Recording Problems!!!! Audio Interface? Logic?

[danyoung1994]

i have got a Tascam us1800, Soundcraft M12, the direct outs from the soundcraft go to the Tascam, job sorted

i was recording my band the other day, im playing live to, and i set everything up correctly, the gain staging on the soundcraft was great, had a look on logic pro 9 and everything was great, the gain was bout 50% so normal!

i hit record, put my headphones down to play, and noticed the levels in logic were like they were limited and compressed all in one, they would go no higher than a certian point, and they signal was hitting the limiter, i thought nothing of it untill i got home, and had a look at the mix, everything sounds like its been clipped, when everything was fine during recording, ive looked at the wave files itself in logic, and they are proper clipped, square waves! not good at all

Has anyone got any ideas? the only thing different i have done at home and where i was recording was a different usb cable for the tascam, so ive binned that, and bought a new one.

ive been asking my friends and they have no clue??

Thanks in advance!!

 

[KineticSound]

1. The direct out's of the Soundcraft are going into which inputs on the Tascam - the mic pre's or the line inputs? (should be the 6 line inputs - you probably already have it this way, but wanted to check)

2. Do you have Input Monitoring activated in Logic? If so, when you arm the tracks, where are the levels peaking?

 

[Ethan Winer]

the gain staging on the soundcraft was great

Apparently not.

Seriously, this is a gain-staging issue. I'm not familiar with your various pieces, but clearly the output of the mixer was set too loud for the input of your sound card / converter.

--Ethan

 

[danyoung1994]

im using all of the inputs, all 8 mic pres, and the 6 line inputs too all at once,
when i set up to record, i have the record button highleted on all tracks, thats how i check the levels, input monitoring is off
its deffos not gain stageing issue, everything on the mixer was great, nto to hot and cold, and the same in logic
cheers

 

[KineticSound]

its deffos not gain stageing issue, everything on the mixer was great, nto to hot and cold, and the same in logic
cheers

This seems to imply that you are monitoring the signal out of the mixer (not the signal out of logic). If this is the case, you are very likely overdriving the Tascam's inputs and not realizing it.

I asked the question about which inputs you were connecting to determine if you were stacking mic pre's, which you have confirmed. Reiterating Ethan's very factual response, this is wrong. The Soundcraft may sound fine on it's own, but you are then running a preamplified signal out of the Soundcraft into another set of preamps on the Tascam channels 1-8. This creates gain-staging problems.

Turn on input monitoring in Logic and you should hear immediate distortion from Logic's output.

Bypass the Soundcraft's mic preamps for channels 1-8 and plug directly into the Tascam's mic pre's. Then set your levels.