“A lot of times they won’t redo it. You could be like ‘oh, that clipped a little bit’, and they’re just gonna look at you like, ‘tough’”: How Beyoncé’s clipped vocal recordings ended up on the Queens Remix of Break My Soul

Beyonce.

If you make a vocal recording and find that the level was too hot and it clipped, the sensible thing to do - particularly in the digital realm - is simply go for another take. Prevention is better than cure and all that.

In the case of the Queens Remix of Beyoncé’s Break My Soul, however, mixing engineer Stuart White has revealed that, when the star was recording her vocal parts, she was working at such speed that several clipped recordings made it onto the final track. In fact, he says, with time always of the essence when working in the studio with major artists, this isn’t uncommon.