Sound & signal
Clipping
Clipping is what happens when a signal exceeds the maximum a system can carry: the peaks are cut flat, adding harsh harmonics. In digital audio the ceiling is 0 dBFS and there is nothing above it.
In practice
Red on the master is not "loud" — it is the sound breaking, and on a club rig it arrives as pain rather than impact.
Nothing in a mixer sounds better as it approaches the ceiling, so the whole craft is staying under it. Watch the master rather than the channels during a transition, because that is where two signals sum. Cut instead of boost. And if the room needs more, turn the booth or the amp up — the mixer cannot make a signal louder than 0 dBFS, it can only break it there.
0 dBFS
The digital ceiling
-2.80 dB
Loudest master we hold
27,674
Tracks hotter than −8 dB
Where these come from: The catalog figures are live, measured on 11 August 2026; they describe how close real masters run to the ceiling, and clipping is what you add on top. For what we can measure, see the margin that prevents it.
Why it matters
Clipping is the one mistake a room hears instantly and forgives slowly. It does not sound like "loud" — it sounds like breakage, all edge and no weight, and on a big rig it arrives as pain rather than as impact.
It is also usually a DJ problem rather than a track problem. Records arrive mastered below the ceiling; what pushes them over is gain set too hot, EQ boosts stacked on top, or two channels summing into a master that was already close.
Frequently asked
What does clipping sound like?+
Harsh and brittle, with the weight gone. It is distinctively unpleasant rather than merely loud, and it gets worse the bigger the system.
Is it OK for the meters to hit red?+
On a channel, briefly, on a peak — survivable. On the master, no. That is the point where the signal is being squared off and there is no headroom left anywhere.
Can a track itself be clipped?+
Yes, in mastering, and some are deliberately. The loudest master in our catalog sits at -2.80 dB, so nothing we hold reaches the ceiling on its own — what gets a mix there is what a DJ adds.
Related terms
Headroom
Headroom is the gap between where your signal is sitting and the point where it distorts. It is the room left for the loud parts, and for whatever you do to the channel next.
Gain
Gain sets how hot a track arrives at the channel before anything else touches it. It is a correction for how the record was mastered, not a volume control for the room.
Limiter
A limiter is a compressor with an absolute ceiling: it lets everything through until a set level, then refuses to exceed it. Mastering engineers use one on every record you own.
Loudness
Loudness is a track’s average level in decibels below full scale, so every value is negative and closer to zero is louder. It decides how far you move the gain, not how hard the record hits.
Explore: Loudness · Headroom · Mixing guides · All DJ terms