One of the more frustrating moments in mastering is this: your track isn’t clipping in the DAW, the meters look clean, but after export—or once it hits a streaming platform—you’re suddenly seeing red. What happened?

The answer is often inter-sample peaking.

The Problem

Digital audio meters typically measure sample peaks—the highest individual samples in the waveform. But during playback, digital audio is reconstructed into a continuous analog signal. In that reconstruction process, the waveform can actually exceed 0 dBFS between samples, even if no single sample does.

Those hidden overs are called inter-sample peaks, and they can cause distortion during D/A conversion, encoding, or playback on consumer devices.

Why It Happens

When a signal is pushed close to 0 dBFS—especially after heavy limiting—the shape of the waveform becomes steep and dense. During playback, interpolation between samples can create peaks higher than the original digital ceiling.

This is especially common:

• After aggressive limiting
• During sample-rate conversion
• When encoding to lossy formats like MP3 or AAC
• On streaming platforms that apply their own processing

Why You Don’t Always Hear It

Inter-sample distortion can be subtle. Some converters handle it better than others, and some playback systems mask it entirely. But on lower-quality DACs, phones, or streaming encoders, it can translate into audible harshness or clipping—especially in transients like kicks, snares, and vocals.

How to Catch It

Standard peak meters won’t always show inter-sample peaks. To spot them, you need:

• True peak meters (set to oversample)
• Limiter plugins with true peak detection
• Offline analysis after rendering

True peak meters simulate the analog reconstruction process, revealing overs that sample meters miss.

How to Avoid It

The simplest solution is leaving headroom.

In mastering, that usually means:

• Limiting to around -1.0 dBTP for streaming delivery
• Using a true peak limiter as the final stage
• Avoiding excessive last-second loudness pushes

This small margin dramatically reduces the risk of distortion downstream.

The Bottom Line

Inter-sample peaking isn’t a mistake—it’s a byproduct of how digital audio is reconstructed in the real world. By understanding it and planning for it, you ensure your masters translate cleanly everywhere they’re played. Clean meters inside the DAW are only part of the story; what matters most is what happens after your audio leaves it.

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