glossary
Hard clipping chops peaks sharply instead of rounding them gradually.
Hard clipping occurs when audio exceeds a fixed ceiling and the waveform is cut off flat. Unlike soft clipping, there is little or no gradual transition into saturation.
That abrupt shape creates strong distortion products, which can be useful on some drums and risky on full mixes.
Hard clipping can make transients shorter and louder before a limiter, but it can also make cymbals brittle, vocals spitty, and low end fuzzy.
The effect becomes obvious when too much of the signal spends time above the clipping point.
Try hard clipping on individual transient-heavy sources before using it across a full master. Level-match the result so the added loudness does not hide distortion.
Meter Core helps show whether the clipper is only trimming peaks or also changing the loudness and crest behavior of the source.