Is this a matter of dynamic headroom?

K

kenoir

New member
Dear guys:

I have currently try to do a recording with my band and it's the first time I get to use my mics, audio interface and mixer for recording real instruments which required a certain amount of knowledge on mic positioning.

After we finished the recording, we hear obvious clipping on some guitar parts while the drum mics all sounds fine. However, I'm totally clueless against those clipping, we checked the level before recording and it shoots almost to the peak of the meter inside sonar's tracks, but we the mics that were placed in front of the amp didn't show any sign of clipping in the yamaha (blue in color) 16track mixer and we even want the guitars to be louder during the recording process.

On the other hand, the bass level seems ok, which is recorded by the D/I out of the Roland bass amp (but it need a check to see if it's the bass amp producing unwanted frquency that occupied the dynamic headroom)

In this case, should we give up the close mic-ing technique on the guitar amp just to keep the recording device to drive away from those peaks?

Should it be suspectable that the dynamic headroom of my interface is not high enough which cause these unwated clipping? If I want to hear louder music to get hyped up during recording, does it mean I have to get a better quality interface than the current one?

Currently it seems like I'm using all cardiod pattern mics including sm58, sm57 pg57 and a tom mic from shure plus 2 behringer cheapo c-4 condenser as overhead drum mic plus a ESI 1010 sound card, is there any problem with it? Or am I being too greedy in wishing to have a better quality out of this device?

Looking foward to your reply!

Tons of thanks!

Kenoir
 
If you're getting near clipping at the input, you're overdriving your input chain terribly.

You should be shooting for recording levels around 0dBVU. That's going to equate to around -18dBFS (give or take).

Cranking the signal that hot on the input chain, especially with gear that has limited usable headroom, is going to cause nothing but problems.

You're looking for "loud" in all the wrong places...
 
Oops, may be u are right, but how loud should a recording session be?

the drum is a bit loud and we want to hear a sound that is about the same level as it, is that a wrong idea for recording?

Or that limited headroom receiving device is not able to handle "that loud" in "that close" to the sound source?

Will there be people who get a interface that's higher in dynamic headroom just for the occasional loud sound that they need to record into the disk? If this happen, what is the higher standard of dynamic headroom among those pro sound card and those pro mixers?

There might be a lot of question from me, and I might have missing some links before trying to udnerstand these questions, but if anyone doesn't mind, please give me some generous "education".

Thanks a lot

Kenoir
 
Turn the amps up as loud as they need to be to sound good, then turn down the preamp gain so you don't clip anything.
 
ya, that's it

I should do that and I know I'm not yet as clever to thought of that point by myself. :cool:

Thanks anyway

Kenoir
 
Also, if I understand you correctly, having the guitar as loud as the drums IN THE MIX has nothing to do with how loud you record the guitar track. You adjust the volumes of the instruments in the mix afeter recording. That's what the mixdown is all about.
 
Oh, may be u do interpreted my wrongly, illogical sentence correctly.

I'm Chinese with a lower level English education background, I did struggle to type the message correctly.

:p
 
Hey, no problem. Your English is very good. I thought I might have misunderstood. I was referring to what I though you meant by this sentence:
the drum is a bit loud and we want to hear a sound that is about the same level as it, is that a wrong idea for recording?
Click to expand...
 
Kenoir, maybe post an MP3 so we can have a better idea of what it sounds like. Mix and seperate tracks.

As far as headroom is concerned, all sound cards of the same bit depth have the same amount of headroom before clipping. Since they are all limited to 0dBFS.
But mixer's preamps can definately vary in headroom before clipping.

Try these steps to get your gain set within the mixer's headroom:

  • Put the master and track fader to 0dB
  • Solo the track to see the level on the meter.
  • Play your instrument and watch the meter.
  • slowly turn up the gain knob until the meter is around 0dB.
  • Now in Sonor check that the levels are about -12dBFS (it may be some dB more or less). Just be sure it is nowhere near clipping in Sonor.

    NOTE: If you still hear clipping: 1) you might be overdriving the microphone itself. But that is doubtful since you're using dynamic mics. 2)Your mixer might be running +4dB levels and your sound card could be set to -10dB.
 
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