Help with Gain on Presonus MP20

[jeliot86]

I just got an MP20 for recording the vocals for my band, and I'm little bit of a hard time with. I'm a newbie so please bear with me.

I'm using a CAD E100 straight to the presonus then out to my MOTU 828. I set the level on channel 1 so that the loudest passage was just hitting 0db on the VU meter of the presonus. Then I would adjust the gain on Input 1 on my Motu so I was hitting about -12 in my DAW. We were monitoring through a mixer so it sound good to us but when I played it back it was overdriving.

In order to get the sound to not distort I had to turn the Gain on the PreSonus almost to down all the way (10db) which wasn't giving any readout on the VU meter, and then had to turn the gains on the MOTU up about 1/2 way. If I reverses that I distort the gain stage in the MOTU hence the distortion.

Now this is where I'm probably wrong but it seems to me with my gain on the Presonus down at about 8 o'clock and the MOTU at 12...wouldn't that mean most of my gain is coming from the MOTU defeating the purpose of using the Presonus PRE. I'm sure theres a logical explanation so hoping some Gain Structure wiz out there in FORUM WORLD might be able to help me understand.

thanks for reading my small novel......
any help would be greatly appreciated.

[mixsit]

Line in on the Motu?

[jeliot86]

Originally Posted by mixsit

Line in on the Motu?

Input 1 and 2 on the MOTU are line level and Mic level (hybrid nutrik connectors) I'm using xlr output on MP20 to xlr input on MOTU.

There isn't a line out (1/4") per say............on the MP20 but I could use effect send i guess. Do you think that would be better?