard for fidelity, spectral aural comfort and sense.

It's fairly rare to see that kind of ref and really just for interest value, I took a screenshot when I heard/saw the ref last week.