questions on red levels

  • Thread starter Thread starter daltyboy
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daltyboy

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when recording on the vs1680 im not supposed to have the input blink red.but what if it does once or twice in a riff slightly.

also weres a good idea to have my levels bouncing between.
what if it goes over what im supose to (12 i think)
 
High!

I don't know whether it's the same with the 1680, but on my 880 you can set up the sensitivity of the led. You should be able to set it up as -6dB, -3dB or 0dB. I set it to -3dB, as I really retrack, if I notice a single blinking (esp. with drums). If you had set it to -6dB you might be able to use such tracks, if you have set it to 0dB probably not. Just listen to the tracks VERY carefully... the problem is that I sometimes did not manage to hear it in the rehearsal room and then had to fix it afterwards, which wa kind of an ugly job...

Laura Tyson seem to have commented that the best thing should be between -4db and -12 on the VS-metering. A lot of guys agree to that. If I record rather undynamic stuff of through a compressor/limiter, I like it a little hotter. But caution: it seems you can overload the mix bus when using rather hot tracks. Then you have to drop all tracks, and you might as well have recorded a little lower...

Ciao

Axel
 
Trust your ears not your meters. Digital meters do have different 0db settings and some are pretty unreliable. If it is hitting red but not distorting the digital recording than dont worry about it.
 
All the above is good advice. The inputs are also notoriously "late", that is, if they bump into the red, I can usually hear clipping. So as a rule I try a complete practice run to ensure I get no clips into red.
 
High Tex!


Your ears are better to trust to than your ears if you do serious work, because then you won't be sitting in the same rehearsal room with the guys who play your brain out... I just record our own band and its there like everywhere: 'it ain't worth nothing if its free'. So my ears (and the rest of me ;) ) are often so tired that I won't hear the clippings. SO I often HAVE TO rely on the leds... That's just why I went over to recording with dynamics (comp/limiter) whenever possible. But I know its a cure for the symptom, not the disease :(

Ciao

Axel
 
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