overs / clipping

[famished]

One thing I'm experiencing, a minor complaint, is that the Axe could handle overs better, to my liking.

1) when the light goes red, it should stay red until I turn it off. that way, if I wasn't paying attention while I'm playing, I'll notice later that I've gone over. Maybe this is a preference I can set, but I didn't see it.

2) when there's clipping, I should have some easy way of identifying where it occured, at which effect. Otherwise, I have to just gamble and start twiddling knobs.

 

[mortega76]

2) when there's clipping, I should have some easy way of identifying where it occured, at which effect. Otherwise, I have to just gamble and start twiddling knobs.

I like this idea... maybe if the block that initially "clipped" would have some sort of indicator... but I really think if we either had a straight limiter and a global fx bin so that we can put the limiter in would do the trick very nicely!

 

[javajunkie]

Clipping doesn't occur at an effect, it is cumulative. You can turn it down any place. The most common are in the amp block (this is the biggest source of gain) or at the output. No gamble necessary.



If turns red and doesn't go off, how would you know which patch, what caused it or when you fixed it w/o having to turn it off?

I don't have any equipment that handles clipping that way, nor would I like it one bit. I wouldn't care if it were a setting, but I would hate that as normal behavior.

 

[famished]

This may be how the Fractal works, but typically effects can clip, as well as having a cumulative clip. My experience is from ProTools, and on every effect as well as the main fader, the red stays red once you've crossed, otherwise, how in the world would you'd know you'd gone over during the performance? There has to be some way of letting you know that you'd crossed. In ProTools, once it's gone red, you double click, and it goes back. Something like that, in my mind, is essential. Otherwise, I've got to have one eye on the meter all during the performance. This isn't analog gear where you can hit it hard and no regrets. Digital gear which doesn't have this is, imo, purely lacking functionality.

 

[javajunkie]

This may be how the Fractal works, but typically effects can clip, as well as having a cumulative clip. My experience is from ProTools, and on every effect as well as the main fader, the red stays red once you've crossed, otherwise, how in the world would you'd know you'd gone over during the performance? There has to be some way of letting you know that you'd crossed. In ProTools, once it's gone red, you double click, and it goes back. Something like that, in my mind, is essential. Otherwise, I've got to have one eye on the meter all during the performance. This isn't analog gear where you can hit it hard. Digital clipping is ugly, and you don't want it.

It is not the way it works in the axe-fx. Individual effects do not clip. The key to not clipping in the performances is to do a quick check of your patches at the loudest volume. If it doesn't clip at home/practice, it won't clip at the gig. It is not a common feature in hardware. Although now that I think about it, I think my Eventide Eclipse used to do that.

Again during a performance, if stays red how would you know when you clipped, at which point, on what song, did you clip more than once. The best thing to do is take you loudest clean patch (clean patches have a tendency to clip faster that distorted ones) and make sure it doesn't clip. If your loudest patch doesn't clip, then the others won't. You can go thru the patches very quickly and make sure thy don't clip, before performance.

Yeah, I know digital clipping sounds bad. But the key is to catch it BEFORE you are performing IMO. That being said, if a hold function where an option, I don't see how it would hurt.

But really, you should leave yourself enough headroom where this isn't an issue. If you are clipping a lot, it would be good idea to turn all your patches down a few db.

 

[randocaster]

But really, you should leave yourself enough headroom where this isn't an issue. If you are clipping a lot, it would be good idea to turn all your patches down a few db.

+1

 

[JMZ93]

With things at 24-bit, theoretically, we have a maximum dynamic range of 136DB. So, turning down a couple DB is fine, not at all like the 16-bit world where getting as close to 0DB was imperitive.

 

[schnarf]

With things at 24-bit, theoretically, we have a maximum dynamic range of 136DB. So, turning down a couple DB is fine, not at all like the 16-bit world where getting as close to 0DB was imperitive.

And it's floating point, so we're not even limited by 24-bit. The dynamic range is pretty ridiculous, something on the order of 2^-127 to 2^127, I could be off by a factor of 10 or two but you get the idea.

 

[randocaster]

FWIW, I (and many users here in other threads) have had a hard time getting their clean patches loud enough without clipping. The solution is to get your clean patches below clipping level and then set your distorted patches to match. This meant turning some patches down 4 or 5 db from where they were. Turning the output of the Axe-FX or mixer/amp up brought me right back where I was with no noticable difference in sound or response. IMO of course.

 

[mortega76]

FWIW, I (and many users here in other threads) have had a hard time getting their clean patches loud enough without clipping. The solution is to get your clean patches below clipping level and then set your distorted patches to match. This meant turning some patches down 4 or 5 db from where they were. Turning the output of the Axe-FX or mixer/amp up brought me right back where I was with no noticable difference in sound or response. IMO of course.

I have the exact opposite experience... My cleans are too loud when compared to my distortion patches, and that's that my distortion patches sometimes clip! I still say a hard limiter with infinity to 1 ratio (or just add it to the current compressor) instead of the current compressors 20 to 1 ratio... and be able to add it to a Global Effects Bin (or at least just at the end of the chain) would do the trick.