USB Mic Volume/Clipping Issues

[Darryl Ramm]

I think this microphone has some kind of hardware monitoring. Right?

What I suspect you are doing is getting yourself confused by that hardware monitoring in this microphone. Everything is *insanely loud* while you are tracking because you have the hardware monitoring turned up. And you may also be software monitoring through Pro Tools which will add to that level, if so you'll hear a slight echo/reverb because of the mix of hardware and software monitoring. If you enable LLM that should bypass software monitoring for that track. If you are only software monitoring though Pro Tools you'll hear a slight delay that increases as you increase the H/W Buffer size.

Presumably hardware monitoring volume level is set by the knob on the mic and hopefully that has nothing to do with the playback level from Pro Tools. And hopefully the user manual for the mic makes all this clear. But start by doing an exercise where you use only hardware monitoring and where you use only Pro Tools software monitoring and get totally comfortable with working either way. You will not make good progress until you understand this stuff.

[Reziak]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

Bluetooth earphones? or Wired earphones? connected to the Mac? (but you say you are not using aggregate I/O as the playback engine?)

- or Wired earphones connected to the Microphone output socket?

What *exactly* are you doing? We cannot guess.

And the input level in dbFS measured on the input track... if your input is clipping then the meter that will show that is the track input meter when you are in pre fader mode. Which is why I am asking for that.

You start by not clipping on the input and then not clipping output is just all software, settings in Pro Tools. Pull the track level down by adjusting it's fader gain, clip gain, plugin settings etc. but if you are a beginner you should probably not be tracking with plugins/or playing back through them until you get this sorted out. You control the level/perceived volume of the track by adjusting the track fader (which should not make any change to the meter on the track, as you should be in pre-fader metering while tracking) and a master fader that you can put on the output. Your sessions while working stuff out should be super simple, one or two tracks and a master fader track as well, no plugins.

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The loud noise is feedback. Totally expected when you put mics in front of monitors playing back the mic signal. You might make much faster progress if you read a book on basic audio engineering. Like https://www.amazon.com/Recording-Eng.../dp/B01MY9ZP2W or take a course like https://www.artandscienceofsound.com.

Wired earphones plugged into my laptop.

I'm rapping into a microphone which is connected into my laptop via USB while listening to myself through wired earphones connected into the laptop. After finishing my recording, I play the recording back and listen to vocal recording with my wired earphones which are plugged into my laptop.

I tried raising the gain down through the dbFS before recording. It made the recording not clip, but when I brought the levels back up through compression and eq, I start clipping at extremely low volume (moreso compared to the phone recordings I've recorded my rapping into and then inserted into Pro Tools and then mixed etc). So my thought is that this must be some kind of strange input issue. But maybe there's some random thing I'm not doing that I'm forgetting or something related to the Mic settings or based on how the Mic interacts with Pro Tools when it's plugged into my Laptop via USB

[Reziak]

Originally Posted by Darryl Ramm

I think this microphone has some kind of hardware monitoring. Right?

What I suspect you are doing is getting yourself confused by that hardware monitoring in this microphone. Everything is *insanely loud* while you are tracking because you have the hardware monitoring turned up. And you may also be software monitoring through Pro Tools which will add to that level, if so you'll hear a slight echo/reverb because of the mix of hardware and software monitoring. If you enable LLM that should bypass software monitoring for that track. If you are only software monitoring though Pro Tools you'll hear a slight delay that increases as you increase the H/W Buffer size.

Presumably hardware monitoring volume level is set by the knob on the mic and hopefully that has nothing to do with the playback level from Pro Tools. And hopefully the user manual for the mic makes all this clear. But start by doing an exercise where you use only hardware monitoring and where you use only Pro Tools software monitoring and get totally comfortable with working either way. You will not make good progress until you understand this stuff.

My Microphone only has an on/off switch. The only knob on my mic is an on/off switch. I just now noticed a little rolling function on the bottom of it which looks like something you can control volume with, except it seems to roll back into its original position both ways you roll/slide it.

I'll mess around with LLM and see how that goes.

[Reziak]

I noticed just now when opening up the Sound Preferences to adjust my output volume that I have External Microphone - Microphone Port which seems to be separate from my AT2005 as my AT2005 has Input and Output settings that are separate from "External Microphone". Could this have anything to do with the issue?

[Reziak]

Yep. Solved. That was the issue. For some reason, adjusting input levels on "AT2005USB" in Sound Preferences doesn't do anything, but it does on "External Microphone" which honestly I don't even think was there before. Very weird. Thanks for everyone's help tho. If I run into anymore issues regarding clipping I'll come back. I appreciate everything.

[Reziak]

Okay yeah so basically even tho I fixed the input issue and it no longer records at very high volume, it still clips at extremely low volume. Like, insanely low volume. Doesn't make any sense. On the compression levels meter, it shows the levels of the vocals going from -2 to around -10 depending on which part of the vocal it's picking up. But yet the entire vocal track is insanely low volume.

I found a workaround through the Audio Volume Indicator/Pop-Up Fader. I turned the gain from there to max volume (12 db) and it helped boost up the volume of the vocals without it clipping anywhere. Only problem is that it's still kinda quiet since I was only able to go up to 12 db. I did turn my Mic's input volume to like 25% from Sound Preferences when I recorded tho once I figured that out. Would maybe increasing it to like 40% fix this?

[its2loud]

Originally Posted by Reziak

My Microphone only has an on/off switch. The only knob on my mic is an on/off switch. I just now noticed a little rolling function on the bottom of it which looks like something you can control volume with, except it seems to roll back into its original position both ways you roll/slide it.

I'll mess around with LLM and see how that goes.

If you just now noticed the volume control on the microphone then you clearly did not read the manual thoroughly.

Plugging your headphones into the laptop is not the way to use this mic.

I suspect that do not have the proper playback engine selected in Pro Tools and I doubt you have proper routing setup at all.



While I applaud your endeavor into the audio world, as suggested, maybe look for some You Tube videos on basic recording or even using that mic with Pro Tools.

[Darryl Ramm]

Originally Posted by Reziak

Okay yeah so basically even tho I fixed the input issue and it no longer records at very high volume, it still clips at extremely low volume. Like, insanely low volume. Doesn't make any sense. On the compression levels meter, it shows the levels of the vocals going from -2 to around -10 depending on which part of the vocal it's picking up. But yet the entire vocal track is insanely low volume.

I found a workaround through the Audio Volume Indicator/Pop-Up Fader. I turned the gain from there to max volume (12 db) and it helped boost up the volume of the vocals without it clipping anywhere. Only problem is that it's still kinda quiet since I was only able to go up to 12 db. I did turn my Mic's input volume to like 25% from Sound Preferences when I recorded tho once I figured that out. Would maybe increasing it to like 40% fix this?

44.5% will fix it exactly... how the hell would anybody know? For the third time what is the track input level in dBFS in pre-fader mode? One simple question, input clipping... input too quiet... blah blah blah... give us the frigging number. You start by setting this level, around -12 dBFS peaks are a great place to be to avoid clipping and to avoid noisy cheap preamp issues in the mic. You should not be trying to set the output volume by turning up preamp gain.

Floundering around is likely to continue unless you change how you are working and trying to learn, get at least a 2i2 interface, get off Pro Tools First at least onto Pro Tools Intro, or Reaper, or Garage Band, or any number of other great DAWs, but anything other than the horrible work-eating garbage crippleware that was Pro Tools First, and find and follow some beginners tutorials for recording vocals with the DAW you end up with.

[TJ Allen]

In addition to the specific values Darryl is asking for, I wonder if a pertinent question here might be what are you rapping over, musically speaking? Is it a pre-mixed/mastered ‘beat’ from a Producer/YouTube? The reason I’m asking this is that these are often incredibly loud, so in relation to a raw vocal, it would seem that your vocal is very quiet, and when trying to compete with the track, you are having to push it into the red, which is causing the clipping that you are hearing.

If that’s the case, it could well be worth dropping the level on the track to get a more useful blend between the two elements.

Just a thought.

[Reziak]

Originally Posted by TJ Allen

In addition to the specific values Darryl is asking for, I wonder if a pertinent question here might be what are you rapping over, musically speaking? Is it a pre-mixed/mastered ‘beat’ from a Producer/YouTube? The reason I’m asking this is that these are often incredibly loud, so in relation to a raw vocal, it would seem that your vocal is very quiet, and when trying to compete with the track, you are having to push it into the red, which is causing the clipping that you are hearing.

If that’s the case, it could well be worth dropping the level on the track to get a more useful blend between the two elements.

Just a thought.

I don't think this is it. I reduced the beat's volume by like -15 db. I made sure the beat was fine and wasn't clipping first and foremost and yeah, it's an instrumental type beat, pre-mixed. I think I just need to increase the input level of the mic through sound preferences and then I should be fine. I'll update you guys if any issues remain.