recording levels

[Graeme Oxby]

Hi folks

can you tell me if by inserting a plug in (software) compressor on a channel during recording actually records that audio compressed or is it just compressed on playback.

IE I want to max amount of signal to noise without peaking and without going through an external hardwrare device.

Thanks

Graeme [img]images/icons/confused.gif[/img]

[j old school]

If you have a plugin on the actual audio track, than you are not recording the compression, you are compressing the output signal of that track. If you want to do that, route the input to an aux track, and add the plugin to the aux track. Then bus the aux track to an audio track. That way, the signal reaching the audio track's input will be compressed, and recorded that way.

[Mark Staples]

I've actually done it that way, but I found that I gain no real benefit because it's still post-converter.

Your BEST solution is to add compression before the converter. That way you get the hotter signal and the fatness of the analog compressor.

[j old school]

That does makes sense - I have an outboard compressor in between pre and 001, so I never had to try it all within protools. I don't think it can be done without outboard gear.

[JMS40]

Hi Jonah-
You can choose how much Normalizing you'd like.
My advise is to make sure you leave room to peak well below zero for tracks that will have additional processing.
The only time I Norm to zero is on a final master ready to burn.

[Jonah]

Hi JMS
I geuss that's what I meant but didn't make it too clear. To clarify, I record everything and when I'm in the final mix, I normalize before I compress. Thanks for pointing that out.

[JMS40]

Hi again Jonah-
We're on the same page.
I just wanted to point out for Graeme that you can set Normal so it peaks at any point you'd like below zero.
Can come in handy tweaking levels for individual tracks.
Good luck-

[msenger69]

Silly question here, but is there a little headroom between when the meters go red and the sound actually distorts? If so, how much? Thanks!
--Mark

[Mark Staples]

Meters go red, you're in distortion. Actually, you should leave at least .3db of headroom and never go to zero.

[QuikDraw]

Originally posted by Mark Staples:
Meters go red, you're in distortion. Actually, you should leave at least .3db of headroom and never go to zero.

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Actually, the red meter doesn't literally mean "distortion", nor does it mean "clipping". What the red indicates in PT is that a certain number of consecutive samples were full scale. If I remember correctly, it's 3 full scale samples in a row will cause the red indicator. That is most likely a clipped waveform, and most likely distorted since true flat-top signals are rare in nature (or the studio). But it is not absolutely, for sure, clipped or distorted just because 3 consecutive samples happen to be full scale.

But, even still, it's a bad thing to see the red ever in a digital audio recording system.

Mike