Normalization issue

phillipadsmith

Hello!

Having a strange experience, hoping for insights.

When I sample external audio using a Kit row, the resulting sample is audibly clipping from the normalization.

When I sample using an Audio clip, there is no normalization and thus no clipping.

I tried turning up the audio source, and turning down the audio source, with no audible change in the clipping.

I haven't had this problem before and I'm wondering why this is happening? Any advice appreciated!

Phillip.

Too_Mere

Try turning down the osc level. It may have to do with other patch settings too. If it’s not clipping at the input anyway

Too_Mere

Normalization shouldn’t cause clipping. If you turn down the oscillator and/or the master level of the sample do you still hear clipping?

phillipadsmith

@Too_Mere said:
Normalization shouldn’t cause clipping. If you turn down the oscillator and/or the master level of the sample do you still hear clipping?

Correct. If I turn down the master level for the row I still hear the clipping (at a lower volume obviously). Didn't try the OSC volume.

phillipadsmith

@Too_Mere said:
Try turning down the osc level. It may have to do with other patch settings too. If it’s not clipping at the input anyway

Well, this is a Kit not a Synth, so I'm not sure what other settings would be involved?

However, I did turn down the OSC1 volume from the default to about 40 and that did seem to solve the clipping problem within the Kit.

Thanks!

Too_Mere

Synths and Kit’s actually have a lot of the same parameters available.
Glad you got you got rid of the clipping. 👍🏼

Affectionate_Bee_781

Do you have the LPF in 'drive' mode on the kit or a row in the kit? Are you using any saturation FX? These are both very sensitive to the OSC levels

Too_Mere

@Affectionate_Bee_781 said:
Do you have the LPF in 'drive' mode on the kit or a row in the kit? Are you using any saturation FX? These are both very sensitive to the OSC levels

This is true. Also normalization, by definition means loud as possible before clipping. Any additional gain in the signal chain (including velocity modulation) will surely cause clipping in that case.

phillipadsmith

@Too_Mere said:

@Affectionate_Bee_781 said:
Do you have the LPF in 'drive' mode on the kit or a row in the kit? Are you using any saturation FX? These are both very sensitive to the OSC levels

This is true. Also normalization, by definition means loud as possible before clipping. Any additional gain in the signal chain (including velocity modulation) will surely cause clipping in that case.

Nada, this was a default "new" Kit without anything applied.

Too_Mere

Were you using an external MIDI controller? Was the note velocity 64 or lower?

phillipadsmith

@Too_Mere said:
Were you using an external MIDI controller? Was the note velocity 64 or lower?

Nope. As mentioned, I was sampling in from an audio source into a Kit row. Kit > New Kit > Shift-Record > Play audio > Record again to stop the sampling. On playback, pushing the pad itself, the audio is clipping.

Dropping the OSC1 volume to 40 from 50 did seem to solve the issue.

Icoustik

@phillipadsmith said:

@Too_Mere said:
Were you using an external MIDI controller? Was the note velocity 64 or lower?

Nope. As mentioned, I was sampling in from an audio source into a Kit row. Kit > New Kit > Shift-Record > Play audio > Record again to stop the sampling. On playback, pushing the pad itself, the audio is clipping.

Dropping the OSC1 volume to 40 from 50 did seem to solve the issue.

Yeah that's internal clipping from the sample being hot - whether turning down OSC volume, kit row volume, kit clip affect entire volume or song affect entire volume,
it all works.
Generally I advise turning down affect entire song volume to the middle in one's song template to create good headroom when using max velocity as default and normalized samples/ loud ones.

phillipadsmith

@Icoustik said:

Generally I advise turning down affect entire song volume to the middle in one's song template to create good headroom when using max velocity as default and normalized samples/ loud ones.

Can you say more about how you set this up? Just want to make sure I'm following...

Affectionate_Bee_781

Song view. Affect entire. Volume down between 25-50%. (Save as template song). Make up the volume from the Deluge master volume and/or a mixer. Deluge has relatively low volume output. This is the way.

phillipadsmith

@Affectionate_Bee_781 said:
Song view. Affect entire. Volume down between 25-50%. (Save as template song). Make up the volume from the Deluge master volume and/or a mixer. Deluge has relatively low volume output. This is the way.

Ah-ha, super, thanks!

Icoustik

@Affectionate_Bee_781 said:
Song view. Affect entire. Volume down between 25-50%. (Save as template song). Make up the volume from the Deluge master volume and/or a mixer. Deluge has relatively low volume output. This is the way.

The Deluge has low volume output if one uses low default velocity (which really there's no good reason to do). Set default velocity to max and the volume will be fine.
I never go past 2 o'clock on my Del and easily get up to the ceiling/ 0dB.

Percivale

A reason could be to avoid hurting the built-in speaker when using that by avoiding high volumes accidental or otherwise.

@Icoustik said:

@Affectionate_Bee_781 said:
Song view. Affect entire. Volume down between 25-50%. (Save as template song). Make up the volume from the Deluge master volume and/or a mixer. Deluge has relatively low volume output. This is the way.

The Deluge has low volume output if one uses low default velocity (which really there's no good reason to do). Set default velocity to max and the volume will be fine.
I never go past 2 o'clock on my Del and easily get up to the ceiling/ 0dB.

phillipadsmith

@Icoustik said:
The Deluge has low volume output if one uses low default velocity (which really there's no good reason to do). Set default velocity to max and the volume will be fine.
I never go past 2 o'clock on my Del and easily get up to the ceiling/ 0dB.

Also helpful, thanks!

Affectionate_Bee_781

@Icoustik thanks for sharing that I assumed that the Deluge had low output because compared to my other devices, I have to crank up the gain on my mixer to get it to the desired level. That being said, after a few instances of internal clipping, I started to set my default song volume to ~10% out of an abundance of caution. I could probably start creeping that back up and see how it affects the sound.

volsteh

I rarely have problems with clipping, I tend to keep osc volumes around 35, and song volume around half. output level knob at 90-100%

Icoustik

@volsteh said:
I rarely have problems with clipping, I tend to keep osc volumes around 35, and song volume around half. output level knob at 90-100%

As long as song volume has been turned down, there's plenty of headroom. No need to do the OSC volumes in addition. You might want to use OSC volumes for other stuff, for example the tone and amount of drive in the drive filter, analog delay and saturation is determined by the OSC volume going into it.

Icoustik

@Affectionate_Bee_781 said:
@Icoustik thanks for sharing that I assumed that the Deluge had low output because compared to my other devices, I have to crank up the gain on my mixer to get it to the desired level. That being said, after a few instances of internal clipping, I started to set my default song volume to ~10% out of an abundance of caution. I could probably start creeping that back up and see how it affects the sound.

10% is probably much too low and not needed, yeah