WTF, confused about level set up again. adjust gain to just below peak, or to unity?

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rockironwebb

senior newbie caveman
Just went on a reading rampage and am confused again, surprise, surprise. I was going to tinker around with my drum levels again just to see if I could get some better sound, they are not bad now, but I've learned that not bad now can end up being shit after some adjustments. I am using an ALESIS multimix 16 firewire mixer and recording into mixcraft5 and sometimes ACID pro7. Now at the mixer, do I adjust gain to just below clipping? I had done it so when each channel was set for pfl, the little led vu meter would peak around "0". I just read several things about setting the gain on each channel till it clips, and then backing off a little. If this is proper, where does unity come in to play? Hopefully you guys aren't sick of my caveman ways. How would you go about setting up each channel. I have read so much by now that I am more confused. My goal is to get get the best possible sound into my DAW.
 
Most of the "set the trim til it clips and back off" stuff is more of analog advice.
Tracking in 24 bit (which I assume you are), there's no reason to track that hot. In fact, tracking that hot will mess with your mix and it's punch and clarity cuz you ate up a whole shitload of headroom right outta the gate.

I set my master at unity, my track faders at unity and adjust the trim (gain) for each track til I get a good healthy level of around -12 to -18.

That help?
 
Yeah that helps a little. My big problem may be that prior to February, I had never even used a mixer, and the jumped of the ledge into the world of mixer and DAW.
 
The answer to your question depends on how you are recording the drums. If you are using the mixer to actually mix the drums down to a stereo track and just record the left and right main output, then you should just follow the advice in the mixer's manual and set the output level so that you don't peak much above -6dbfs in the computer.

If you are recording direct outputs of each channel into the computer, Then you need to be looking that the meters in the computer and not worry so much about the mixer. With the channel fader at unity, you want to adjust the gain until the hardest hit on that drum is peaking at about -6dbfs in the computer. When you adjust the EQ, it will change the recording level, so you might have to adjust it some more after you play with the EQ a bit, in order to get the level back to peaking around -6dbfs.

What makes drums so hard to deal with is that they have a sharp attack and a really short decay. Good recording levels are quoted as RMS (average) levels, but drums have very low average levels compared to the high peak levels they can have. So basically, you just need to make sure they don't clip and that's it.
 
Thanxs,I am recording each drum on its own track into computer.
 
Ignore the advice to set levels to just below clipping. The 0 mark on your meter is the target.

The term unity gain refers to a setting that doesn't change the signal level.
 
Can you understand my confusion? It seems about half say one way and half say the other. Probably what'll be best is just get the band over and try every way until I find what works best, the biggest challege will be to get my bandmates to be patient while I fuck with the technical stuff!!
 
I fully understand your pain. The trouble is, there not any one way of operating a mixer that is "right" and lots of people have their own theories, all of which can achieve good results. Add in the fact that there is also some BAD advice floating around out there, and I'd hate to be trying to figure it all out.

My particularly way of setting up gain structure is to set the channel fader and master faders at 0 (also known as unity) and adjust the gain trim until the meters read 0/top of the green but no yellow or red. Do this one channel at a time as the levels are cumulative. In theory, using the PFL method should result in similar levels if the calibration alongside the faders is accurate and 0 really is unity.

I have seen others set up their boards with the faders at 0 again but with the gain trim adjusted to the level they want the sound to be at in the mix. The theory of this is that you get a decent mix just by setting all faders to 0/unity. I can see the advantage to this--but I personally like the visual cue of seeing faders lower for things down in the mix and higher for the loud stuff.

Of course, much of the above is more for live mixing rather than multitracking--you can stop at just getting everything to 0 for tracking...and adjust the level into your computer to 0dBu on the mixer equalling about -18dBFS on your DAW.
 
There are times when getting your mix with gains and leaving the faders at unity makes sense, like theater where you need to hit cues. The rest of the time get the gain technically right at the input and mix on faders.

Once upon a time when gear was a lot noisier setting levels to "a little below clip" was best so you didn't end up with noise buildup. Most modern gear, even a lot of the cheap stuff, is way quieter and doesn't need as much optimizing for noise.
 
bouldersoundguy said:
There are times when getting your mix with gains and leaving the faders at unity makes sense, like theater where you need to hit cues. The rest of the time get the gain technically right at the input and mix on faders.
Click to expand...

Probably 90% of my live mixing is theatre and, even there, I personally prefer setting all channels to a nominal level then mixing on the faders. Part of this is liking the visual clue of where something is in a mix and part is that you can never count on 0/unity being right in every scene anyway. A solo might be at 0, the same person in a duet might be -6, as part of a chorus even lower and so on. Beyond that, actors belt it out some nights and go quiet others. However, all that is personal preference and if another mixer likes it a different way, it doesn't make him wrong. The only thing I take real exception to are those who doggedly set their faders at 0 and "mix" the show on the trims! In any case, some of this is academic in the day of digital mixers with scene presets. I've only done one theatre show on an analogue console since 2004...and even that venue has since gone digital!

Your point about older analogue gear and the noise factor is well made--I certainly remember they days when it made sense to keep everything as hot as possible to minimise system noise. I don't remember those days fondly...I just remember them!
 
Bobbsy said:
Probably 90% of my live mixing is theatre and, even there, I personally prefer setting all channels to a nominal level then mixing on the faders.
Click to expand...

Then you know more than I do. When I did it I found it handy to pop it up to the 0 or +/- some amount I wrote in the margin of the script. Theater wasn't really my specialty though it was some of the first live sound I did.
 
Exactly that. I mark up my scripts with "guide" levels to go to (and, nowadays, set the scene preset memory to that figure) but then do the rest by ear.

...but that's my method and there are lot's of other equally valid ways to work.
 
rockironwebb said:
Can you understand my confusion? It seems about half say one way and half say the other. Probably what'll be best is just get the band over and try every way until I find what works best, the biggest challege will be to get my bandmates to be patient while I fuck with the technical stuff!!
Click to expand...
Bouldersoundguy is talking about the meter on your mixer. I am referencing the meter in your DAW.

Analog meters and digital meters use two completely different scales and measure two completely different things.

Analog meters are slow and measure the average level of the signal. VU is the db scale used in the analog realm. 0dbVU is line level

Digital meters are fast and measure the peak level. FS is the db scale used in the digital realm. 0dbFS is the absolute ceiling, you cannot record a higher level than that. Line level varies, but the rule of thumb is that -18dbFS is line level.

Both me and bouldersoundguy are essentially telling you the same thing. However, while his method works on most instruments, it's still possible for a drum to register 0dbVU on the mixers meter and clip on the DAW's meter. That's the main reason I referenced the DAW's meter, that is really the only one that matters with percussive instruments.
 
The meter in the DAW is the final word on the matter, but most LED meters these days measure peak response rather than average so the one on the mixer should be usable. My response was aimed more toward the general question of level setting on a mixer. Once that's done right it's a small jump to setting record levels.
 
The LED meters might still have peak ballistics, but if it's using the dbVU scale, that's kind of useless.

Setting levels was so much easier when everything was analog...
 
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