guitar amp is loud, inputs cranked (Profire 610)... track still too quiet!

cutout

New member
(This is a newb question, sorry if it's all obvious...)

Pretty standard setup - I'm mic'ing a Fender Twin with an SM57. Amp is medium-loud. Mic is plugged into the Profire. Input faders on Profire app are turned all the way up. But the guitar signal still only peaks at about 35-40% of the faders, max.

Is this normal? When you guys record guitar, aren't you usually trying to peak it out almost into the red? I'm not sure what else I can change to get a better signal.

The end result of this issue is that I have a pretty good song recorded with a bunch of parts - but no matter how much I crank the master volume in Garageband, the tracks are all too quiet, even if turned all the way up. So my first issue is to figure out why the Profire is quiet. Second issue is to try and salvage this song and see if I can add gain to the master track or something. It sounds great on my loud monitors. On a laptop, it sounds terrible :confused:
 
When you guys record guitar, aren't you usually trying to peak it out almost into the red?

No, you don't want to go anywhere near the "red" when recording digitally. If you're peaking at about -12, that should be fine.

Having said that, your levels do seem low. It's hard to say without actual meter numbers, but "35-40% of the faders" sounds low, considering you say you have the input gain cranked all the way up.
 
Having said that, your levels do seem low. It's hard to say without actual meter numbers, but "35-40% of the faders" sounds low, considering you say you have the input gain cranked all the way up.

What I've been doing is turning the input knob on the Profire all the way up until it starts to feed back in the monitors and then rolling it back slightly until it doesn't do that anymore. I would think that would be super loud. BTW, what does -12 look like on the faders? 50%? (I'm at work and can't look at my interface or DAW...)
 
I just meant, when the guitar signal is coming through, it fills about 35% of the bars in the faders, kind of like this -

http://home.comcast.net/~noise.lab/ProTools/610_SPDIF_Tab.jpg
Hehe....I know what you meant, but I've never looked at my levels as being a "% up the fader", so I have no idea what those percentages mean.

But, looking at your picture, it seems that 35-40% up the fader gets you up to about 15 to -10db, if I'm looking at it right. If that's the case, your levels are fine.

To complicate things, I've noticed when I export/normalize from Garageband, the track actually gets quieter :/
That is weird. Can't help you with that, I'm not familiar with Garageband.
 
your levels are fine.

I might have to correct that. While the levels in the DAW might be fine, there's something wrong with the gain staging if you have to crank the input full to get that signal. Maybe you have to turn up the guitar amp so that you can turn the input knobs down.
 
Last edited:
as far as volume goes...

I'm not sure how to make your guitar come in louder... make sure your interface isn't using any -10 db switches, use different inputs, try a different mic, etc.

if its still quiet, most DAW have a gain plug-in that just raises volume. garage band sucks though... sorry man.




At the end when you export from garage band and its quieter than all your other itunes songs:

music volume is registered at the highest peak. so the part when your guitar/song gets the loudest, that will be the same level as the other songs in itunes... that being said, it means the rest of the track is quieter. here's how you fix it:

THE EASY WAY: get to know compressors and limiters. garage band kinda sucks in this department, but you need to compress your instruments and compress the master track, as well as use some limiters. this will bring down the volume of the loudest parts of the song, making the whole song more even. Then you just turn up the volume and your good.

THE PRO WAY: this sucks, but its the way to go if you can do it. You may use compression and limiting still, but its better to use volume automation. basically, you manually turn the track up and down at the quieter and louder parts respectively, so the whole instrument track is, relatively, at the same volume. You tend to do this less with drums, more with vocals, not too much with guitars and bass. Those tend to use a bit of compression. Then at the end you apply more gentile limiting and compression, and your mix will sound loud, AND powerful, because you have maintained most of the dynamics of the song.


This of course requires years of practice.... heres what you can do for now
1) buy logic
2) learn how to use the "AdLimiter" plug in
 
Last edited:
This of course requires years of practice.... heres what you can do for now
1) buy logic (or torrent it... but i am not responsible for your legal troubles etc etc etc blah blah blah)

HR does not look kindly upon members who propose cracked or pirated software as an option, irrespective of the caveats they apply.
 
What I've been doing is turning the input knob on the Profire all the way up until it starts to feed back in the monitors and then rolling it back slightly until it doesn't do that anymore.
You need to turn down the monitors so it doesn't feed back. The recording level is set independently from the listening volume. In other words, if the mic is feeding back in your monitors, but you aren't getting a good recording level, the monitors are up WAY too loud.

It sounds like you are turning up everything in the monitoring chain which is keeping you from turning up the input gain, which is the only thing that controls the recording level. The faders in the profire software are there for you to make a monitor mix, they don't affect the recording level.
 
Your terminology makes it hard to understand what you're doing.

Back to basics....

Turn your monitors all the way down. You don't need direct monitoring right now. Set the amp at the volume you wanna record it at. Mic it. In your project, arm a track to record, strum a loud chord, and see what level the input comes in at on the track meter. Set the gain on your preamp/interface so the meter hits around -10 or somewhere around there when you bang a chord. Where it actually hits is not that important as long as it doesn't clip. But keep it somewhere between -14 and -6 and you'll be fine. Going up to the red is unnecessary in the digital world. Anyway, come in around -12 or -10 and you're golden. If you're having to max the preamp gain on your interface to achieve these numbers, or you can't hit them at all, then your amp is either not really as loud as you think it is, or you have something going bad or a setting is screwy somewhere in your signal chain. It should be very easy to get healthy tracks from a loud amp.

Next, use some kind of tracking headphones so you don't have to crank your monitors just to track a song, or put the amp in another room. I personally never track anything with my monitors playing.

And lastly, to get big volume from your finished mix, you need to look into some kind of compression/limiting to "master" your single. This will get your mix up to a respectable loudness like modern commercial mixes.
 
You need to turn down the monitors so it doesn't feed back. The recording level is set independently from the listening volume. In other words, if the mic is feeding back in your monitors, but you aren't getting a good recording level, the monitors are up WAY too loud.

The monitors are only turned up about 60%, though. It's the input knob I'm turning up loud so I can get a good signal. I'm just using the feedback as a way to know I'm too loud and then backing off. And then I put on the headphones.

You probably have normalization enabled for exporting in GarageBand. Find a way to turn that off and your song should export at the same volume you hear it at inside the DAW.

I actually switched off auto-normalization and the track is a wee bit louder, but still very quiet.

If you're having to max the preamp gain on your interface to achieve these numbers, or you can't hit them at all, then your amp is either not really as loud as you think it is, or you have something going bad or a setting is screwy somewhere in your signal chain.

To be honest, part of this is due to the issue I mentioned in another thread. Which is, once the amp is past a certain volume, it drowns out what I'm hearing in my headphones when I'm trying to do overdubs. And I don't even have that guitar signal coming through the headphones. It's just too loud in the room itself.

Next, use some kind of tracking headphones so you don't have to crank your monitors just to track a song, or put the amp in another room. I personally never track anything with my monitors playing.

I do use headphones for the most part. But every few times a recording session, I'll take them off just so I can hear how the track sounds loud through speakers in the room.

And lastly, to get big volume from your finished mix, you need to look into some kind of compression/limiting to "master" your single. This will get your mix up to a respectable loudness like modern commercial mixes.

I think you're right. It's a combination of the original guitar signal not being optimal and me maybe needing to compress/limit/add gain to the master track.

As an aside, I have found other posts from people saying that the Profire recorded too quietly. Sometimes wish I'd gone with the Apogee Duet which I've only heard good things about...
 
To be honest, part of this is due to the issue I mentioned in another thread. Which is, once the amp is past a certain volume, it drowns out what I'm hearing in my headphones when I'm trying to do overdubs. And I don't even have that guitar signal coming through the headphones. It's just too loud in the room itself.
You're probably using the wrong headphones. You can't use open-back or mixing reference headphones. You need some kind sound cancelling isolation tracking headphones. I record with a 100 watt Marshall. It's peel-the-paint-off-the-wall loud. I also use Vic Firth drummer's tracking headphones. No problem. Those headphones don't sound worth a shit, but they're fantastic for tracking loud sources. You could also use regular old earbuds and wear some of those construction worker/gun range sound muffler things over them. I've done it, it works great. Bottom line - you need sound control. Regular listening headphones don't work for tracking loud stuff.
 
You need to turn down the monitors so it doesn't feed back. The recording level is set independently from the listening volume. In other words, if the mic is feeding back in your monitors, but you aren't getting a good recording level, the monitors are up WAY too loud.

It sounds like you are turning up everything in the monitoring chain which is keeping you from turning up the input gain, which is the only thing that controls the recording level. The faders in the profire software are there for you to make a monitor mix, they don't affect the recording level.
+1 this is what I was thinking when he said he just barely had them on and the monitors were feeding back, Not sure if you have a rewire mixer, but you should have some kind of direct back console that feeds your monitors, you can turn it down there, or your main out of the IA if it has that option.

turning the monitors way back, will allow you to turn the input up a lot more without feedback.

in my home studio, I never record with the nearfeilds monitors on. I always use headphones.
 
Back
Top