Why does Drum Machine alter/clipping my samples?

[Wuhuan]

Drum Machine seems to be altering my samples compared to Groove Agent SE

Hey guys,

I’ve noticed something strange with Nuendo’s Drum Machine.

Ever since Drum Machine was introduced, I’ve been using it whenever I work with samples. For example, I’ll find a Kick sample in MediaBay and simply drag it into Drum Machine. Before that, I was always using Groove Agent SE.

I just noticed that when I drag a Kick sample from MediaBay into Drum Machine, it seems to sound different from the original sample, even though I haven’t changed any settings or done any processing.

At first, I thought it might be some kind of compression or processing. After looking through the settings, I found this:

It seems that Drum Machine is applying some kind of clipping to my Kick. The exact same Kick sample played through Groove Agent SE sounds completely untouched and identical to the original.

I can’t figure out how to disable this processing. Is there a setting somewhere that I’m missing?

I would really like Drum Machine to play my samples exactly as they are, just like Groove Agent SE does, without any additional clipping, compression, or processing.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[Wuhuan]

One more thing I noticed after testing this further:

I saw someone mention in another thread that lowering the sample’s volume can prevent the limiter from being triggered. However, I don’t think that should really be the solution.

Drum Track limiter

Hey Johnny, thank you! I grabbed this screenshot from the internet for the reference since I wasn’t in the studio when I posted my question. Mine looks like this: [image] It’s not that it’s super distorted, but I can hear the difference between what MediaBay plays and what the drum track plays. Another option I found is the Bypass All FX button, but in that case the EQ and filter won’t work per pad, only on the channel. No worries though. I just hope they add a limiter ON/OFF option someday,…

Whether a limiter is triggered or not should be determined by the limiter’s own threshold/ceiling settings, not by some hidden behavior of the Drum Machine.

In my case, the Kick is already below 0 dBFS, yet the built-in limiter still applies around 0.5 dB of gain reduction. I can clearly hear the transient being affected, even though the sample itself is not exceeding 0 dBFS.

I also noticed that switching from Soft Clip to Hard Clip seems to remove the “compressed” character, which makes me suspect that the Soft Clip/limiter stage is actually processing the signal even when it doesn’t appear to need limiting.

Of course, I can simply turn down the sample, but that doesn’t really solve the underlying issue. I would expect to have full control over whether and when the limiter processes my samples, ideally with an option to completely bypass it.

[wolfger]

As I understand it, it is the characteristics of softlimiting that gentle limiting already gradually sets in when the signal is approaching the threshold, where as in hardlimiting it only would limit a Signal crossing the threshold. This is exactly what you are seeing in your picture. The Signal reaching -2.2 dB already triggers a gentle limiting of 0.5db. So hardlimting would be the way to go to not alter the sound.

Edit: I agree that an Option to turn off the limiter could be useful

[Johnny_Moneto]

It is my understanding that Drum Machine is not designed to be neutral. Unlike Groove Agent it alters the sound, it has character. But maybe Wolfger’s tip works.