Raèld Clip

Raèld Clip shaves the tops off peaks so a track, a bus or a master gets louder without a limiter's movement. It clips only what goes over its ceiling: everything below passes untouched. Six clipping modes give the sound its character, from an exact hard clip to the overload of a converter, tape, a tube and a transistor stage. Each mode is anti-aliased and oversampled up to 32x, and TP SAFE holds the output's true peak where you set it.

Contents of the pack

Same modes, controls and sound in both; only the starting settings differ. Both come as VST3 plugins and as standalone apps.

Installing

1. Close your DAW.
2. Run RaeldClip-Setup.exe from the download page or your purchase email and follow the steps. The plugins go into C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3, where every DAW looks.
3. Open your DAW and rescan plugins. Look for Raèld Clip and Raèld Clip Track. DAW plugin lists show them without the accent ("Raeld Clip"), so type "raeld" in the plugin browser.

Requirements: Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit) and any VST3 host, for example Ableton Live, FL Studio, Cubase, Studio One, Reaper or Bitwig. Sample rates 44.1 to 192 kHz.

If Windows shows "Windows protected your PC" when you run the installer, click More info → Run anyway. Why this appears.

Activating your license

1. Open either plugin. The activation screen appears; if it doesn't, click LICENCE in the row of keys along the foot of the window.
2. Paste your key and click ACTIVATE. This can be the Raèld Clip key from your purchase email or your All Access key. You need an internet connection for this step.
3. That's it: both plugins are unlocked on this computer.

Each key covers 3 computers. To move to a new computer, open the license screen on the old one and click DEACTIVATE THIS PC first. If you own a plugin and also subscribe, the owned license is used, so ending the subscription never locks a plugin you bought.

Without a key the plugins run as a demo: the sound drops out briefly every 45 seconds. Everything else works, so you can try every feature.

Quick start

1. Load a preset close to your material (the menu at the top), or start from Init. On a master, put Raèld Clip before your final limiter, or use it as the last stage with TP SAFE on.
2. Turn INPUT, the big knob, up until the CLIP meter shows a few dB. The ring of lava around INPUT grows with it and runs white-hot the harder you drive.
3. Switch on GAIN MATCH and compare with BYPASS: you hear the same loudness, so you judge the clipping, not the level.
4. Try the MODEs. They are matched in loudness, so the change you hear is the character.
5. Press DELTA to hear only what is being taken off. On a master it should be short clicks and edges, not the music. If you hear the music itself, back off INPUT.

The window

Raèld Clip's face is a slab of black volcanic stone cracked with lava, which glows brighter the harder the clipper works. On the left are the screen and the meters, with MODE, CEILING and CHARACTER under them; on the right the huge INPUT, with OUTPUT, MIX and OVERSAMPLE. The knobs are domes of obsidian glass on rings of lava that grow with the value. The window opens small (769 × 347 pixels) and grows with SIZE.

The top and the foot

At the top, the preset name (click for the menu: factory presets, your own, save), < / > to step through presets and SAVE. Along the foot, a row of basalt keys: UNDO / REDO (Ctrl+Z / Ctrl+Y; each drag is one step), A / B / COPY to compare two settings (both saved with the session), ADVANCED, BYPASS (latency-compensated, so the audio never shifts in time), MONO and SIZE.

The display

• WAVE: the last 4 seconds scrolling: in the colours of heat: what comes in (deep red), what is clipped off (white-hot), what goes out (orange), and the clip line (gold).
• HARMONICS: the harmonics of what is playing (H1 to H9, with what the clipper added beside each). With no clear pitch (a full mix, drums), the spectrum of the input and of what the clipper added.
• SIGNATURE: the harmonics your current settings make on a full-scale 1 kHz tone: the mode's fingerprint.
• The numbers below: short-term and integrated loudness of the output, the input's integrated loudness, the highest true peak, the overs (each run of clipping), the share of time spent clipping, where the most clipping happened (in song time) and the latency. RESET clears them.

The meters

Three lava tubes. IN and OUT show the peak level (with a held peak) and, as a light mark, the true peak, from −48 to +3 dB; the number under each is the true peak. CLIP shows how many dB are being taken off, from the top down.

Handling

Drag a knob up or down (hold Shift for fine steps), or use the mouse wheel or the arrow keys. Double-click a knob to reset it. A value readout appears while you adjust. MODE and OVERSAMPLE click into their notches. Drag the corner or use SIZE to scale the window from 85 % to 300 % of the size it opens at; it keeps its shape, stays sharp, and opens at that size next time.

Main controls

The modes

With MATCH MODES on (in ADVANCED, on by default), each mode is driven so that it is as loud as HARD when clipping, so switching modes changes the sound, not the level. Below the curve, that drive makes TAPE, TUBE and TRANSISTOR play a few tenths of a dB louder than the input (TAPE about 0.9 dB), like the analog stages they are modelled on.

The advanced panel

ADVANCED opens it over the window; it is closed by default, and the session remembers it.

CURVE

• KNEE: how early the curve starts bending before the ceiling.
• BIAS: tilts the curve so one side clips first: more even harmonics, a lopsided waveform.
• RESPONSE: how much the analog modes react to the music (tape's memory, a tube's moving bias, a transistor's sag).
• DENSITY: lifts the level below the ceiling smoothly, for loudness without more clipping.
• MATCH MODES: above.

TONE

• EMPHASIS and EMPH FREQ: clip the lows harder (+) or the highs harder (−), split at EMPH FREQ. The tone is put back after the clipper, so only what gets clipped changes. Because the tone is restored after clipping, peaks can come out over the ceiling: use TP SAFE if that matters.
• CLIP TONE: softens the fizz the clip adds above about 8 kHz. Nothing else is touched.
• PUNCH: lets the front of each hit through clean, so drums keep their attack.

STAGES

TWO-STAGE and SPLIT: the mode clips SPLIT dB over the ceiling, and a clean hard stage takes the rest. Louder, still round.

STEREO

L/R clips each side on its own; LINK uses one gain for both, so the stereo image holds still on hits; M/S clips the middle and the sides apart, with SIDE DRIVE driving the sides harder or softer.

MULTIBAND

OFF, 2 or 3 bands, split at LOW X and HIGH X by crossovers whose bands add back up to the input exactly. LOW, MID and HIGH drive each band harder or softer (for example, the low end driven less keeps a kick and 808 round while the top is pushed). SOLO plays one band (with DELTA: only what was taken from that band); press it again to let go. THRU passes a band unclipped.

QUALITY

• LINEAR / MINIMUM phase oversampling filters. Linear phase is exact below the ceiling; minimum phase has much less latency, and turns the phase of the top octave.
• OFFLINE: the oversampling used when you bounce (= is the same as live). The latency the DAW is told stays the same either way, so bounces line up.
• TP SAFE and TP LIMIT: hold the output's true peak at TP LIMIT (0 to −3 dBTP; −1.0 for Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube), whatever the clipping does. On in Raèld Clip, off in Clip Track.

Why TP SAFE: removing a clip's harmonics on the way down (which oversampling must do, or they alias) lets the peaks rise again between and on the samples. Hard-clipping a hot master at 4x can come out 1 to 2 dB over the clip point in true peak (more with minimum phase). Every band-limited clipper does this. TP SAFE is a short look-ahead gain stage that holds the true peak at its limit, so the output is safe for streaming and for the next stage.

Presets

Click the preset name for the full list, use < / > to step through, and SAVE to store your own. User presets live in Documents\Raeld Audio\Raeld Clip\Presets, so you can back them up or share them. A * after the name means you've edited it.

The presets assume material peaking near 0 dBFS. On quieter or hotter material, move INPUT until the CLIP meter shows the amount you want. Presets never change GAIN MATCH, DELTA, SOLO, BYPASS or MONO.

Mono and stereo

Raèld Clip and Raèld Clip Track run on mono, mono-to-stereo and stereo tracks; your DAW picks automatically. On a mono-to-stereo track the mono source feeds both sides. The MONO switch folds the output to mono, to check how a mix holds up on a mono speaker. It's click-free and isn't saved in presets.

Latency and CPU

Raèld Clip tells your DAW its latency, and the DAW lines it up with your other tracks. In samples at 48 kHz:

Raèld Clip starts at 4x linear phase with TP SAFE on: 205 samples (4.3 ms). Raèld Clip Track starts at 2x minimum phase: 6 samples (0.13 ms). TP SAFE adds its 1 ms look-ahead plus the time its true-peak detector needs (about 2.3 ms in all).

At 96 and 192 kHz the oversampling setting halves and quarters (the sound stays the same), so the time in milliseconds stays about the same. Changing OVERSAMPLE, FILTER or TP SAFE while playing gives a short fade while the new latency takes over.

Per instance, stereo at 48 kHz with TP SAFE on and the window closed, measured on a desktop PC (one core): HARD at 4x about 2.1 %, the analog modes 2.5 to 3.6 %; at 8x 2.9 to 4.9 %. 16x and 32x cost two to six times that: they are for bouncing (OFFLINE). Three bands cost about twice one. TP SAFE itself costs about 0.6 %, and an open window adds about 1.3 % for its true-peak meters.

What we measured

• Below the ceiling, HARD is bit for bit the input at every oversampling setting (linear phase); CONVERTER and SOFT under their knee.
• Aliasing on a sine 6 dB into the clip: at 8x, 81 dB or more under the tone in every mode; at 16x, 105 dB or more.
• TP SAFE holds the true peak at TP LIMIT: in 168 runs (every mode, six settings, both filters, a master and a drum bus driven 6 dB into the clip) the highest true peak was 0.03 dB over it.
• The modes are matched in loudness within 0.01 LU on average (drums, 808, mix, master), within 1 LU on any one.
• GAIN MATCH lands within 0.02 LU of the input.
• The latency the DAW is told is the actual delay, bit for bit, at every sample rate, buffer size and setting.

Sessions and presets from version 1.0

Raèld Clip 2.0 replaces 1.0 (same plugins, same product, a free update). Your 1.0 sessions open with the nearest 2.0 settings: 1.0's Gold mode becomes CONVERTER, Silk becomes SOFT with a small knee, Warm becomes TUBE, THRESHOLD becomes CEILING, a stereo link of 50 % or more becomes LINK, and the ceiling becomes TP SAFE. Your 1.0 presets are converted once; the originals are kept beside them (.raeldpreset.v1).

Troubleshooting

The plugin doesn't show up

Rescan plugins in your DAW. Check that C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3\Raeld Clip.vst3 exists. Raèld Clip is 64-bit VST3 only.

The output peaks over the ceiling

Expected with TP SAFE off: oversampling's filters let peaks rise again (see TP SAFE above). Switch TP SAFE on to hold the true peak.

"Couldn't reach the license server"

Check your internet connection and any firewall that might block your DAW. Activation needs to reach api.lemonsqueezy.com.

"This license key has reached the activation limit"

Deactivate an old computer from inside the plugin, or contact support and we'll reset it.

Windows says "Windows protected your PC"

Click More info → Run anyway. This appears for new software that hasn't built up a download reputation yet. More about this.

Uninstalling

Settings → Apps → Raèld Clip → Uninstall. Deactivate your license first if you're retiring the computer.

Support

See the support page for common questions, or email info@raeldaudio.com with your order number.

Raèld Clip is an original design and is not affiliated with or endorsed by any other manufacturer.