I've been recording using my new iMac, and for now Garage Band. (In the next few weeks I’ll either get Pro-Tools of Pro-Logic.) The recording has been going great with Garage band BUT this evening I transferred the tunes "automatically" to iTunes and when I loaded my iPOD the tunes played on the iPOD sound terrible, it sounds like Clipping. (Click, click, distort, click) When I was recording the tracks I ran them as hot as I could to get a nice strong single and leveled them to JUST hit the clip light during the maximum volume hit. I didn't hear any clipping through my studio monitors however it seems that once the tracks were compacted to MP3 format and transferred to the iPOD the clicks and over drive is everywhere.

My hard drive recorder never really had this issue. Do you guys think the issue I'm seeing is in fact clipping? Are computer recording programs very sensitive to clipping?

GOD I hope I don't have to re-record everything!!

Advice is VERY welcome!!

Digital is different than analog... stay well clear of clipping and you'll be fine. What you describe sounds like digital clipping, not a nice sound...
Don't worry about the signal being too low: as long as you record at 24 bit it's not an issue.
How does the song sounds in GB after lowering the levels in the mixer? If it sounds good it might be something else.

I'm writing from work now so won't be able to experiment until I get home. My concern is if it clipped while I actually recorded the parts then I may need to re-record them. Also I was reading the Garage Band documentation about monitoring and feedback. I was monitoring through my studio speakers (except when recording vocals) and got a few feedback warnings where Garage band turned off my monitoring. Because I didn't hear anything I recognized as feedback I turned on the monitors. Now reading the section on feedback they say feedback can be distortion and clicking which is what I heard once the songs were converted to my iPod. I'm afraid my tracks may be trash because of "feedback." Bummer ... I recorded 5 complete tunes that may need to be totally re-recorded.
............ Oh well, if so I have to grin and bare it and accept it as part of the learning curve.

Funny thing is I didn't have these issues with my 2001 Korg digital hard drive recorder. Apparently it was far more forgiving when it came to stuff like this.

That may very well be the case: so was my Yamaha AW4416 recorder. I guess at that time they were still taking into account about "old school" guys like me, who were used to pushing levels going to tape

Right, there just isn't much headroom to play with in the digital domain. With tape you can saturate it with hot levels, but it took me awhile to stop doing that when I went digital.

I still use an old Otari MX-70 16-track 1-inch tape deck to record drums, then mix that down before I bring it into Logic... there's nothing like tape for proper drum sound!

Kris

If your software has it, put a limiter on the final mix buss and set it for
a -0.4 db or so. A decent limiter will catch it. Sometimes what hapens is if the signal is a fast transient (like a string click) and is heading to the zero mark (or just shy) the D/A convertors in the playback devide will over-shoot and cause clipping as well. Of corse if the clipping is happening while recording, the damage is already done....

Good practice to track ~ 6 db down from 0 - gives you some room to massage the track down the line....

Dave

Surprising update ... my tracks are fine! Apparently the tracks are perhaps a little to RICH and it's over loading the CAR iPOD ADAPTER i have sending the single to the radio. When i listen to the tunes on iTunes OR my iPOD using the ear buds the songs sound great! Plus checking the tracks I avoided clipping 99% of the time so that apparently wasn't an issue.

I simply need to remix the tracks and perhaps make the bottom a little more neutral. (I come from a bass background and like RICH bottom ... perhaps a little too rich!)

So thank you all for your advice but apparently the issue is simply my iPOD/Car adapter being over loaded.

Ill probably BURN A CD and play it in my car to see what it sounds like bypassing the iPOD all together.

UPDATE ... I remastered 14 songs to assure no clipping and burnt them to CD. I don't know how the iPOD will sound yet but the CD sounds awesome! I love this software ... and currently I'm only using Garage Band. Pro-Logic or Pro-Tools here I come!!!

If there are still problems it could be due to subsonic frequencies in the recording. Just insert a high-pass filter on the master out (or if you know which track is causing the issue put it there) and roll it off below 20 or 30hz. Sometimes the low reqs. will play havoc on small playback devices...

Dave