clipping

[afrakes]

Ok, I don't mean to sound stupid, but what exactly is clipping. I know its when the highs and lows of the sound wave get cut off from volume being too high, but what does it mean? Is it audible on high volumes? How do you properly set your gains to avoid clipping without a professional dd1 type device? I have always used me ears, and never had any problems, but friends of mine have and I can't figure out why. Can it be caused by more than just improperly set gains?

[bassface]

Clipping is when the sine wave starts to square off. The squareing off of the sine wave indicates distortion.

[Baydestrian]

Go to Tunez, search Clipping, read threads.

Audible clipping can be heard in some songs, hear is a good one, you can clearly hear the distortion of the bass, so much it distorts the mids and highs: