ClipOnly2

TL;DW: ClipOnly2 suppresses the brightness of digital clipping without affecting unclipped samples, at any sample rate.

ClipOnly2,zip(574k)

Demonstrated back in Logic, the better to show the no interface! :D

ClipOnly is the heart of my mastering-grade clipping algorithm. Instead of trying to define the cleanest possible nasty sharp edge, or doing a soft-clip thing, ClipOnly passes through ALL nonclipped samples totally untouched… but when you get a clipped sample, what ClipOnly does is it takes the sample entering clipping, and the sample exiting clipping, and it interpolates between the last unclipped sample and the clipped stuff. So, it is synthesizing a soft entry and exit from what is otherwise total hard clipping, and if only the one sample clipped? That very bright clip simply goes away, turned right down.

This produces a hard-clip suitable for safety clipper purposes, which is purely ‘bypass’ (plus a one sample delay to allow for the processing), with softer highs than you’d get from any pure hard-clip, no matter how oversampled. It’s an alternate technique, and is also pretty CPU-efficient.

ClipOnly2 takes this principle and changes the ‘one sample’ to ‘the space of one sample at 44.1k’. Same tone, same ear-friendly approach to clipping extreme highs, except that now it’s effective at high sample rates. I’m demonstrating it and its predecessor at 96k, but ClipOnly2 is designed to work up to 700k or so, in case people get giddy with their newfound power :)

The video works a little oddly as I’m demonstrating it ‘inside’ Console7, on an aux, which is slightly unusual: normally you’d put it in front of the final dither, not gain-staged by BitShiftGain so you can hear it distort hugely. And you can see for yourself that there are no controls: it clips to 0.9549925859 or -0.9549925859 which is about -0.2 dB, and its operation stomps on Gibb Effect Nyquist reconstruction overshoots very heavily, as that’s the whole point of the thing. There’s nothing to adjust. Put it on your mix, and don’t push over -0.2dB and it’ll be pure bypass with no sound at all. If you do peak hotter than that, it’s a brightness-restricted hard clip without ever touching any of the unclipped samples. And now, it handles high sample rates without shifting its glare-restricting ‘voicing’.

All this is supported by my Patreon (linked below). There’s more to come. I would say I’d try to go faster, except I fear my computer would explode :)

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