Best Recording Levels

[Emcha_audio]

Originally Posted by Picture Start

You are talking about leakage and not recording system noise, in the case of digital: quantization distortion in the LSBs and the actual noise floor of your analog signal paths, all measurable and specified. Your whole parable about chimes and violins is valid... But for another discussion. This is about recording levels with respect to the myth that you need to engage all 24-bits in the system in order to get good sound as well as how hot the signals hitting the pro tools mix bus should be. the answer to both is: not as hot as some people think.

The chimes are an example that if you actually read carefully I say "now if those chimes were interferences.." and later very much specify also psu. Those are not leakage my friend. Some of the noises inbued by the system will not confine themselves to oh -120dbfs. I've unfortunately worked on a hd 4 system once, that some of the components were inducing a regular interference noise straight at -49 db consistently, and that was related to the computer psu issue. Luckily enough after the contract was done I helped the person actually locate what was happening and he changed psu and it was good after that. But many of the interference that you may come across will no sit so low in the DB as you may think. SO even if you have a extremely low noise floor, that is in no way a guarantee that you will be safe from any and all of interference. As for quality, it's all in the ears. If when you do your setup and your musician is playing as you are doing your mic placement, you notice that it doesn't sound good due to the pres overloading, you always have time to tone back a bit how hot you are working.

[Greg Malcangi]

Originally Posted by Emcha_audio

But many of the interference that you may come across will no sit so low in the DB as you may think. SO even if you have a extremely low noise floor, that is in no way a guarantee that you will be safe from any and all of interference.

The vast majority of interference in any decent system occurs before the signal hits the mic-pre and therefore turning up the mic pre does nothing to improve the SNR.

Originally Posted by Emcha_audio

If when you do your setup and your musician is playing as you are doing your mic placement, you notice that it doesn't sound good due to the pres overloading, you always have time to tone back a bit how hot you are working.

I'm not talking about red-lining or completely overloading a mic-pre, although that is a possibility. I'm talking about subtle harmonic distortions which maybe almost unnoticeable during tracking but adds up during mixing to produce a harsh digital sounding mix, great for some genres but not what is usually required with a violin for example.

G

[Bob Olhsson]

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.

[O.G. Killa]

Originally Posted by Emcha_audio

Usually (unless you have a [bleep][bleep][bleep][bleep]ty system) "noise" will be in the range of -50 and lower dbu.

If you record a Violin again (yes I love violins) at -4 dbu, then your "noise" is still at -50 dbu. Which is louder? easy right? the violin ofcrouse. Now if you raise the violin to -2dbu what happened? You only raised the "noise" to -48 dbu.

ON THE OTHER HAND..... tadadaaaam

If you record your violin at -20 dbu ... then your "noise" is still at -50 dbu. The violin is still louder but the differences between sound to noise will be significantly lower, and you will probably want to raise your violin higher, and if you raise it to -2dbu, then you also raise the "noise" to -32 dbu. That is a very, very large mark up for the "noise". Which will be made even worse as you use compression to lessen the dynamic range of your violin so you can boost it more because you tracked it to low.

Now I hope this little imagery clears things up a bit more why it's better to track hot.

This is the problem with his thinking and why he is being led astray.

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...

f you record a Violin again (yes I love violins) at -4 dbu, then your "noise" is still at -50 dbu. Which is louder? easy right? the violin ofcrouse. Now if you raise the violin to -2dbu what happened? You only raised the "noise" to -48 dbu.

But by TURNING UP the mic preamp by 2dBu to make the violin go from -4dBu to -2dBu, he is raising the noisefloor up to -48dBu BEFORE IT EVER HITS THE DAW. And that is where his "idea" is falling apart. Because he thinks that you can turn a violin up at a mic preamp and not increase the noise floor. Which is false.

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.

[Picture Start]

Originally Posted by Emcha_audio

The chimes are an example that if you actually read carefully I say "now if those chimes were interferences.." and later very much specify also psu. Those are not leakage my friend. Some of the noises inbued by the system will not confine themselves to oh -120dbfs. I've unfortunately worked on a hd 4 system once, that some of the components were inducing a regular interference noise straight at -49 db consistently, and that was related to the computer psu issue. Luckily enough after the contract was done I helped the person actually locate what was happening and he changed psu and it was good after that. But many of the interference that you may come across will no sit so low in the DB as you may think. SO even if you have a extremely low noise floor, that is in no way a guarantee that you will be safe from any and all of interference. As for quality, it's all in the ears. If when you do your setup and your musician is playing as you are doing your mic placement, you notice that it doesn't sound good due to the pres overloading, you always have time to tone back a bit how hot you are working.

Your re-explanation still has nothing to do with the topic of this thread, however valid it may be. This discussion has nothing to do with interference, crosstalk, PSU noise or anything electrical. It is purely to discuss whether or not you need (or should) "hit" a digital recorder with a hot signal. The same goes for a digital mixing environment. I'm not saying you are wrong—I'm saying you are talking about cats at a dog show.

[Greg Malcangi]

Originally Posted by Picture Start

I'm not saying you are wrong—I'm saying you are talking about cats at a dog show.

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!

[booter]

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

[janmuths]

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.

[Top Jimmy]

Originally Posted by janmuths

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.

Having cut my teeth in the trade some 30+ years ago, I will attest to the fact that the issue existed and had negative ramifications even before digital came to market.

http://www.prosoundweb.com/article/h..._in_the_world/

[booter]

... 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! =)