A clipper is an audio effect that ‘Trims’ incoming audio loudness peaks above a specified threshold. ‘Soft’ clipping smoothes out the signal near the threshold (similar to tape saturation), whereas ‘Hard’ clipping abruptly cuts off the signal, resulting in harsh ‘Digital’ distortion.

A clipper is very useful for such a simple effect. Clippers, especially with percussive materials, are excellent for catching any excess volume peaks. Before sending the signal to a compressor or limiter, it’s common to use a clipper to smooth down the sound.

On the master bus, I always employ a clipper before the limiter, hoping to acquire a few dB of gain before I can hear the clipper functioning. Then I use some modest limiting to increase the volume even further. Back on the subject, BT Clipper is a classic clipper effect with three clipping algorithms: hard, soft, and analog.

I am presuming the ‘Analog Clipping’ setting in BT Clipper utilizes a bespoke curve that represents the type of clipping you would get from analog hardware because we have discussed harsh and soft clipping.

Different clipping flavors are wonderful to have, and the mid-frequency slider enables you to tailor the input audio even more. A Pre/Post switch on the tone knob allows you to apply tone-shaping before or after the signal hits the clipper circuit.

The auto-gain adjustment option in BT Clipper, on the other hand, is lowkey its strongest feature. It allows the user to A/B test the clean and ‘Clipped’ signals without having to fiddle with manual gain controls. It’s a lot easier to make sure you’re not clipping the signal too much this way.

Last but not least, the BT Clipper offers volume controls as well as a useful tiny switch for inverting the phase. When mixing a multi-channel drum kit recording, for example, that’s a great choice to have.