I’m just exporting some tracks and doing a final run through the Clean Boost circuit. The settings here are very subtle. Just Clean Boost, tiny bit of EQ, no envelope follower, no filter, fully wet. The audible difference is noticeable but very subtle indeed, yet the waveform looks drastically different.
It looks like limiting, compression, something. The big peaks are gone. Yet it’s just a bit of very clean sounding drive. Can anyone in the know explain what’s going on here?
Does what it says on the tin. A clean boost. Saturates/drives without sounding distorted. So you’ll get a thicker sounding mix, or in visual terms, a thicker looking waveform with less spikey bits.
Damm !! Now i want it - oO this means a lot higher compression possible on it.
It’s fine to look at the waveform, but I suggest you to listen carefully to what happened to your sounds, transients(read peaks) in terms of punch and depth of the percussive component or plucks etc. Then try to fell the “density” of the track compared to before Clean Boost. Choose what you do like and what you don’t.
Exactly.
Looking at waveforms is fine. But thats not where ‘punch’ and ‘warmth’ lives.
You have to listen and feel for that.
I’m glad I queried this as I was just preparing some tracks for mastering!
Don’t think I really understood Clean Boost until I actually asked the question! So much going on here I didn’t even know. I deffo need to dial the drive back a bit! Thanks all!
What @Microtribe said. It doesn’t matter at all what the waveform looks like. No one who hears the music is going to see or even think about the waveform.
Does it sound better to you after the processing? Do you like what the clean boost is doing to the sound? That’s all that matters. You don’t need anyone to explain anything to you, just gotta trust your ears.
Believe that you have what it takes to make these decisions yourself (because you do!)
Godspeed 
Also I’d zoom in more to compare. At this zoom level too much detail is gone because pixels.
The peaks in the waveform may be too transient or in a frequency range not relevant to how you perceive the sound of the track. Essentially a “good” limiter does precisely that: Reducing the actual dynamic range of the signal without it being too noticeable/unpleasant to the ear.
Hence listening is more important as the others have pointed out…
I don’t own a heat, so out of interest I’d love to know what happens to the appearance of the transients on the waveform zoomed right in, and see the difference in peak & lufs levels.
I’m assuming it’s a bit of saturation and soft clipping that will give a higher LUFS with less peak level?
…i use clean boost around three o’clock wet gain, around three o’clock dry wet ratio and between twelve and three o’ clock drive, filter off and a tiny little boost on lo and hi eq…whenever i want a truu analog glue feel for any premastering since day one of heat’s existence…
it always charmes the master signal with gentle beef, adding warmth and whatever u might miss from digital vs analog overall feel…
and as always, i can only repeat myself when we’re talking heat here…it’s the most underrated swedish device of them all…
u get that “little” magic from old huge expensive top notch analog mixing desks for under 1000 bux in one little box…meanwhile, u still got so much more options to treat any kind of signal apart from just a clean BOOST…
dunno about the latest + fx version…but if it offers an option to take out / switch off / bypass all the digital fx chain completely, all this remains totally truu for sure…
