i get this error while encoding some files

WARNING:
There still occured 2 SCF clippings due to a restriction of StreamVersion 7.
Use the '--scale' method to avoid additional distortions. Note that this
file already has annoying distortions due to slovenly CD mastering.


what should i do?

thank you!

add --xlevel to a command line

There already was --xlevel, otherwise warning wouldn't have looked like that. I wouldn't worry about internal clipping as most likely that is totally inaudible.

This problem will be solved in SV8, though I've not encoded such overcompressed/distorted albums yet.

You don't state if you were just encoding WAVs or ripping (e.g. with EAC), but it's possible to apply some negative gain before encoding to Musepack (e.g. using Wavgain), making sure you add dither in the process. This will marginally increase the noise floor if you stick to 16-bit, but not if you increase to 24-bit PCM. However, adding --scale to the commandline as advised, also changes the loudness uniformly with no requantization to 16-bits involved, so would be preferred. If you're ripping an album, you can use the same commandline --scale setting for the whole album and note it in the comments tag (and using EAC it will also be in the log file).

However, Case is probably right that the effects of internal clipping are unlikely to be audible against what must be a pretty munged-up sound on the original CD at those points.

Something I did recently for a different reason was to compress to Monkey's Audio .APE (lossless) with APEv2 tags then use foobar2000 player's "Convert" diskwriter with ReplayGain enabled (Album Gain), DSP disabled and Case's foo_clienc.dll to send 24-bit dithered output to the command line encoder, mppenc v1.14 to encode it. This transfers all valid tagging, so it doesn't transfer the ReplayGain info, which you'd need to scan for after encoding the MPCs anyway. I think Case's foo_mppenc plugin would also work (possibly feeding fb2k's internal floating point signal directly to the encoder) but I was happy to consistently use mppenc 1.14 for that task.

i was ripping a cd with EAC...
should i do something or forget it at all?

thank you!

Since you already use --xlevel, you don't have to worry. Like the warning message said, these songs will already suffer from mastering "mistakes" like overcompression (they aren't really mistakes, since sadly, they're intentional). Thus, the remaining scalefactor clippings are inaudible, especially if there are a mere 2 clippings like with your file...

Is this internal clipping encoding error sometimes occurring even with xlevel inherrent to mpc or other lossy encoders as well??

I have been switching to ogg whenever this occurred, but if it's the case that they are all the same then why bother.

As the error message says, SCF clipping is a limitation of MPC StreamVersion 7 format, and it is hardly relevant because source CD must have been heavily clipped already for this to trigger, which is typical for some of recently released CDs. It is as if you were encoding from lossy/pre-clipped source, and expecting non-glitched results.
No, --xlevel does not fix this problem.

I think, I got this warning only with 1 album so far, that was Red Hot Chili Peppers - 2003 or 2004 - Greatest Hits, or it was Red Hot Chili Peppers - Californication , excuse my unexact memory .
Both albums are sadly overcompressed, and too loud, lacking dynamics, replaygain album values of -11 db or such.
So, this warning should not let feel you uncomfortable about the mpc technics, it should let worry you about the mastering of the album...

I just got this error today, so I tried adding "--scale" but it produced files at 3.4 kbps! I'm not sure about this, but is there a way to avoid the clipping? I am using 1.15v.

Read the thread, then read your sig.