Recording levels what is the proper way?

G

guitardude

New member
Hello all.

First of all i always notice sometimes a noise issue with my recordings. Especially right in the beginning before i hear the guitar come in.. When everything else is playing i cant really notice it. I guess im asking how to get rid of noise before you hear the tracks come in to get that nice clean smooth sound..
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I have a firebox..and usually have to turn it up high to get a good semi pick up level. I usually have the knob at the 3'o clock position. I just hear other recordings and there always so quiet.

I'm always battling this issue...

thanks hopefully someone can educate me a or tell me if im doin somethign wrong.
 
Hi guitardude
I know this isn't really solving the problem of why there's noise in the recording in the first place (could be anything), but you can always use a silencer, gate or zero volume setting in your audio software to remove the noise at the start of the track so it kicks off nice and clean.

Dags
 
What kind of noise? Hum? Hiss? The higher your settings, the more noticable noise will be, then when the music starts it overrides the background noise. When I get noise at the beginning of a track I usualy just silence the section of the track up to where the music begins.
 
Any wav editor will have an insert silence or sometimes "replace with silence" feature. What I used to do was zoom in real close and highlight the part before the song starts, delete it, and then replace it with silence. Like Dani said.

Now I just leave it in. Doesn't really bother me too much and sounds more natural.
 
guitardude said:
Hello all.

First of all i always notice sometimes a noise issue with my recordings. Especially right in the beginning before i hear the guitar come in.. When everything else is playing i cant really notice it. I guess im asking how to get rid of noise before you hear the tracks come in to get that nice clean smooth sound..

I have a firebox..and usually have to turn it up high to get a good semi pick up level. I usually have the knob at the 3'o clock position. I just hear other recordings and there always so quiet.

I'm always battling this issue...

thanks hopefully someone can educate me a or tell me if im doin somethign wrong.
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Yeah... what mic are you using to record with? The preamps in the Presonus Fire___ are pretty noisy once you get up to 3+ o'clock, and if you are recording soft sources, cranking the gain even on a high-quality preamp is going to expose all the background noise in the room you're in. So, you are probably getting a combination of noisy environment and noisy preamp.
 
Myriad_Rocker said:
3'oclock is pretty high....
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Yeah.

Although lately I've been raising my gain up to about 3'oclock on the DMP3 and don't hear any noise. :D Well, very little but I'm pretty sure it's the mic (Behringer ECM8000's are naturally a little noisy).
 
guitardude said:
First of all i always notice sometimes a noise issue with my recordings. Especially right in the beginning before i hear the guitar come in.
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I agree with those here that are asking what kind of noise you are talking about.

If I were to take the context of your post at face value, the title of the post first sounds like you think there's an issue with your gain structure (the input and output levels at which you have the gear in your recording chain set.) This may well be the case, as described by those that mention the Presonus preamp gets noisy when the inpt is cranked too high. The key followup questions there are a)what kind of microphone are you using and how well matched is it to the Presonus preamp, and b)what are you recording that may be either too noisy or too quiet?

Which leads into the second part of the quite above: your specific mention of "guitar". Are you recording acoustic or electric? If acoustic, perhaps you're having to crank the pre too high because the source isn't loud enough. or perhaps you're just getting too much room noise, in which casse acoustics and maybe even fan noise from the computer itself is the source of the problem. If electric, is the problem that your git amp is simply too noisy? Perhaps you need to adjust the gain and the output volume on the amp to minimize noise. Remember, the amp does not necessarily have to be cranked to live playing levels to get the best sound on tape.

And finally, is the problem perhaps that you are cranking the gain too high because you feel you need to record with your levels near 0dBFS in your recording software? If so, you are probably recording at a much hotter level than you need to. With your recording faders on the computer set to uinty - no gain, no cut - set your preamp gain so that your signal is recording at an average of somewhere areound -18dBFS (give or take a few dBs), with the peaks no more somewhere around -6 to -9dBFS. You'll be recording plenty hot enough for digital and leaving yourself plenty of room for mixing, and you'll also be decreasing the noise level from the entire recording chain before it signifigantly.

Any one of the potential sources has a solution or two, you just need to be able to identify just where in the signal stage the source of the noise is coming from (it could be more than one of these.)

G.
 
Personally, I generally try to go for around a -5 peak in the software, also paying close attention not to clip the pres.

SouthSIDE made a great post...read it, live it, love it.
 
I would go considerably lower with a guitar. But as you have one of the few budget-friendly preamps out there with VU meters (you have the DMP3, right?) then use them. You'll probably notice a digital level around -18dBRMS maybe peaking around -12dBFS. That's pretty normal. Considerably lower than that would be fine also.
 
Myriad_Rocker said:
SouthSIDE made a great post...read it, live it, love it.
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Thank you, Myriad. :)

There are some people here that spend all their time gathering bogus rep points in fake rep point threads, and find it beyond their capacity to read three modest little paragraphs (and some change) because they have dyslexia or something, and threw big neg rep my way for that post. Not because it was wrong, not because it was abusive, not because it was off topic. Because they thought it was too long.

Anybody who thinks that post was, and I quote, "turning the simplest thing into a fucking book" has no business being here. Christ, how is one supposed to operate a fucking recording studio, let alone engage in a text based forum about it, when they don't even know how to read?

G.
 
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Glenn,
I was checking out the new metering and gain structure guide ; very informative , Thanks!!

i'm wondering what you would use for you dbfs reference @0VU when the soundcard/preamp manuals states...

Unity analog gain to converter inputs , 5dBv input = 0dBfs output
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:):)
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
Thank you, Myriad. :)

There are some people here that spend all their time gathering bogus rep points in fake rep point threads, and find it beyond their capacity to read three modest little paragraphs (and some change) because they have dyslexia or something, and threw big neg rep my way for that post. Not because it was wrong, not because it was abusive, not because it was off topic. Because they thought it was too long.

Anybody who thinks that post was, and I quote, "turning the simplest thing into a fucking book" has no business being here. Christ, how is one supposed to operate a fucking recording studio, let alone engage in a text based forum about it, when they don't even know how to read?

G.
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You managed to make a fucking book out of this too! :rolleyes:

Dude, EVERY fucking post you make is a chapter. It gets tiring when where a couple of sentences will do, you write paragraph after paragraph. My finger gets tired scrolling past your posts which take up half the page! :mad:
 
For example Glen.

If turning your preamp down is not an option, try a volume automation on the track to lower the sections where there is no music. Automating in this fashion on all your tracks is a good practice anyway.

Simple enough? In the real world, this is what 99.9% of the people are doing. The rest are writing a novel on HR.com. :rolleyes:
 
flatfinger said:
i'm wondering what you would use for you dbfs reference @0VU when the soundcard/preamp manuals states...
Unity analog gain to converter inputs , 5
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
Yikes. Out of context, it sounds like it's saying that it is equipped with 5 fixed-gain analog preamp inputs going to converters (as opposed to however many pre ins it may have that are equipped with variable gain controls.) Does that make sense for that unit?

If that's what it is indeed saying, it doesn't say anything in that spec regarding actual conversion level calibration.

G.
 
Just so you know , I used the guide and can easily determine whats best for my line level inputs , But my pre- amps are a different story and I use those more often, maybe my china LDC is ultra hot cause I 'm always turning the pre's way down. Any how the statement in the manual is here on page 20.

http://www.emu.com/support/files/storage/1820%201.81%20(EN).pdf


Go ahaead and reply war and peace style if you want to , some folks out here appreciate it!!



ADD............. Sorry that post was incomplete !! it was supposed to be 5dBv input = 0dBfs output

I also don't know how to get that horizontal s in front of it!
:)
 
Ford Van said:
For example Glen.

If turning your preamp down is not an option, try a volume automation on the track to lower the sections where there is no music. Automating in this fashion on all your tracks is a good practice anyway.

Simple enough? In the real world, this is what 99.9% of the people are doing. The rest are writing a novel on HR.com. :rolleyes:
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Uh huh. And what if the problem is ambient room noise, or excessive noise from the amp, or an attempt to use a low-current microphone with that inexpensive preamp? The FACT is, Ed, that he didn't provide enough information in his post to say for sure what the cause of the problem was, of if there is even a single cause.

So fucking sue me for covering the bases in what was - for those without dyslexia or unmedicated ADHD - actually a rather short answer. I mean, come on, Ed; critizing a post for style? That's almost as bad as getting on my ass for explaining to a forum newb just who walters was, like you did a few days ago. Don't you have bigger dragons to slay than li'l ol' me and my pedantics? ;)

G.
 
SouthSIDE Glen said:
Uh huh. And what if the problem is ambient room noise, or excessive noise from the amp, or an attempt to use a low-current microphone with that inexpensive preamp? The FACT is, Ed, that he didn't provide enough information in his post to say for sure what the cause of the problem was, of if there is even a single cause.

So fucking sue me for covering the bases in what was - for those without dyslexia or unmedicated ADHD - actually a rather short answer. I mean, come on, Ed; critizing a post for style? That's almost as bad as getting on my ass for explaining to a forum newb just who walters was, like you did a few days ago. Don't you have bigger dragons to slay than li'l ol' me and my pedantics? ;)

G.
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Go back and read the original question moron!
 
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