Recording levels - digital - hiss
If you record at a lower level, yes, when you listen back and have to turn up the volume louder you will hear the hiss, and of course this is not 'tape hiss' it is line noise.
Cool edit has a feature that will allow you to analyze that 'line noise' and then defeat the noise, in other words remove that noise from the mix.
There is a sliding scale as to how much of that line noise you want to remove as removing all of it effects the overall quality of the recording.
But you can remove just enough of the noise so you can then raise the volume of the digital recording.
In other words, as you raise the level of the recording in Cool Edit you remove more and more noise, seeking a happy medium betwee 'line noise', 'mix volume', and 'mix quality'.
Removing a little bit of the line noise does not in a noticeable way affect the quality of the recording, but you have to play with this Cool Edit feature to get used to it.
The MOST important thing to remember is that CoolEdit must have AT LEAST 2 seconds of this line noise to analyze with NO OTHER sounds occuring.
In other words, before you begin to play, let the mics run for at least 10 seconds with absolute quiet, or ... after you finish the tune, let the recorder run for at least 10 seconds more.
Then, in CoolEdit, select that 'silence' and analyze it for the noise, then you can remove the noise over the whole mix.
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