Overloading DIGI 002

[GTBannah]

Hey, folk. Still in "transition mode". Do you find that DIGI's inputs get overloaded, unless the input signal is very low. I'm about to record some horns today, and I'm a bit apprehensive.

Any reassuring words?

Thanx!

[soundonsound]

No sure what the "best" solution might be for you but you could try
1. Move the mic's back.
2. Switch the inputs to be +4 on the back so the 002 is looking for a hotter signal and thus your input signal should come in lower than using the -10 input switch
3. Use an inline Pad if you still can't get enough gain reduction, do the Mic's have Pads on them?
there might be other solutions out there, but those are the first that come to my mind.

[kooz]

Are you trying to say that the signal from the mic pres is too hot? Send the Mic/Line inputs to a bus, and use that bus send as the input for an audio track, which you then record.

Bob's my uncle, but we call him Rob.

[Neale]

Uh, DEFINITELY options from reply number 1. If the mic pre is too hot, you're still overloading your input stage if you're just bussing that input to an audio track; you are simply lowering the gain on an already crappy signal at the bus stage.
If your mic pre has a meter, use it. Remember that you do NOT need to hit digital hard... "yellow is the new red". Peaking should go into yellow, like at most -6dB or so on your level meters, not even CLOSE to 0. Your A/D just doesn't have the range to take advantage of "zero", especially if you're recording at 24 bits. You can always gain stage it later, as long as you have a nice clean signal "to tape", unless it's stupidly quiet, which horns have a hard time being.
Read your mic pre's manual, or look at the output jack. One or the other will hopefully tell you if it's -10 or +4, but pro gear is usually +4. Make sure the switch on the back of the 002 (not the white one for phantom, the little black slider) for any given pair is set to the right level.
If you're plugging into 1-4, make sure you've pushed the button to turn the channel into "line" instead of "mic". If you feed a line-level signal into a mic-level input, nothing you do - no other settings, switches, or anything - will keep it from crapping out.
Your mics may be overloading with horns (as mentioned by reply number 1). But only consider this if everything else doesn't work. And if you don't know your mics well enough to know for sure that this is a possible issue.
But most of all, DON'T just use a bus to lower an already-too-hot level.

[trakbytes]

If you're plugging into 1-4, make sure you've pushed the button to turn the channel into "line" instead of "mic". If you feed a line-level signal into a mic-level input, nothing you do - no other settings, switches, or anything - will keep it from crapping out.

This seems to be possibly confusing advice. Seems the original poster is concerned about overloading the mic pre's in his 002. Now, I don't have an 002, but I'd think that if he plugs a mic into a mic input and has the front-panel switch set to "Line", he's likely not going to get anything. Won't that switch assign the input to the line input jack? In any case, a mic won't put out enough level to drive a line input. Best bet would be to trim down the mic input to avoid clipping, or to add a pad before the mic input (I always hate the sound I get when I do that.) Moving the mics back is probably a better solution if the "room" sounds good enough to allow it.

The recording level advice is spot-on, though.

Bob

[Neale]

Yup, sorry. I was thinking (and not typing) that if you were using an EXTERNAL mic pre and plugging your line-level signal into the 002 when the "mic" part of the button is engaged, you would likely overload that "mic" channel at any level. So make sure, if you are using external pres, that you have the "line" part of the button engaged for 1-4. And that's because 5-8 on an 002 are line-level only. OP simply indicated plugging into "inputs", not what he (she) might be plugging into it.
So now the OP has advice from Neale AND Bob.
I wonder if that translates to GuyBadian humour...