u/Finalxxboss

I've recently been using the metricAB plugin to view a few reference tracks vs my mix and realized my drums were extremely wide vs the references. Like even the snare and hat samples were pretty wide. Since they're all sharp transients, you can't really even hear the difference between wide stereo and mono, so lessening the wideness on almost every drum sample seemed to help a lot.

When you guys mix, how often are you changing stereo width? I didn't usually care until I started mastering, but it seems like I have to throw a utility (Ableton's stereo width plugin) on every single track and turn the width way down. It's one of those things I couldn't easily hear in a mix, but had to use an analyzer on independent samples to realize and I think it creates more headroom to mastering.

I've recently been using the metricAB plugin to view a few reference tracks vs my mix and realized my drums were extremely wide vs the references. Like even the snare and hat samples were pretty wide. Since they're all sharp transients, you can't really even hear the difference between wide stereo and mono, so lessening the wideness on almost every drum sample seemed to help a lot.

When you guys mix, how often are you changing stereo width? I didn't usually care until I started mastering, but it seems like I have to throw a utility (Ableton's stereo width plugin) on every single track and turn the width way down. It's one of those things I couldn't hear, but had to use an analyzer to realize and I think it creates more headroom to mastering.

I've been watching videos of engineers mixing and mastering a track and notice how important a clipper is on a track with very dynamic transients. You basically use the clipper to even out the waveform, which allows the limiter to push the evened out signal even louder.

My question is why can't I just use a compressor to "clip" the transients? I can't really find a good reason to use a dedicated clipper vst when it sounds like a clipper is just a compressor with an infinite or almost infinite ratio. My understanding of a limiter is also similar, just a compressor with an infinite ratio for a hard cut off. Obviously they're all different for different reasons, I'm just trying to understand the distinctions.

Also, I use ableton and the best stock clipper is the saturator vst on digital clip mode, where you decrease the gain by the same amount you increase the drive. Easy to use and very useful, but how on earth does the saturator end up working like a clipper, which is basically a compressors?

I get how to use all these devices, I just really want to understand the science behind them. Also what are some of your go to clippers?

Edit: Thanks a lot for all the replies. I spent a while really all your comments and I helped a ton. I'm still reading up on the details, but I totally understand the differences at a base level now.