THE_CLIPPER Manual

Loud, clean, and honest. An anti-aliased hard/soft clipper that adds weight and density without the harsh digital fizz — with true-peak safety, multiband shaping, and a real A/B you can trust.

Updated October 6, 2026|THE_CLIPPER product page|Plain text (.md)|Download PDF

Contents (9 chapters)

What It Is
Why You'll Love It
The Interface at a Glance
Controls — In Depth
Visual Feedback & Metering
How to Use It — Real-World Workflows
Pro Tips & Creative Techniques
Quick Start (a result in 30 seconds)
Specs

What It Is#

THE_CLIPPER is a clipper — the loudness tool that shaves the peaks off your signal so the rest can sit louder. Tame a snare's spike, glue a bus, push a master into the red, or saturate a synth until it's thick and aggressive. Clipping is how modern records get loud without sounding squashed: instead of a compressor pulling everything down, a clipper simply removes the tiny spikes you can't hear anyway, freeing up headroom for everything you can.

The catch with most digital clippers is aliasing — that brittle, metallic fizz that appears when a hard corner generates harmonics above the Nyquist frequency and they fold back down into your audio as inharmonic garbage. THE_CLIPPER is built around solving exactly that. Its core uses ADAA (antiderivative anti-aliasing) — a technique from the Parker/Esqueda/Välimäki research — combined with internal oversampling, so the fizz stays out of your audio even when you drive it hard. The result is clipping that stays clean and musical.

On top of that clean core it gives you everything a modern clipper should have: a continuous hard-to-soft knee so you can morph from surgical transparent clipping to thick saturation, Stereo or Mid/Side processing, multiband clipping so your sub never falls apart, a real true-peak ceiling that catches inter-sample overs, loudness-matched A/B so you judge tone instead of just volume, and a delta solo so you can hear precisely what's being removed. One focused, single-page tool that does transparent peak control and full-on distortion.

Why You'll Love It#

It's loud without being harsh. ADAA + oversampling kill the aliasing fizz that makes cheap clippers sound brittle — drive it hard and it stays clean.
One dial does the magic. The big DRIVE dial pushes signal into the ceiling; that's 90% of the job, right up front.
Hard to soft in one move. HARD/SOFT mode buttons (and a continuous KNEE in the advanced strip) take you from surgical, transparent peak shaving to thick, saturated soft-clip.
Bass-safe loudness. Multiband mode splits the signal into three bands so you can clip the mids and highs hard while the low end stays solid.
True-peak safe. The optional TRUE PEAK limiter catches inter-sample peaks, so your ceiling holds on the final output — not just on the sample values.
An honest A/B. LOUDNESS match compensates the output so bypassed and clipped levels stay comparable — you hear what clipping does, not just "louder = better."
Hear exactly what it removes. DELTA solo plays back only the shaved-off difference, so you know precisely what you're throwing away.
Parallel clipping built in. A MIX control blends dry and clipped for New-York-style density without losing transients.
Read it at a glance. A scrolling input-vs-output waveform shades what the clipper shaved, IN/OUT meters mark the ceiling, and a CLIP dB readout tells you how hard you're hitting it.
Workflow extras — Stereo / Mid-Side routing, selectable anti-alias order and oversampling, multilingual tooltips, undo/redo, an AI help chat, built-in docs, and a scalable UI.

The Interface at a Glance#

THE_CLIPPER is deliberately a single page — no pages to flip through. The layout is built around one big decision (how hard do you drive it) with everything else a glance away:

DRIVE / CEILING dial — the big dual dial, dead centre. The inner ring of amber bars shows DRIVE; the thin cyan outer ring shows CEILING. The dial itself only displays: you set both values by dragging the DRIVE or CEILING number in its centre up or down.
IN / OUT meters — two horizontal peak bars under the dial, with a dB scale, the ceiling marked, and a numeric peak hold right of each bar.
CLIP dB — the readout beside the meters that shows how much the clipper is shaving off right now.
MODE — HARD / SOFT buttons that flip the clip shape between sharp and rounded.
OUTPUT — a smaller knob for the final level trim after clipping.
WAVEFORM STRIP — a scrolling input-vs-output display along the bottom that shades exactly what got clipped.
ADVANCED — the toggle at the bottom right. It opens the advanced strip with ROUTING, ANTI-ALIAS, OVERSAMP, OS FILTER, MIX, KNEE, BIAS and the MULTIBAND, LOUDNESS, TRUE PEAK and DELTA switches. In this view the big dial makes room for small DRIVE and CEIL knobs beside OUTPUT, the meters move to the top with a LUFS card at the right, and a transfer curve appears beside the waveform.

The header handles the housekeeping: undo/redo arrows at the top left, and the AI assistant (robot), Documentation (book), Settings (gear) and Bypass (power) buttons at the top right. (Live displays — meters and the waveform — only animate when audio is actually playing.)

Controls — In Depth#

Drive (hero dial)#

What it does: Sets how hard the input is pushed into the ceiling. More drive = more signal hitting the clip threshold = harder clipping and more saturation. This is the main control of the whole plugin.
How to set it: In the main view, drag the DRIVE number in the centre of the big dial up or down (hold Shift for fine steps, double-click to return to 0 dB). In the Advanced view, use the small DRIVE knob.
Range/units: 0 to 36 dB (default 0 dB). The control is skewed so the musically useful lower range gets more of the travel.
In your music: A little drive (1–4 dB) shaves transient spikes for clean loudness; a lot of drive (10 dB+) turns it into a distortion/saturation effect that thickens and squares off the sound.
Pro tip: Push Drive up while listening to DELTA — when you start hearing body (not just transient ticks) in the delta, you've crossed from peak-shaving into coloring the tone.

Ceiling (outer ring of the hero dial)#

What it does: Sets the clip threshold — the level the waveform slams into. Lowering the ceiling makes clipping more aggressive for the same drive. Without TRUE PEAK, inter-sample peaks, Output gain, a Mix below 1.00 and Loudness Match can still take the output above it; with TRUE PEAK on, it becomes the true-peak ceiling of the final output.
How to set it: In the main view, drag the CEILING number in the centre of the big dial up or down (hold Shift for fine steps, double-click to return to 0 dB). In the Advanced view, use the small CEIL knob.
Range/units: –12 to 0 dB (default 0 dB).
In your music: On a master, set this to your target peak (e.g. –1 dB) and switch on TRUE PEAK. On a track or bus, pull it down to force more clipping without changing the drive.
Pro tip: Think of Drive and Ceiling as two ends of the same action — raise Drive or lower Ceiling both push more signal past the threshold. Use Ceiling to set your final level, Drive to set how hard you hit it.

Output#

What it does: Final level trim after clipping — make-up or attenuation on the way out. With TRUE PEAK on, Output feeds the final limiter, so it can't push the output above the ceiling.
Range/units: –24 to +24 dB (default 0 dB). Double-click to reset; click the value under the knob to type a number.
In your music: Level-match the processed signal back to where it sat, or trim the output to leave headroom for the next plugin.
Pro tip: If you're clipping a master to a fixed ceiling, leave Output at 0 — the Ceiling already defines your peak. Use Output mostly on track/bus inserts.

Mode: HARD / SOFT#

What it does: Flips the shape of the clip curve. HARD is a sharp corner — clean, transparent, surgical. SOFT rounds the corner into a cubic soft-clip with smoother, warmer harmonics. These buttons set KNEE to its two extremes; the KNEE knob in the advanced strip lets you sit anywhere between. The lit button shows which half of the knee range you're in.
Range/units: Two buttons (HARD = knee 0.00, SOFT = knee 1.00).
In your music: HARD for transparent peak control and modern loud masters; SOFT when you want the clip to sound like saturation — thicker, rounder, more analog-ish.
Pro tip: On drums, HARD keeps the snap; on bass and synths, SOFT adds harmonic warmth without an obvious "edge."

Knee (advanced)#

What it does: Continuously morphs the clip curve between hard and soft. 0.00 = a sharp hard-clip corner; 1.00 = a fully rounded cubic soft-clip. The anti-aliasing stays exact at every knee value, so softening it never adds aliasing.
Range/units: 0.00 to 1.00 (default 0.00 = hard).
In your music: The dial between "transparent limiter-ish clipping" and "saturator." Small amounts of knee take the harsh edge off hard clipping while keeping it tight.
Pro tip: Try 0.15–0.30 on a mix bus — just enough rounding to lose the brittleness, not enough to smear the transients. With MULTIBAND on, this knob makes way for each band's own KNEE offset; the value you set here still applies underneath.

Bias (advanced)#

What it does: Pulls the negative clipping ceiling inward (up to 6 dB at full setting) while the positive ceiling stays exactly where you set it. Asymmetric clipping generates even harmonics — the warmer, rounder, more "analog" flavor of saturation — and a built-in DC filter keeps the output centered. The anti-aliasing stays exact at every bias value, so the warmth comes with no extra aliasing.
Range/units: 0.00 to 1.00 (default 0.00 = symmetric). At 0.00 you get exactly the classic symmetric clip.
In your music: The dial between "clean digital clipper" and "console/tape-style color." Try 0.20–0.50 on bass, drums, or a full mix for thickness that hard symmetric clipping can't give you.
Pro tip: Watch the transfer curve beside the waveform while you turn it — you'll see the bottom ceiling slide in. With MULTIBAND on, this knob makes way for each band's own BIAS offset; the value you set here still applies underneath.

Routing (advanced)#

What it does: Chooses whether clipping is applied to the Stereo (L/R) channels or to the Mid/Side decomposition of the signal.
Range/units: Stereo · Mid/Side (default Stereo). Mid/Side needs a stereo signal.
In your music: Mid/Side lets you clip the mono center (kick, bass, lead vocal) independently of the stereo sides — keep the width clean while you tame the center, or vice versa.
Pro tip: On a master, Mid/Side routing clips the powerful mono low-end without crushing the stereo reverb tails and width up top.

Anti-Alias (advanced)#

What it does: Selects the antiderivative anti-aliasing order applied to the clipper. Higher orders push the aliasing floor lower. Off is the plain, un-smoothed clip (aliases badly — the thing to beat); ADAA1 is first order; ADAA2 is second order (lowest alias floor).
Range/units: Off · ADAA1 · ADAA2 (default ADAA2).
In your music: This is the secret to clean loudness. Leave it on ADAA2 for the cleanest result; switch to Off only if you want the gritty, aliased lo-fi sound as an effect.
Pro tip: A/B ADAA2 vs Off on a bright, hard-driven synth — the difference (that metallic fizz disappearing) is the whole reason this plugin exists. Note that at 1x oversampling, ADAA also rolls off the top end — gently with ADAA1, with a notch around 16 kHz with ADAA2. The bottom bar shows a reminder when you pick that combination; raise OVERSAMP to 2x or more for the full frequency range.

Oversampling (advanced)#

What it does: Sets the internal oversampling factor — how much the signal is upsampled before the clipper sees it, so inter-sample peaks and high harmonics are handled cleanly before downsampling. The on-screen label is OVERSAMP.
Range/units: 1x · 2x · 4x · 8x · 16x (default 4x).
In your music: Higher factors reduce aliasing further at the cost of CPU. 4x (with ADAA2) is the clean, efficient default; bump to 8x/16x for mastering or very hard drive.
Pro tip: ADAA already does most of the anti-aliasing work, so you often don't need huge oversampling — try ADAA2 at 4x before reaching for 16x and burning CPU.

OS Filter (advanced)#

What it does: Chooses the oversampling filter type. Linear is linear-phase and mastering-grade (highest fidelity, adds latency that grows with the oversampling factor). Min Phase is a minimum-phase filter with near-zero latency — only a few samples. Your DAW is told the current latency, so it compensates automatically.
Range/units: Linear · Min Phase (default Linear).
In your music: Linear for mixing and mastering where latency is compensated anyway; Min Phase when tracking or performing live through the plugin, where every millisecond counts.
Pro tip: Min Phase isn't phase-linear near the very top of the spectrum — use it for the latency win while tracking, and bounce final masters with Linear.

Mix (advanced)#

What it does: Dry/wet blend between the original and clipped signal. 0.00 = fully dry (effectively bypassed), 1.00 = fully clipped. The dry signal is time-aligned with the clipped one, so blending never comb-filters.
Range/units: 0.00 to 1.00 (default 1.00).
In your music: Mid values give you parallel clipping — keep the dry transients and natural dynamics while blending in a hard-clipped layer underneath for density and weight.
Pro tip: On a drum bus, clip hard but pull Mix back to ~0.50–0.70 — you get the loudness and glue of clipping while the dry signal preserves the punch. With MULTIBAND on, each band gets its own MIX; the value you set here still applies to the whole signal.

Multiband (advanced)#

What it does: Splits the signal into three frequency bands (Linkwitz-Riley crossovers) and clips each band independently, instead of clipping the full-range signal at once. Switching it on opens the band editor in the advanced strip.
Range/units: On / Off (default Off).
In your music: Full-range clipping lets a loud kick modulate and distort the whole spectrum. Multiband keeps the bands from interfering — clip the highs and mids for loudness while the low band stays clean and solid.
Pro tip: This is the bass-safe loudness trick: enable Multiband so heavy clipping on the mids/highs never makes your sub pump or fart out.

Low X (low/mid crossover, advanced)#

What it does: Sets the split frequency between the low and mid bands in Multiband mode. The on-screen label is LOW X.
Range/units: 20 Hz to 1 kHz (default 150 Hz), skewed toward the low end for fine control where it matters.
In your music: Place it just above your sub/bass fundamental so the low band protects the bottom end.
Pro tip: On a full mix, 100–200 Hz is a good starting split — it keeps the kick and bass in their own protected band.

High X (mid/high crossover, advanced)#

What it does: Sets the split frequency between the mid and high bands in Multiband mode. The on-screen label is HIGH X.
Range/units: 1 kHz to 18 kHz (default 3.0 kHz), skewed for control in the presence region.
In your music: Defines where "mids" end and "air/presence" begins, so you can clip harshness in the highs separately from body in the mids.
Pro tip: Drop it to ~2–4 kHz to isolate vocal/cymbal harshness into the high band, where you can clip it gently without dulling the mids.

Per-Band Controls (advanced, Multiband only)#

What they do: The LOW / MID / HIGH tabs pick the band you're editing; its controls then sit next to LOW X and HIGH X. Each band gets its own DRIVE (–12 to +12 dB on top of the global Drive), CEIL (0 to –12 dB below the global Ceiling), KNEE (–1.00 to +1.00 around the global Knee), BIAS (–1.00 to +1.00 around the global Bias), MIX (0.00 to 1.00, that band's own dry/wet), and SOLO / MUTE buttons. The global controls stay the masters — Drive, Ceiling, Knee and Bias trims are offsets, so your existing settings never jump when you enable Multiband.
How to set them: Drag a value left or right; double-click to reset it.
In your music: Drive the mids and highs into loudness while trimming the low band's drive back for a solid, uncompressed sub. Solo a band to dial its clipping by ear; mute to check what each band contributes.
Pro tip: In Multiband the waveform splits into three lanes, one per band, each with that band's own gain reduction in dB at the right — set band drive by watching that number. The transfer curve shows the band you're editing, with its trims included.

Loudness Match (advanced)#

What it does: Automatically compensates the output level so the clipped signal stays loudness-matched to the input — an honest A/B. It corrects by up to 12 dB in either direction. The on-screen switch is LOUDNESS.
Range/units: On / Off (default Off).
In your music: Clipping makes things louder, and "louder" always sounds "better" for a moment. With Loudness Match on, you compare tone and density at the same perceived level, so you can tell whether the clip actually improves the sound.
Pro tip: Turn it on whenever you're deciding how much to clip — then turn it off and use Ceiling/Output to set your real final level once you've committed.

True Peak (advanced)#

What it does: Engages a look-ahead true-peak limiter that catches inter-sample peaks — overs that live between samples and don't show on a normal sample meter. It is the very last stage, after Mix, Output and Loudness Match, so with it on the Ceiling is a true-peak ceiling for everything that leaves the plugin. Its own gain reduction shows as TP in the CLIP dB readout. The on-screen switch is TRUE PEAK.
Range/units: On / Off (default Off). Adds about 2 ms of latency while it's on.
In your music: Essential for masters destined for streaming or lossy codecs (MP3/AAC), which can push inter-sample peaks over 0 dBTP and cause distortion on playback.
Pro tip: Turn it on as the last stage on a master bounce; for track/bus inserts you usually don't need it (and it adds a touch of latency).

Delta Solo (advanced)#

What it does: Plays back only what the clipper removed. It falls silent when nothing is being clipped, at any Anti-Alias setting. With KNEE above 0.00 the soft curve genuinely bends the signal below the ceiling too, so you'll hear a little delta even there. Delta ignores Mix — you always hear the full removed signal. The on-screen switch is DELTA.
Range/units: On / Off (default Off).
In your music: The ultimate "what am I actually doing" monitor. If the delta sounds like clean transient ticks, you're shaving peaks transparently. If it sounds like a buzzy copy of your whole track, you're distorting it.
Pro tip: Use Delta to set Drive by ear — push until the delta starts containing the parts of the sound you don't want to lose, then back off. Remember to switch it off before you bounce.

Bypass (button + overlay)#

What it does: The power button at the top right soft-bypasses all processing. A full-window overlay reads "BYPASSED - CLICK ANYWHERE TO RE-ENABLE PROCESSING," and clicking it re-enables.
Range/units: On / Off.
In your music: A/B the processed vs. unprocessed signal.
Pro tip: Because clipping raises loudness, enable LOUDNESS first so your bypass A/B compares tone and density, not just level.

Advanced (toggle)#

What it does: Shows or hides the advanced strip (Routing, Anti-Alias, Oversampling, OS Filter, Mix, Knee, Bias, and the Multiband, Loudness, True Peak and Delta switches). The Advanced view also swaps the big dial for small DRIVE / CEIL knobs and adds the LUFS card and the transfer curve. The view you leave it in is saved with your session.
Range/units: Open / Closed.
In your music: Keeps the everyday workflow (Drive, Ceiling, Output, Mode) clean, with the deep controls one click away.
Pro tip: Set up your anti-alias/oversampling/routing once in Advanced, collapse it, and live on the hero dial.

Settings / Docs / Help / Tooltips#

What it does: Settings (gear) holds Language (English, German, French, Spanish, Italian), Show Tooltips, the version number and the account the plugin is registered to, plus Reset Zoom and Tutorial (opens the tutorial page in your browser). The book button opens this documentation inside the plugin, and the robot button opens the AI Assistant chat, which can see your current settings. A tooltip bar along the bottom explains whatever control you hover. When a new version is out, a banner at the top tells you, and clicking it takes you to the free download.
Range/units: On/off panels.
In your music: Help and housekeeping — no audio effect.
Pro tip: Leave tooltips on while you're learning; hover a control and the tooltip bar explains it in your language.

UI Zoom Dragger#

What it does: Scales the whole UI. Drag the grip in the bottom-right corner.
Range/units: 50% to 300%. Reset Zoom in Settings takes you back to 100%.
In your music: Fit the plugin to your screen.
Pro tip: Scale down to keep it tucked in a corner while mixing, up for precise knob work on a laptop.

Undo/Redo#

What it does: Undo and redo your control moves with the arrows at the top left, or with Cmd/Ctrl+Z (undo) and Cmd/Ctrl+Shift+Z or Cmd/Ctrl+Y (redo) while the plugin window has keyboard focus. It covers Drive, Ceiling, Output, Mode/Knee, Mix, Routing, Anti-Alias, Oversampling, Multiband with its crossovers, and the Loudness, True Peak and Delta switches.
Range/units: Actions.
In your music: Safe experimentation while dialing in drive and ceiling.
Pro tip: Push the drive into obvious distortion to learn the limits, then undo back to your sweet spot.

Visual Feedback & Metering#

THE_CLIPPER is built to be read at a glance:

The DRIVE / CEILING dial shows drive as a bold ring of amber bars and the ceiling as a thin cyan outer ring, with both values printed in the centre — you can see how hard you're pushing from across the room.
The IN / OUT meters show input and output peak level from –48 to 0 dB, with a dB scale underneath and the ceiling marked, so you can watch peaks hit the wall. The number right of each bar is its peak hold; it turns red when it climbs above your ceiling.
The CLIP dB readout shows how many dB the clip stage is shaving off — 0.0 means nothing is being clipped. It holds the highest value of roughly the last second so you can read it. pk is the highest value since the last reset, and with TRUE PEAK on, TP shows that limiter's own gain reduction (a separate stage, so it can be working while the clip figure reads 0.0). Click the readout to reset it.
The LUFS card (Advanced view, top right): EBU R128 loudness with every row labelled — IN LUFS and OUT LUFS are short-term loudness, INT is the integrated output loudness, and with True Peak engaged TP shows the highest output true peak. OUT is measured at the very end of the chain, after clipping, Mix, Output, Loudness Match and True Peak. Click the card to reset the measurement (fresh Integrated for a new pass).
The transfer curve (Advanced view, its own square panel right of the waveform): input level across, output level up. The diagonal means "unchanged," the flat part is your ceiling. Push Drive and the curve steepens while its corner moves inward, so more of your signal ends up on the ceiling; Knee rounds the corner, Bias pulls the negative ceiling in. A live dot rides the curve to show where your signal sits right now, and the ceiling value is printed beside its line.
The scrolling waveform strip (bottom) overlays the input trace against the clipped output and shades the difference — you literally see what the clipper shaved off, in real time. It is drawn from the input's point of view, so raising Drive makes the ceiling line move down onto the waveform rather than the waveform growing; the transfer curve shows the same thing the conventional way round. In Multiband mode it splits into three lanes (HIGH, MID, LOW), each showing its own band against its own ceiling, with the band's gain reduction in dB at the right.
DELTA turns your ears into a meter: monitor only the removed signal to judge whether you're shaving peaks or distorting tone.

Remember: live displays (meters, waveform) only animate when audio is running — hit play to see them move.

How to Use It — Real-World Workflows#

1. Transparent Loudness on a Master#

Insert THE_CLIPPER last on the master (before any final true-peak metering).
Set Mode to HARD, Ceiling to your target (e.g. –1 dB), leave Output at 0.
Open Advanced, switch on LOUDNESS, and slowly raise DRIVE while A/B-ing with Bypass — find the point where it's denser and louder but still clean.
Confirm ANTI-ALIAS = ADAA2 and bump OVERSAMP to 8x for the bounce.
Turn on TRUE PEAK, switch LOUDNESS off, and set your final level with Ceiling/Output.

2. Tame a Snare or Drum Bus#

Insert on the snare or drum bus. Set Mode to HARD.
Raise Drive until the sharpest transient spikes are flattened — watch the waveform strip shade the peaks.
Open Advanced and pull MIX back to ~0.60–0.70 for parallel clipping — you keep the snap and dynamics while gaining loudness and glue.
Check DELTA: if you only hear transient ticks, you're shaving cleanly. Switch it off.

3. Bass-Safe Loud Mix#

Insert on the mix/master bus. Open Advanced and switch on MULTIBAND.
Set LOW X just above your bass (~150 Hz) and HIGH X around 3 kHz.
Drive hard for loudness — then select the LOW tab and pull its DRIVE trim down so the low band stays clean and the sub stays solid.
If the center is getting crushed but you want to keep width, switch ROUTING to Mid/Side.

4. Saturator / Distortion on a Synth or Bass#

Insert on the track. Set Mode to SOFT (or open Advanced and dial KNEE to ~0.50–0.80).
Push Drive well past peak-shaving (10 dB+) until it thickens and squares off.
Lower the Ceiling for even more aggression, then set the level with Output.
Want grit? Open Advanced and set ANTI-ALIAS to Off for a deliberately aliased lo-fi edge.

Pro Tips & Creative Techniques#

Drive vs Ceiling are the same gesture. Raising Drive and lowering Ceiling both push more signal past the threshold — use Ceiling to set your final peak, Drive to set how hard you hit it.
Delta is your truth meter. Clean clipping = transient ticks in the delta. Coloring = body in the delta. Let your ears, not just the loudness, decide.
Parallel clip for punch. Clip hard but blend with MIX to keep the dry transients — density without losing the hit.
Mid/Side for masters. Clip the mono low/center energy while leaving the stereo sides and reverb tails untouched.
Multiband to protect the lows. Heavy clipping on a full mix can make the sub pump — split it out so the low band stays solid.
ADAA over brute-force oversampling. ADAA2 at 4x is the clean, efficient default; it does most of the anti-aliasing work, so reach for 8x/16x only when mastering or driving extremely hard.
Aliasing as an effect. Set ANTI-ALIAS to Off on purpose for harsh, digital, lo-fi distortion — sometimes that fizz is the sound you want.
Always finish true-peak. On a master bounce, TRUE PEAK keeps inter-sample peaks under your ceiling. Set the ceiling around –1 dB to leave headroom for MP3/AAC encoding.

Quick Start (a result in 30 seconds)#

Insert THE_CLIPPER on the track, bus, or master you want louder.
Set Mode to HARD and Ceiling to your target peak (e.g. –1 dB on a master, 0 dB on a track) by dragging the CEILING number in the centre of the dial.
Drag the DRIVE number up while you watch the waveform strip shade the clipped peaks.
Open Advanced, switch on LOUDNESS, and A/B with Bypass — find the loudest setting that still sounds clean.
Want it bass-safe? Switch on MULTIBAND. Want it warmer? Switch to SOFT or raise KNEE.
Switch LOUDNESS off, set your final level with Ceiling/Output, and (on a master) turn on TRUE PEAK. Done.

Specs#

Formats: VST3, AU (macOS), AAX (macOS and Windows). No standalone version.
Plugin type: Anti-aliased clipper / soft-clip and saturation stage (transparent peak control, parallel clipping, multiband and Mid/Side clipping, true-peak limiting).
Anti-aliasing: ADAA (1st/2nd-order antiderivative anti-aliasing) + selectable 1x–16x oversampling with linear-phase or minimum-phase filters. Default: ADAA2 at 4x, linear phase.
Key parameters: Drive 0–36 dB · Ceiling –12 to 0 dB · Output –24 to +24 dB · Knee 0–1 (hard↔soft) · Bias 0–1 (even-harmonic asymmetry) · Mix 0–1 · Low X 20 Hz–1 kHz · High X 1–18 kHz · Routing Stereo/Mid-Side · Anti-Alias Off/ADAA1/ADAA2 · Oversampling 1x–16x · OS Filter Linear/Min Phase · per-band Drive/Ceiling/Knee/Bias/Mix + Solo/Mute (Multiband) · plus Multiband, Loudness Match, True Peak and Delta Solo switches.
Metering: IN/OUT peak meters (–48 to 0 dB) with peak hold · CLIP dB gain-reduction readout (plus the true-peak limiter's own reduction) · EBU R128 loudness (short-term in/out + gated Integrated, BS.1770-4) · max-hold output true peak (True Peak on) · live transfer curve · per-band gain reduction (Multiband).
Latency: Depends on Oversampling and OS Filter, plus about 2 ms with True Peak on; zero at 1x with True Peak off. Reported to your DAW for automatic compensation.
Version: 1.2.0 · Window: 500 x 600, scalable 50–300%.
Note: The clipping core is checked against fixed measurement gates — alias floor, true peak, transfer curve and THD.

THE_CLIPPER — Drive it, shave it, hear it stay clean.