Troubleshooting advice needed - Sound Clipping/ Staying out

Lightyear · March 2023

Hi guys,

I'm lately I experienced sound-clipping while working on a project. Can't figure out whether it's due to bad sound design or simply the limits of my device (hopefully it's not).
Quite frustrating as I was about to round it up and had nearly all the tracks needed.

I have a few questions, noticed one or two things and will list them at the end.

For better understanding, here's a list of stuff and components in use:

SD-CARD:

SDXC UHS-i

USED CLIPS IN THE PROJECT:

(Synth) - 1. Lead
(Synth) - 2. Lead (Backing)
(Synth) - 1. Bass/ Sub-Bass (Synth)
(Synth) - 2. Bass (ARP) - for accents
(Synth) - 3. Bass (Phasing) - more (!!!) accents
(Sample-Kit) - Cym/HH
(Sample-Kit) - Perc.
(Sample-Kit) - Kongas
(Sample-Kit) - KD/SD/HC/Tom (partially layered HC and SD)

There're two scenarios within the song where nearly every clip is in use.
Only exception would be Kongas. They're used for something in between.

Within these scenarios I noticed, that either some HH/Ride, SD/HC were staying out or the sound/delay of the second or third bass started clipping.
Resampling HC + SD would probably not reduce the number of samples in use. But would you recommend it for futere use-cases?

WHAT I TRIED SO FAR:

Adjusting the volume levels, LP-HP-Filters and EQs.
Nudged the drum samples a little ...just one or two 128th notes. (Maybe a little more?)
Changed the Priorities of the clips. Adjusting these seemed to archieve the biggest effect. But partially to the detriment of other samples, having middle priority.

FILE-STRUCTURE OF MOSTLY USED SAMPLES, HERE:

SYNTHs
SAMPLES
LABELS
-- Sample-Creator
--- Bells
--- Cymbals
--- etc.
KITS

QUESTIONS:

What even does the priority in samples and synths stand for/ manage? (Haven't found it within the manual yet. Still looking for the page.)
Would you recommend nudging the notes/samples a little more? Would that have an effect to the sound due to read-actions of the deluge?
I already ordered a small SDXC UHS-ii for testing. Do you believe, faster read/write will reduce these issues?
What about the file-structure? Does the folder-depth impact the performance?
Would conflating the sample-kits impact the performance? (i.e. KD/SD/HC/Tom + Kongas)
I also thought about replacing some drums or percussion with a MIDI-Clip routing towards a drum machine. Same questions towards you, as before. :-)

I already planned on using it like that, anyway. The only restriction might be, being chained to only one CTRL and not being able to change multiple parameters. But it's also a method to deal with the reverb send in depth.

What're your 2-does, approaches and workarounds for such incidents?

Anyway, I hope you guys can help me out here.
Thanks in advance an have a great day!