Clipper

Name: Clipper
Author: Kilohearts

by Kilohearts · Clipper · Free clipper / snap-in

vst3s Score 7.7/10 · rated #9 of 10 clippers

A free clipper in the Kilohearts Essentials bundle with a simple control for moving between soft and hard clipping.

It also works as a snap-in inside Phase Plant, Multipass and Snap Heap, which makes it popular with sound designers and bass music producers.

Best for: Sound Design, Drums, Bass, Keys & Synths. Genres: Electronic & EDM, Hip-Hop & Trap.

Keywords: bass, drums, hard clip, sound design, free, samples & loops, simple, synths, mixing, single-band, visual feedback.

What it does

Kilohearts' Clipper, released in March 2025, is a free tool for "razor-sharp per-sample clipping", from trimming peaks for headroom to deliberate distortion.

Controls: In Gain, Threshold (set on the waveform display), Knee and Out Gain.
Knee: softens the clipping to reduce the high-frequency artefacts of hard clipping; at zero it's a hard clipper.
a normal plugin in any DAW, and a Snapin inside Kilohearts' Phase Plant, Multipass and Snap Heap.
Price: free, as part of Kilohearts Essentials.

Source: Kilohearts product page

When to use it

Clipper is the simplest plugin here, and its big advantage is working inside Kilohearts' modular hosts, where you can modulate it and stack it with other snap-ins. For mastering, StandardCLIP or Free Clip 2 give more control over oversampling and clipping curves.

Best for: sound design, drums, bass and synths, especially in bass music and hip-hop.
Tip: pushed hard on a spiky 808 or kick, it adds body and harmonics and makes the sound more tonal.

What producers say

The release got wide coverage as a free, no-frills clipper.

Bedroom Producers Blog highlighted how it adds distortion, harmonics and body, particularly on drums.
Sound On Sound covered its launch as a free per-sample clipper for any DAW.
Note: Kilohearts doesn't list oversampling options for it.

Where to buy

Kilohearts: Free (Free with a Kilohearts account)

Tutorials and reviews

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