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.

[Jonah]

You could use the normalise function to max up the signal (which if I'm right, brings all your peaks up to 0db ), or the gain function where you can set the amount of gain in Db. I prefer the normalise route - it sounds a little better.The problem with recording compression to max levels is that, well, it's recorded and your stuck with it!

[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.