HomeRecordist
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I have the following setup:
Plugging microphone directly into the interface, gain has to be set at maximum and even then I need to be within ~15-25cm from the mic to reliably hit -10db LED.
Currently I max-out DBX preamp (+60 gain) to saturate the compressor and have the last, "output" knob set to zero.
Afterwards, I amplify the signal in ID4 by having the gain knob set to approximately 11. Having it at 0 (line-in) results in clearly insufficient volume, so this step is not optional.
Questions:
Due to various reasons, processing signal via software means is not feasible.Audio Technica BP40 --> DBX 286A --> Audient ID4 mk II
Plugging microphone directly into the interface, gain has to be set at maximum and even then I need to be within ~15-25cm from the mic to reliably hit -10db LED.
Currently I max-out DBX preamp (+60 gain) to saturate the compressor and have the last, "output" knob set to zero.
Afterwards, I amplify the signal in ID4 by having the gain knob set to approximately 11. Having it at 0 (line-in) results in clearly insufficient volume, so this step is not optional.
Questions:
- How do I reliably detect when signal coming from DBX into ID4 is too hot for the latter? I can hear the distortion well before Audient LEDs reach 0 level.
- Would the whole setup benefit from a preamp ("cloudlifter", etc.) before DBX so that it's not always at max gain?
- Anything else I might be missing?