| Audio Clipping/ Distortion | |
| Display Text | Audio Clipping/Distortion |
| Description | "Audio Clipping/ Distortion" is the effect in which the amplitude of an audio sample exceeds the maximum peak playback level. (Sometimes also associated with or classified as over-modulation). |
| Impact | Audio clipping/distortion negatively impacts the member experience when it produces audio playback that sounds “staticy” or “crackly” due to decreased dynamic range. Anything derived from this source will produce poor or unusable downstream audio deliverables. |
| Severity Assessment Guidance | |
| FYI | N/A |
| Issue | A significant portion of the audio appears to peak above allowable playback levels. Audio sounds loud and over-modulated across music, dialogue, and/ or sound effects. Audio waveform appears extremely wide, but also “flattened out” across the peaks, indicating the audio is clipping. |
| Blocker | The audio over-modulation/distortion is extreme to the point of prolonged inability to distinguish plot-pertinent audio, indicating a potential issue with settings and/or export. |
| Solutions | |
| How to Prevent | Monitor audio levels closely on set in order to avoid recording over-modulated audio. During the mixing stage, use moderate gain control throughout the bus structure and use limiters to avoid clipping. May also be a normalization error. Review the re-recording mix session to verify if it occurred in the normalization process. |
| How to Fix |
For licensed content, if mix sessions are inaccessible, attempt mitigating the issue using declipper plug-ins/effects |