Soft Clip behaves strange

[Szlartibartfaszt]

Hi!

I'm using Spark 2 in Ableton Live 9 Suite 64 bit. I just noticed that the Soft Clip feature works a bit strange, at least for me. When turned off ( icon is grey ) the audio level of Spark 2 won't go over 0 dBFS even if the Main Volume is at its highest. It means that a limiter is doing its job. When Soft Clip is turned on ( icon is blue ) the audio level easily jumps over the 0 dBFS when I trigger a sound. Interestingly when I trigger sounds repeatedly and fast, the audio level goes back to the 0 dBFS. Additionally all the transients are smeared badly. So we do have a limiter or clipper, it just has such a slow attack time that it makes the clipper unfit for its duty, namely keeping the audio level under control. As I understand soft clipping isn't about smearing the transients and letting the rest through. It is similar to limiting only softer. But it still shouldn't let the audio level over 0 dBFS or a set level.

I hope you fix it. A well made clipper could add something to the sound of the plugin too.
Best regards,

Balázs Várszegi

[Terrym]

Hi , i normally do not use soft clip ,but i had a look at it today and when applied it does increase the peaks by 4db. if soft clip is not on its best to lower the volume to stop distortion. soft clip smooths this off. but you need to lower the volume.

i will ask about this to the arturia team to see what they say.

thanks

terrym

[Szlartibartfaszt]

Thank you for answering!

Limiting is squeezing the signal into the dynamic range of a channel by compressing it with infinite ratio. Clipping roughly means cutting down what wouldn't fit it. It makes the waveform squareish so that we can get our beloved harmonic distortion. Well, maybe it wasn't invented for that end. 
Bottom line is that neither of them allows the signal over a set value. That's why they are on the output.

Thanks for helping

Balázs Várszegi