What does the True Peak warning mean?

When you upload a track, ReelCrafter measures its loudness and its true peak. If you see an orange warning next to the True Peak value, it means the track goes louder than full scale, even though nothing in your waveform looks like it’s clipping.

That sounds like a contradiction. It isn’t, and it’s one of the most confusing things in digital audio.

Jump to: Sample peak vs. true peak · Where it causes problems · How to fix it · Do I need to re-render everything? · Turning off the warning · Common questions

Sample peak vs. true peak

A digital audio file is a series of individual measurements called samples. That’s what your DAW draws on screen, and what a normal peak meter reads.

But samples aren’t what you hear. When your file reaches a speaker, headphones, or a phone, the converter draws a smooth curve through those samples to rebuild the original sound. And that curve can bulge above the highest sample it passes through.

So both of these can be true at the same time:

No sample in your file exceeds -1 dBFS ✓
The sound coming out of the speaker exceeds 0 dB ✗

That overshoot is called an inter-sample peak, and measuring it is what “true peak” (dBTP) means. It’s invisible on a waveform display at any normal zoom level. The only way to see it is to measure it.

Where it causes problems

On playback. Some converters handle a signal above full scale gracefully. Cheaper gear like phones, laptops, budget interfaces, and car stereos can distort at those moments. Whether anyone hears it depends entirely on what they’re listening on, which is exactly the thing you can’t control when you’re sending work to a client.

When your file gets encoded. This is the bigger one, and it’s specific to how ReelCrafter works. When you upload a WAV, we create a 256 kbps MP3 for streaming so your reels load quickly. Lossy formats like MP3 and AAC don’t reproduce a waveform exactly. They rebuild it, and that rebuilt waveform can peak higher than your original.

The practical effect: a peak that was hiding safely between samples in your WAV can become a real, clipped sample in the MP3. We’ve seen tracks with zero clipped samples in the source file come out of encoding with samples over full scale. Every streaming service does the same thing with their own codecs, which is why they all publish a true peak ceiling.

How to fix it

Leave a little headroom, measured in true peak rather than sample peak.

The industry standard is -1.0 dBTP, recommended across streaming platforms specifically to give encoders room to work.

Most limiters can do this, but the setting is often off by default and separate from the output ceiling:

Open the limiter on your master bus
Look for a True Peak option. It may be called “true peak limiting,” “inter-sample peak detection,” or “ISP”
Turn it on
Set your ceiling to -1.0 dBTP
Re-render and re-upload

If your limiter has no true peak mode, setting the ceiling to around -1.5 dBFS gets you most of the way there. It’s not as precise, but it leaves enough room that inter-sample peaks rarely cross the line.

If you already set your ceiling to -1 dBFS, you’re close. Switch the meter from sample peak to true peak and you’re good to go.

To swap in the corrected master without losing your snippets, tags, and reel placements, use Replace audio file instead of uploading it as a new track.

Do I need to re-render everything?

Probably not. A small overage, a couple of tenths of a dB in one or two spots, is very unlikely to be audible to anyone. If your track is finished, mixed the way you want, and already out in the world, this isn’t a reason to redo it.

It’s worth acting on when:

The overage is large (more than about 1 dB above the ceiling)
It happens throughout the track rather than in one spot
You’re delivering to a client, a library, or a streaming platform with specs
You’re still working on the master anyway

The warning is just a heads-up for your next render.

Turning off the warning

If you’d rather not see it, you can turn the True Peak warning off in Account Preferences, under the Audio tab. ReelCrafter still measures true peak, it just won’t flag it.

Common questions

Why do I see a True Peak warning when my waveform doesn’t clip?

Your waveform shows samples, but the sound rebuilt from those samples can rise above the highest sample between them. That overshoot is an inter-sample peak, and it’s invisible on a waveform at any normal zoom. See Sample peak vs. true peak.

What true peak ceiling should I use?

-1.0 dBTP is the standard recommended across streaming platforms. It leaves encoders enough room that inter-sample peaks don’t turn into clipped samples in the MP3.

Does Peak Normalization fix a True Peak warning?

Not reliably. Peak Normalization targets sample peak in dBFS, not true peak, so it can lower your overall level but won’t specifically catch inter-sample peaks. The dependable fix is true peak limiting in your DAW, then re-uploading with Replace file.

Will my client actually hear distortion?

Maybe, maybe not. It depends entirely on what they’re listening on. Better converters handle overshoot cleanly, while phones, laptops, and car stereos can distort. Since you can’t control the playback device, leaving true peak headroom is the safe move.