Kerb

Kerb rounds off the peaks so your mix gets louder without pumping: 4x oversampled so it stays clean, a Ceiling it never passes, and Shape from soft to hard. It's also free on its own, as a stand-alone plugin.

The controls

Drive

How hard you push into the clipper: more drive, louder and more clipped.

Ceiling

The highest level out: it never passes it.

Shape

From a soft, rounded curve to a firm, hard edge.

Mix

Blend the clipped sound with the original.

Best for

• The mix bus: loudness without a limiter's pumping
• Drums: tame the peaks and add density
• 808s and bass: harmonics that read on small speakers
• Before a limiter: take the peaks first

Starting points

Load Kerb, set these, then adjust by ear. In the plugin, Level match helps you judge the sound, not the loudness.

Hints and tips

• Clip 1 to 3 dB of peaks on the mix bus for loudness that still sounds open.
• Softer Shape is more transparent; harder is punchier and more aggressive.
• Use Mix for parallel clipping on drums.

Chains it works best in

Every Original works in a chain with the others and with members' hardware. These are good places to start.

• Mortar then Kerb: glue then a clean ceiling on the mix bus
• Kerb then Waver: crunchy, lo-fi drums
• Mutone then Kerb: warm glue with a safe ceiling

Watch out for

• Clipping more than about 4 dB on a full mix: it starts to sound distorted. Back off Drive.