Musicians Collaboration Studio
How To => Production Tips and Tricks! => Topic started by: Basil on September 04, 2008, 09:00:29 AM
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I realize you don't want any level to go past 0 when recording however I don't know what the preferrded method is.
When recording vocals do you want a wave form that goes almost up to the top (Hot Signal) of the graph without getting clipped or is it ok to have it set at a much lower ( Mild Signal) level just incase you need the extra room for some peaks?
How low of a level is acceptable?
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Basil,
In general - If you are recording 24bit, -6 is plenty. That takes into consideration the your source is good (low signal to noise ratio)
At 16 bit, as hot as you can get it without clipping. I'd aim closer to -3.
Nick
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Just the info I was looking for. :)
Thanks Nick.
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One thing that's always a bug bear of mne when mixing other peoples tracks is how low a level some of them record stuff at, and I have to really boost it up which can bring up the noise floor.
I'm talking tracks recorded at -15 to -20 db's PEAK :o
Check your gain structures guys it can make a huge difference in sound quality :)
ok.... I'll get off my soapbox now >:D
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Hi CD,
That's interesting.
I've been recording with a high level and it always seems that I peak out.
That's why I was wondering about recording at lower levels.
Question....if you record at lower levels can you take the track and render it as a seperate wave file and than boost the levels back to where they should be ?
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Hi CD,
That's interesting.
I've been recording with a high of a level and it always seems that I peak out.
That's why I was wondering about recording at lower levels.
Question....if you record at lower levels can you take the track and render it as a seperate wave file and than boost the levels back to where they should be ?
You can but ou're just rasing the noise floor too, sothe signal to noise ratio will be worse than if you recorded it loud enough to begin with.
I guess if it's a pop or rock mix and the track is never exposed you wouldn't notice, but you would on a more acoustic track.
Alot of pre-amps include a limiter to stop this..I think most DAWs have soft-clipping now too, but it's a bad habit to run it into the read all the while too.
CD
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It was a big change for me when I started using hardware compression on tracking. I need a little help to create a track without too much change in dynamics.