Clipping

Soft clipping just means that the peaks start to distort before they reach the threshold of pure straight-edged clipping. Think of it like a compressor’s soft-knee function. 😉

Distortion-canceled clipping is more of a generic term and can vary from somewhat complicated and not very effective (like an Orban 8100A) to really really freaking complicated and totally effective (like Breakaway).

Ideally… a distortion-canceled clipper will either only clip the audio when the distortion won’t be audible, or it won’t clip the audio. That’s what Breakaway does. All other previous clipping designs are just using methods of reducing the audible distortion caused by the clipping. Not to actually prevent the clipping if it were to be audible.

For this reason, Breakaway should probably be considered to be the first true distortion-masking clipper. If the distortion can’t be masked, it will not clip the audio. Other supposed "masked" clippers are, for lack of a better word… clearly… not living up to the definition.

It won’t be that way forever though. I know of at least one forthcoming box from one of the large broadcast processor companies that has a clipper that sounds pretty darn clean loud. Will it be available in a $199 software version? Dream on. 😆