ferraus clip

Soft or hard clipper

Synopsis

ferraus clip <input> [options] [-o <output>]

Clips peaks at the ceiling, with 4x oversampling to limit aliasing. 'soft' rounds the top over a knee; 'hard' cuts flat. The right tool when 'louder and tighter' is the goal and a limiter sounds too smooth.

This command is also an fx stage and a pipeline op: ferraus fx in.wav -o out.wav --fx "clip:key=value".

Examples

Soft clip at -0.3 dBFS

ferraus clip drums.wav -o clipped.wav

Hard clipping as an effect

ferraus clip bass.wav --ceiling -6dB --mode hard -o fuzz.wav

Shave peaks before a limiter with a wide, gentle knee

ferraus clip mix.wav --ceiling -1dB --knee 6dB -o mix_clip.wav

Parallel soft clipping for a crunchier snare

ferraus clip snare.wav --ceiling -3dB --mix 50% -o snare_crunch.wav

Options

Flag	Type	Default	Meaning
`--ceiling`	gain	`-0.3dB`	Clip level (sample peak, dBFS)
`--mode`	soft \| hard	`soft`	Clip shape
`--knee`	gain	`3dB`	Soft-clip knee below the ceiling where rounding starts
`--mix`	percent	`100%`	Dry/wet balance: 0% returns the input unchanged, 100% is fully processed

Global options

Every command also accepts the global options (-o, --json, --dry-run, --overwrite, --progress, ...). See Global options.

Exit codes

Code	Meaning
0	Success
1	Processing failed
2	Usage or parameter error
3	Input missing or unreadable
4	Unsupported format or codec
8	Cancelled
70	Internal error (bug)

Common mistakes

Forgetting that outputs are never overwritten: pass --overwrite or a new -o path when re-running.
Gains need a unit when not in dB: 0.5x is a factor, -6 and -6dB are decibels.

For models

MCP tool: ferraus_clip
Schema: ferraus schema clip
Pipeline: { op: clip, args: { ... } } (flag names with _ instead of -)
fx stage: yes

{"command": "clip", "defaults": {"ceiling": "-0.3dB", "mode": "soft", "knee": "3dB", "mix": "100%"}}