> Should the master track NEVER clip no matter what? can this damage my > card? Probably not, but it CAN damage your speakers, and your ears! If you are doing your own mastering, use a limiter, and set the output level a few tenths of a dB below 0dBfs. HTH, Peace, Ed Billeaud Snowflake Studio ----------------------------------------------------------------- LUG Group Buy for Serato's Pitch n' Time LE until June 14th! See http://logic-users.org/groupbuy/serato for full details

Limiters will work, but what you really need is a look ahead brickwall limiter. Standard limiters can still allow "overs" and distortion, the brickwall limiters will not. They also try and predict the future levels (based on current trend) and adjust for it BEFORE distortion occurs. If you don't have a Universal Audio UAD-1 or UAD-1e card, I would definately sugest getting one. This is a hardware add-in PCI card that processes effect audio with no CPU hit! They have a plug-in called the Precition Limiter. From my research and testing, this is the BEST software limiter you can buy! (Better then any Waves limiter - really!). The sound comes to life, all the buried details come alive, HUGE air!, and all of this with maximum levels and absolutely NO distortion. (Ensure you back the output down from 0 to at least -.01). This thing is truely magic! Want better commpression then this? - get ready to spend thousands on a similar hardware version. You can hear examples on UA's site www.uaudio.com. I've used this on several tracks for mastering and it sounds like a pro studio did it - ready for CD/ Radio! I would mix all my tracks ensuring none of them clip at any time (rarely go red if ever). Start with the strongest signal, then add things in one at a time from a low level ensuring the total mix does not clip. You may find, "hey, no distortion, but it sounds week" - don't worry, the limiter will give it balls from hell! Please let me know if this helps. Thanks.