Clipping sound, although nothing seems to clip [solved]

Elektron Gear Octatrack
1

I have a problem, that I didn’t use to have. My A4 sound clips through the OT.
Signal chain: A4 into OT into Komplete Audio 6 into Ableton
Clipping appears on Pad sounds with long release and very long reverb (and high velocity).
However, OT inputs are green. I lowered the gain on the mixer page to almost nothing, I also put down the level of the A4 extremely low.
Ableton track volume is really low, far from clipping.
Still, distorted sound is coming out of my boxes.

Any ideas where this is coming from? Appreciate any help

2

I had similar problems with Micromonsta and long reverbs (Ot’s Dark Reverb), but distortion was inside OT. Master Level too high, Master Track with too much eq, several tracks with same sound. Problably not the same problems, just wanted to precise I recently made wrong settings.

How is the waveform ? No obvious clipping ?
Clipping with low / medium / high register ?

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3

Green inputs doesn’t mean that the sound doesn’t get already distorted somewhere within the A4.

Definitely check first the A4 sound itself by directly connecting it to Komplete Audio.

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4

I suspect the OT fixed point internal summing here. You can clip the internal OT bus if your levels are high even if the AD shows green.

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5

Check where it distorts by using headphones with each individual unit…

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6

Thanks for the replies.
Indeed, it distorts in the A4. Never happened to me, that’s why I was thinking there is something with the OT inputs.
Internal sound too loud? Or could there be something broken?
If I turn the track volume down it’s fine.

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7

Guess it’s normal. I had the Reverb and Amp volume completely up

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8

It happens sometimes with me and the AR. It’s a distinctive clipping too so I know exactly where it is when it hapoens.

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9

as we all find in various ways, gain staging is so essential to the sound design and composition/recording scenario … for this reason i’m glad the OTmkII includes the two extra led’s representing the resampling levels of internal volume level.

resampling the OT is one of the coolest things for creative production and those simple two extra led’s make a huge difference to help ensure no clipping is happening.

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