FLOWPHONIC Stop audio clipping on Android
Clipping is the one mistake you can't undo later. A few settings make it much harder to hit.
Set gain so normal speech sits well below the red, add the limiter, and turn on the safety track so there's a quiet backup copy.
What clipping is
The signal gets louder than the recording can hold, so the tops of the waveform get flattened off. It sounds harsh and crunchy, and you can't properly fix it afterwards.
Layer your protection
- Gain first. Speak or play at your loudest expected level and set gain so the meters stay out of the red. The meter shows a safe zone, a warning zone and a clip zone.
- Limiter. In Lossless, the input FX sheet (tap FX on the Record screen) has a gain knob from -24 to +24 dB, a limiter that catches peaks at -0.5 dBFS, and a low-cut dial. They work while you monitor or record.
- 32-bit float. It's a Lossless option that gives much more headroom. See recording WAV.
- Safety track. Every take gets a second copy at -12 dB with no limiter. If the main one clips, the safety copy usually hasn't.
Low-cut for rumble
The low-cut filter doesn't stop clipping directly, but it removes low rumble (wind, handling noise, traffic) that eats up headroom you'd rather spend on the voice.
The trade-off
The safety track doubles storage. Use it when you can't redo the take: weddings, events, one-off interviews. Skip it for a quiet read you can repeat.
Quick answers
What does the safety track do?
It saves a second copy of each Lossless take at -12 dB with no limiter, so a loud moment that clips the main file probably didn't clip the backup.
Do the input FX work in every quality?
No. The gain, limiter and low-cut chain works in Lossless quality.