LazerBeakShiek
Rad Racing Team
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How set vocal recording level?
- Thread starter Harry1
- Start date
bouldersoundguy
Well-known member
Um, no, the top and bottom aren't noise, that's signal. Notice in that illustration that the clipping parts of the signal are highlighted to point out that it has been distorted. The plugin you showed does what's illustrated in the middle with the hard clipping.
LazerBeakShiek
Rad Racing Team
hey man, I think its supposed to go with my HPF LPF comment. No, lets use it for both ways. Cause its probably the same? One way is dynamically clipped and the other is amplitudally clipped.
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LazerBeakShiek
Rad Racing Team
In the limiter video I linked it clearly states that there is no distortion from limiting.
Yeah, when the thredshold knob is dimed. Don't crank it , but use soft clipping within the same limits...bottom picture in chart.
bouldersoundguy
Well-known member
Then the video is wrong or you misinterpreted it.
The plugin with the settings you showed will cause hard clipping in the plugin itself, and it will make it more likely to clip the converter.
LazerBeakShiek
Rad Racing Team
I admit, after trying it in reaper with an O scope visualization as the following plugin, it DID cut off the tops square.
It does still sound good. I do not hear distortion unless you crank the knobs. Perhaps the tops aren't needed?
It does still sound good. I do not hear distortion unless you crank the knobs. Perhaps the tops aren't needed?
bouldersoundguy
Well-known member
OMG, that whole video has distorted audio. It's not drastic, but it's pretty noticeable to me. On top of that, he has no clue how Pro-L works. He's not actually limiting anything, he's just adding gain. Here's what it should look like when it's actually limiting the signal. The dips in the top line represent gain reduction, and each dip has a label showing how much gain reduction is being applied at the deepest part of the dip. Don't take advice from the guy in that video.
Also, he's doing it on a track that has already been recorded. Doing this during recording is a whole different thing.
LazerBeakShiek
Rad Racing Team
I noticed that..Hmmm.
He states it could limit. At like 3.15 he says it does it in a clean manor. No distortion.
bouldersoundguy
Well-known member
It's possible to clip somewhat without it sounding too bad, but since you can easily do that after you record, there's no good reason to bake it right into the track from the start. Best practice is to record a clean track and then add effects.
bouldersoundguy
Well-known member
Technically, limiting is distortion. Pro-L is a good limiter, but if you push it way too hard, it will start to sound bad. Not all distortion is bad, but there's no sense adding it irrevocably while tracking unless you really know what you're doing.
LazerBeakShiek
Rad Racing Team
I think that you can cut the tops off and its ok. Like HPF/LPFing.
We all stated peaks on input at around -8..
More likely we can toss a certain amount of transient* w/o it being very noticeable. That and that plug has some impressive comments as to it doing what it does quite well. (I looked before jumping into this thread ..re; that 'preventing clipping of our A/D thing :>)
Re that first line.. about getting away with' -I've 'clipped more than a few times over the years (saw the 'lights -too late to do anything about it, saw the leveled tops on the track.. but no apparent sonic damage. The content (brief vs very clean and sustained..) perhaps less forgiving.
Happy here'.. is not to come close :>)
LazerBeakShiek
Rad Racing Team
In Nov. i did the Fabfilter seminar online. They demo the products in a Zoom chat. Prearranged tracks and you get a discount on the software they use. I got the Pro Q. Stuff is expensive.
Im just a enthusiast at home recording. Non professional. I get an hour or two on a weekend.
jimmys69
MOODerator
Well that was all fun...
Bottom line is that if you are recording at 24 bit or 32 float, there is really no benefit from entering the DAW from interface at a level that even nears -6dbfs IMO. The noise floor is so low, you can bring up the gain in software later. Using a compressor or limiter inserted on input track is really just asking for problems.
Pay attention to the gain lights on the interface first, and then the input level to DAW. Those seem to be the issue that the OP and many other have. So many are still used to, learned wrong, or stuck in the recording to actual tape theories, that they think they need to get as close to peaking as possible. This is just not the way it is in digital recording period.
Now in daw, when you are working with already recorded - transient prominent things like drums, sometimes pushing the gain up can work well with some plug ins. Not many though. Most plugins get funky when the levels hit them too hard. But that is not what this thread was about anyway so...
Bottom line is that if you are recording at 24 bit or 32 float, there is really no benefit from entering the DAW from interface at a level that even nears -6dbfs IMO. The noise floor is so low, you can bring up the gain in software later. Using a compressor or limiter inserted on input track is really just asking for problems.
Pay attention to the gain lights on the interface first, and then the input level to DAW. Those seem to be the issue that the OP and many other have. So many are still used to, learned wrong, or stuck in the recording to actual tape theories, that they think they need to get as close to peaking as possible. This is just not the way it is in digital recording period.
Now in daw, when you are working with already recorded - transient prominent things like drums, sometimes pushing the gain up can work well with some plug ins. Not many though. Most plugins get funky when the levels hit them too hard. But that is not what this thread was about anyway so...
jimmys69
MOODerator
And there is a thing that I recall happening before I had proper monitoring/worthy Pc:
Early on I had issues with recording a track on top of a mix because I couldn't hear the new input track, so I would try to raise the input level so I could hear. That would result in clipping the input so it had poor results. It took a while to realize that I just needed to turn the recorded tracks down instead of inputting tracks up.
I don't even bother with direct monitoring anymore as my recording computer is powerful enough to record new tracks on a full mix with acceptable latency. Anyway, back off topic...sorry.
Early on I had issues with recording a track on top of a mix because I couldn't hear the new input track, so I would try to raise the input level so I could hear. That would result in clipping the input so it had poor results. It took a while to realize that I just needed to turn the recorded tracks down instead of inputting tracks up.
I don't even bother with direct monitoring anymore as my recording computer is powerful enough to record new tracks on a full mix with acceptable latency. Anyway, back off topic...sorry.
I think you should ignore most of this thread haha, the first and last couple of answers are pretty much spot on. Its really not as specific or scientific as wanting to average at -18 or any other level, as long as you dont risk clipping and youre not super quiet, youre good. Just set it one time based on the loudest part, you could do it twice, but definitely not necessary. Im usually peaking at around -6 to -15, everything in that range is fine, but Im not very dynamic in my singing - if I was, Id probably be on the safe side and turn it down more than -6