Clip

A symmetric hard limiter that constrains a signal to a selectable positive and negative level.

What it does #

Clip passes values whose magnitude is below Level and replaces larger positive or negative values with the corresponding boundary. It can limit control ranges, create hard waveform corners, or prevent a signal from exceeding a known magnitude.

Controls and ports #

Control	Label	Official description
level	Level	Level at which the signal will clip

Practical uses #

• Keep modulation inside a safe or meaningful numerical range.
• Turn an overdriven waveform into a harder, more rectangular shape.
• Limit feedback or control excursions before a sensitive downstream module, while remembering that hard clipping is not complete stability protection.

Things to know #

• Hard clipping is linear inside the boundaries and flat outside them, creating a corner discontinuity in slope.
• On audio, that corner generates harmonics and can alias because no anti-aliasing option is documented for this simple module.
• Level is expected to define symmetric ±limits, but negative Level and stereo-modulated Level behavior remain unverified.
• The generic Nitro clamp helper is a plausible component rather than proof of the complete visible wrapper.

Technical details #

A medium-confidence Nitro implementation candidate supports the technical summary, but the visible-module mapping remains inferred.

The functional model is out = min(level, max(-level, in)). The recovered math/clamp helper performs the general operation min(maxval,max(in,minval)) and can implement this when the wrapper supplies minval=-level and maxval=level. That wrapper has not been recovered, so the candidate is medium-confidence component evidence and exact invalid-Level behavior remains open.

Nitro port	Type
in	InputAudioPortType
minval	InputAudioPortType
maxval	InputAudioPortType
out	OutputAudioPortType

Open questions #

• Measure Level range, default, zero and negative Level, modulation, smoothing, and stereo lane behavior.
• Verify exact boundaries, NaN/infinity handling, signed zero, and values beyond the nominal Grid range.
• Measure aliasing and confirm whether any hidden oversampling or anti-aliasing exists.

Version and sources #

Checked against Bitwig Studio 6.0.6. This page combines Bitwig's module metadata, the existing Grid course and guides, and Nitro analysis where the mapping is strong enough to support a technical statement.

Related material #

• Grid Modules course reference

Return to Bitwig Grid Modules or the Grid Modules course lesson.