Great Take.. Way in the Red

[augiealexander]

Captured a great Horn part on tape ,.. [img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif[/img] Okay, harddrive.

But it's very much in the red.
don't hear any distortion or unpleasant sounds.

Will I have any problems down the road?

[Zeus]

If I don't HEAR anything nasty, I simply pull down the channel fader to -0.1 or so. (To avoid the clipping red led in the meter.)

Z

[ill]

I've had some serious distortion after bouncing to an aiff file (main volume was peaking), when I bounced to an wav file, everything seemed to be ok ??????

I'm still a bit confused about that, and of what format best to use for a session ??

[Jordan V]

I'm also a little confused...
I've been recording vocals here and the singer has a fairly wide + high range - whenever she goes red on a take I've been re-adjusting the fader slightly - What is optimal ? Can it "touch" red if it doesn't stay there ?
If I don't hear distortion is the meter a
warning that it's getting close?; or is it telling me it's already too much ?
Thanks,

[The Geordie Dash]

Maybe I'm doing something wrong but as long as I don't hear anything wrong I pretty much don't care what the meters are saying. I was told that the louder you record digitally the more bits you are actually using so it should sound better. I find this particularly useful when applying a Rennaisance compressor across the master faders, with that plug in you can get fantastic levels to burn to CD. I've bounced whole tracks where it was literally pinned in the red, the finished CD sounded great without a bit of distortion. Pro-mastered CDs always sound louder and fatter, I'm sure those guys don't follow the level rules that are shown on the digi systems. I'm waiting for the angry replies of you mastering guys.........

[The Geordie Dash]

Maybe I'm doing something wrong but as long as I don't hear anything wrong I pretty much don't care what the meters are saying. I was told that the louder you record digitally the more bits you are actually using so it should sound better. I find this particularly useful when applying a Rennaisance compressor across the master faders, with that plug in you can get fantastic levels to burn to CD. I've bounced whole tracks where it was literally pinned in the red, the finished CD sounded great without a bit of distortion. Pro-mastered CDs always sound louder and fatter, I'm sure those guys don't follow the level rules that are shown on the digi systems. I'm waiting for the angry replies of you mastering guys.........

[Jorge442]

trust your ears
we won´t tell the ¨red light police¨

[img]images/icons/cool.gif[/img]

[Mr T]

Besides, have you checked wether your "high levelled" track is in pre or post fader
set up (just in case : Operations->Pre fader metering)?
Zeus's advice is good if you're in post fader set up. If you're in pre, it's too late, it's the recording level that was too high.
Anyway, I do agree with the others, if you don't hear any clipping or saturation, there's nothing wrong. Most of the tracks in my different songs are showing some of that red and it doesn't hurt at all !!!

[Paul Walker]

Ok, but what happens if you do hear some digital clipping, is there anything in Pro Tools LE you can do to rectify?

I have a great guitar part which is clipping, it was recorded in another DAW and later tranfered into PT.

THX's

Paul

[Bob Olhsson]

Distortion has a way of coming back and biting you in mixing and mastering even when it doesn't sound like a problem while tracking.

Certainly a great take that went over is well worth keeping if the performer can't do better but I would never assume that it won't be a problem and I would never fail to correct my levels for the next take.