audacity clipping, how much is too much

[devin171moto]

I just put most of my rebass music through audacity to check for clipping. and found that about 1/3 of the songs are clipped. they range from 1 or two red lines on the file all the way to what visually looks like quite alot. where the whole file is striped red. my question. how much is too much. or is it not as simple as scanning with audacity's tool.

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[devin171moto]

I set my gains super conservatively and it was driving me crazy why I was still smelling coil at high volume. also. the subs don't seem to excurt nearly as much as they did when they were new. so. hopefully they aren't on the way out already. they don't seem as loud as they once were but that could just be me getting used to them

 

[THATpurpleKUSH 5,000+ posts]

All that red is bad from what I remember. Its been 8 years since I used that program but I rebassed a couple of my own songs and any kind of clipping is bad.

Edit: you should be able to zoom in and see how much of the wavelength has been chopped flat. The wider the flat part, the longer duration of clip and the more potential to build excess heat in the coil.