01) Legendary Sound, Modern Innovation
ORANGE CLIP 3 is inspired by the unique stock clipper found in one of the most legendary digital audio workstations for modern music production.The clipper itself is simple, but it has a bold and unique sound that you have heard in many modern productions. It inflates low frequencies, crunches highs, and smooths the mid-range in a relaxed and pleasing way.
We re-engineered the legendary soft clipping sound and introduced a suite of features tailored to the needs of modern music producers and mixing engineers. Among the highlights are multi-band clipping, advanced oversampling technology with anti-overshoot processing, a true parallel mixer, and linkable I/O trims and clip ceilings for seamless unity-gain processing. In the coming weeks, we’ll explore these features in depth through a series of educational emails, helping you unlock the full potential of Orange Clip 3.
Efficient 3-Band Design
ORANGE CLIP 3 redefines clipping with its innovative 3-band design, seamlessly integrated before the main output clipper. This setup allows you to audition 3-band clipping within the main workflow while maintaining consistent perceived volume. Activate multi-band mode by clicking the 3-band symbol at the bottom of the plugin to unlock new creative possibilities—or turn it off to return to a traditional signal flow, all without altering perceived volume.
In multi-band mode, Orange Clip 3 leverages Schwabe Digital’s cutting-edge Linear Phase Filterbank technology. Its uniquely efficient, low-latency filters enable per-band dry/wet processing and a dedicated post-gain mixer. More than just a clipper, it’s a creative powerhouse for distortion, rebalancing, layered parallel clipping, dynamic shaping, and mangling.
Shape transients with orange processing per band, fine-tune distortion with independently bypassable clippers, and blend your clipping with per-band dry / wet controls. Achieve the perfect balance with post gain mix faders, and maintain clarity with a true parallel output mixer. Whether you’re subtly enhancing or aggressively reshaping a specific frequency range, Orange Clip 3 delivers unmatched flexibility and power.
The Inspiration Behind Orange Clip 3
In the past, when I tried to mix records stemmed out from that infamous DAW, I struggled to get that unique overloaded tone I referenced from the production mix. While I could get the mix close, I could never capture the exact crunch, energy, roundness, and smear that was present in the production mix. There was something elusive and magical about the tone that I was missing. To be honest, it frustrated me because artists grew attached to the sound of those production mixes. I tried every tool on the market to recreate it, but it was never quite right. From that frustration comes Orange Clip 3.
Orange Clip 3 is a faithful recreation of that infamous sound. We carefully modeled the clipping, wave shaping, overload, dynamic and harmonic effects of that famed sound. Mathematically, it is identical. However, in addition to mathematically matching that famed sound, we also added some features that we think make Orange Clip 3 eclipse the tool it was inspired by.
If you want to get a head start, there's a full technical video manual below. Next post, we'll cover the basics of using Orange Clip 3.
Welcome to ORANGE CLIP 3
Be well,
Ryan Schwabe
Grammy-nominated and multi-platinum mixing & mastering engineer
Founder of Schwabe Digital
