High gain or high vloume?

KrispyDK

New member
Hello All,

Can anyone advise or point me in the right direction - and excuse the novice-ness of the question which I'm sure has been asked many times before.

When recording an instrument or vocal through a mixer into a PC is it better to have the gain setting high and the channel volume level low until you reach recording level. Or is it best to have the channel volume level up and the gain just high enough to reach recording level?

Or doesn't it matter at all?!?!
 
I like to see my gain on the mixer so as to be about unity or a little less then bring the channel up and reading the computer input at -14ish so there is plenty of head room during mix down.
 
I'm with you now, thanks.

What about the gain and volume settings on the mixer channel before it gets to the PC? On my mixer I can have the gain ramped right up and lift the channel volume less than halfway before I go into the red. Or I can have the channel volume set high and lift the gain about halfway before I go into the red.

Is there any difference between these 2 settings?
 
If you have a solo button use that to set your gain first then raise your channel volume but not into clipping monitor your input to your computer and leave yourself plenty of head room there for when your mixing down your tracks and if need be you can always turn up then.
 
The textbook way to do it is to set the channel fader at unity (there will be a 0 about 3/4 of the way up) and set the record level with the gain control.

Doing it the other way means that you could possibly be distorting the channel while turning down the overall level later. The idea is to get the signal to the right level as early as possible in the chain (the gain control) and keep it in that range all the way through.
 
Farview, thanks for that.

Nice looking studio by the way...shame you're the other side of the world as I'd bring the boys down otherwise!
 
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