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#91
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Re: Best Recording Levels
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#92
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Re: Best Recording Levels
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G |
#93
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Re: Best Recording Levels
When you record "hot" with an analog recorder, you are saturating the tape long before you are clipping the line stage. On the other hand with all but the highest-end digital devices there is little or no analog headroom available above full sample. The 6 to 10 dB. just below chipping of most transistor and IC stages tend to sound stressed and harsh.
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#94
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Re: Best Recording Levels
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He is thinking that the noise floor from a mic preamp and mic is CONSTANT regardless of gain settings on the mic preamp. BUT!!! we all know, that the noise floor of the mic preamp COMES UP as you turn the gain of the mic preamp up. So his description is correct, but he needs to apply it to the mic preamp, not to the fader inside the daw. For example... he says... Quote:
Regardless of where you record an instrument, the noise floor from the acoustic space (heat/AC) and mic and preamp will always be louder than the 24bit recording medium's inherent noise. Turning up the preamps to make the recording "hotter" into the DAW will only make the Acoustic Space/Mic/Preamp noise louder. It will do nothing to help your SNR, but it will open up the potential for harmonic distortion from clipping the outputs of your converters and plugins later on in the process. Emcha... try this... make a 24 bit recording with a very wide range preamp like a Neve 1073 or Millennia HV3. Set the gain as low as possible... plug in a condensor mic. Record maybe 30 seconds of silence in your normal studio space. Then turn the mic preamp up as loud as it will go. Record silence again. Now compare the noise floor of the two recordings... which one is noisier? By your description, they should have the same level of noise, since you can only add noise by turning up the track AFTER it has been recorded. But you can clearly hear that isn't the case. So by turning up the preamp, you are NOT increasing signal to noise ratio, you are destroying it since the space/mic/preamp is noisier than the 24bit daw's converters. Make sense? In the days of recording with tape, where the SNR was usually around 70~85dB, the mic preamp's noise was masked by the noise of the tape medium. So in order to get the best SNR you could turn the mic preamp up and the mic preamp's noise wouldn't be heard. Now that is irrelevant since the recording medium is so much quieter than the acoustic space and electronics that come before it. And I suggest to you, that if you are recording a violin at any level and you need to crank the volume for it to be heard in the mix, then the mic isn't placed correctly or the player is playing at the wrong dynamic and you need to do another take... turning up the mic preamp isn't necessarily the answer. The best way to get a great SNR, is to place the mic correctly for the instrument you are recording. Not to record into your daw as hot as electronically possible.
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Derek Jones Sound Engineer / Producer / Composer Derek Jones Linkedin Megatrax Recording Studios Megatrax Studios Yelp Page A-list Music Artist Page |
#95
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Re: Best Recording Levels
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#96
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Re: Best Recording Levels
But if your cat has a faulty psu and you record it as hot as you can by overdriving your mic-pre, it sounds exactly the same as a show dog eating a chain saw!
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#97
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Re: Best Recording Levels
Hi friends ...
I was a product specialist for Digi/Avid for 9 years and have published a great series on recording/mixing/pro tools ... AND have looked into this topic. In short: go for hitting around -6 or even -10 (more if you have a spastic dynamic player/singer) and don't worry about it. Depending on your converters you're usually getting over 100db signal to noise ... much more in newer systems ... up to 120db. The best analogue (SSL with Studer) were in the high 70's to low 80's. It's so nice to have the headroom and really takes a lot of the worry out of it. Cheers, Ken Wanna go pro? =) http://secretsofthepros.com/ProMix.html |
#98
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Re: Best Recording Levels
Have a look at http://www.audiotechnology.com.au/ma.../at80-out-now/, click on the online magazine, go to page 52 "Too low for zero".
Nothing more to say. J.
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2010 Dolphin Award for Production / Engineering AVID Certified Instructor |
#99
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Re: Best Recording Levels
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http://www.prosoundweb.com/article/h..._in_the_world/
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James Cadwallader Mac Studio, 64GB RAM, 1 TB SSD, Glyph 2TB USB3 HDD, OWC drive dock, Mac OS Monterey 12.6.8 Pro Tools Ultimate 2023.9, HD Native, Focusrite Red 8Pre Presonus Faderport, Pro Tools | Control |
#100
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Re: Best Recording Levels
... one last thing ... the issues of acoustics is FAR more important to a good recording and this is so often overlooked. Plus I would bet that if you did a true A/B X test of signals recorded at -6, -18, and -24 with levels matched you wouldn't be able to tell the difference.
Check out Ready Acoustics for some killer cheap and VERY effective panels ... a few of these where you're recording will make way more difference. Music! =)
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