#How to bitcrush audio how to#
If you’re using a compressor soft clipper, you can then dial back the output gain, so you’re not just mindlessly increasing the volume of the audio & thinking it’s making it better.ītw, if you want more information on how to get your drums to hit harder than Dad did, check out our how to mix drums guide. So grab your soft clipper & increase the gain until you see it hitting red. Soft clipping these 2 elements, can really bring them forward in the mix & make them far more impactful. Well soft clipping is your new best friend when it comes to drums.Ī good place to use soft clipping is on the 2 most important elements of your drum mix – the Kick & Snare. DrumsĮver wanted to know how to get your drums to slap harder than life slaps you in the face when you grow up & realise half your money gets spent on boring sh*t like a new tumble drier or the water bill? In this section I’m going to give examples of where I use soft clipping in my productions to get them to have that extra edge. But, it’s practically pointless knowing that if you have no idea how or where to use it. How To Use Soft Clipping (Tutorial)Īs I said above, clipping is a great way to add grit & warmth to your tracks. As a mixing tool, it’s not often used, but can be extremely useful on hats that you want to add extra grit to. If you are using hard clipping, it’s because you want overly digital and distorted sounding audio to then resample, or use for creative effect. Hard Clipping also has its uses, but these are found more in the realm of electronic music sound design. This is a type of digital distortion that cuts the peaks of your audio off in a straight line, causing harsh artefacts to appear in your audio signal. The hardest thing about producing music inside a computer is re-creating that warm sound people miss, & soft clipping is a form of distortion you can use to get that one step closer. You and I can both agree that nothing sounds quite as great as a tape delay machine that produces warping, shifting echoes. But, with the advancement in audio technology, people miss the imperfections of old machines. It can add that extra layer of saturation that your music needs to sound gritty & imperfect.Įverything sounds so clean & clinical, & audio is a breeze to edit. It’s more subtle than the other kinds of distortion & works well when used in the right context. no clipping: original track clipping: original trackĪs you can hear, it creates a warm, analog vibe that you don’t get from other types of distortion such as hard clipping, overdrive & bitcrush. You wouldn’t usually use this much distortion in a real scenario. I have absolutely slammed the beans on this effect, so you’re able to hear how it sounds on and off. Now let’s have a listen to how it affects the audio with these 2 examples. Soft clipping, on the other hand, gives us a closer result to the original sine waveform that was run through the clipper. As you can see, hard clipping produces a result that’s very similar to a square wave &, as a result, gives us more of a harsh sounding signal.