recording hot

[rory]

I can't believe EVERYONE that has posted so far has gotten the answer WRONG!

It doesn't mean to record louder when you record hotter. DUH! It means to dim the lights, take off some clothes, play your guitar like you are THE motherfucker, and look damn sexy!

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

It doesn't mean to record louder when you record hotter. DUH! It means to dim the lights, take off some clothes, play your guitar like you are THE motherfucker, and look damn sexy!

Well, if you want me to take some clothes off and look sexy at the same time, then you'd better do more than dim the lights; you'd better shoot them out with a rifle, cut power at the distrubition box, hide all candles, and seal the cracks in the window and door frames with wet towels!

G.

 

[MCI2424]

Hey, a lot of pro studios nowadays track all the way up to +2 or 3dBFS to get that sweet sounding digital distortion. You don't even need a marshall anymore when you track this way, the sweet warm digital distortion works it's magic. Also, you don't have to worry about losing any of those precious bits either. I do it this way every time.

Yes, I have heard of that, it is digital saturation.

 

[ofajen]

I've been using the calibrated monitor system for 2 years now. It was a revelation. I've almost never needed meters since - I set levels by ear and just do a quick visual check. The "average" levels I get are usually just above -24 dB. Average being the place where the meters hover between peaks and dips.

I have a question for you. For a laugh I connected my Tascam 244 and used the trims to calibrate the VUs to 0 using the digido.com pink noise file. So, when I use the meters to set a level, should the needle be tending to swing around 0 VU - say between -3 and +3 - or should it be tending to swing "up to" 0 VU - say between -6 and 0?

I'm not planning on changing my methods but I'd be interested to know the proper way to "read" a VU meter.

Good question... I happen to set my reference level at -3 VU, so I have 6 dB of peak reading above the reference. That means I try to keep normal, forte peaks at about -3VU and fortissimo at 0VU. OTOH, the more standard usage is to keep normal, forte peaks (your reference level) at 0 VU and fortissimo at +3VU. Either way is OK, but you need to keep track of what you're doing and stick to a consistent practice. I make the needles swing about 3 dB less my way, but in the end it amounts to the same thing, except that I have a bit more quantitative ability to see the occasional peaks that go beyond fortissimo. If you're pegging the meters, you don't get that feedback. The trade off is I lose some accuracy on signals below the reference, since I basically have 7 dB below and 6 dB above the reference level in the "accurately readable range".

That's one of the other weaknesses of the VU standard: you really only have about 13 dB of usable, accurate range (-10 VU to +3 VU on the meter scale). That's why newer (and expensive) meters (like Dorrough) are handy: they show average and peak simultaneously and over a broader range of levels. There are also some metering plugins that do this, too. Even Roger Nichol's free version of the Inspector plug in is pretty handy as a meter. OTOH, I'm pretty used to reading VU meters. Plus, the VUs are quick and handy for setting tracking and mixing levels and are always on, available and working. I use VUs most all the time and supplement them with peak/average meter plug ins when mixing and the inevitable, peak-only meters in my DAW programs, like Live and Peak.

Cheers,

Otto

 

[iqi616]

Thanks Otto

 

[crosstudio]

I don't have their equipment. This is how I got the similar sound with mine. Pushing the converters adds a little bit of dirt and other characteristics that make it sound like I want. And so you know I was pushing the gain on just about everything in the chain too. I'm not talking about my converter being the sole source of the sound. just a part that makes it better to my ears than without.


EDIT: AND I ABSOLUTELY AGREE THAT TRACKING THIS HOT AS A RULE IS NOT A GOOD IDEA OR DESIRABLE IN ANY WAY.

If you want dirt, pushing your converter is not the best way to do it.

You can use compression & eq... The Wu-Tang style.

or

You can use a SansAmp Amp Simulator or Amp Farm plugin... Kany West style,

or

You can use old samples off of a record player. The S/N ratio and the scratches of the samples makes it gritty and soulful.

I'm not saying to eliminate pushing the converters as a tool in your arsenal, i'm just saying that a butter knife is a flat head screwdriver if it has to be, but it shouldn't be.

 

[mrT]

I don't think hip-hop production is a different world that other musics. Not sure how you figure that...

What I mean is that I think harsh sounds and non-tradition (or suposedly undesirable) methods are much more accepted in hip-hop than just about any other genre. You have to understand that I LIKE that sounds in question. You dont have to agree but I wanted to put a different perspective out there. While 99% of you feel that it should NEVER be done under any circumstance I think that it fit perfectly with what I wanted.

And BTW... I didn't have ANY digital clipping. Just pushed the levels to the max and used a limiter to keep the peaks under -.5dbFS recording in 16 bit through a 2496.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

While 99% of you feel that it should NEVER be done under any circumstance I think that it fit perfectly with what I wanted.

I think there's a bit of a misunderstanding here still, T. I just don't know whether it's on your end or on ours .

I have mentioned a couple of times that one can overdrive inside a box to take advantage of an overdriven sound. That's fine when called for, and in your case it would be called for. No problem. But you still should stage it back down before hitting the next link in the chain. You'll still have that sound, but it will be at a manageable and mixable level. That's the main point that most are missing when in comes to setting input and recording levels.

Now in your case you're overdriving the last link in the chain, and that's a little tougher because you may not have a chance to stage it down before hitting the disc. There you're forced instead to pull back on the track trim in mixing in order to give yourself some headroom again. But the lesson is still the same there, after the overdrive, the levels need to come back down.

The fact that you like in special instances to use the converters for something other than conversion is just fine. But that's the exception that proves the rule.

G.

 

[mrT]

I really do get what you guys are saying. To help you understand what I'm trying to say...

I wanted a dirty sound. But the equipment I was using wasn't all that great. I tried a couple of different ways to get the sound that fit. In the end I had:

Perception 200>Samson C-Valve>dbx 1066 in S/C>2496

Pushed the input gain to about +9 (as I remember... it was about a year ago) used the first channel of the 1066 in the Samsons side chain for 10db compression at 4:1 hit the output gain on the Samson till it was short of the peak indicator back into the other channel of the 1066 to limit going into the 2496 at an average of about -4~6 and nothing above -.2dbFS. Just turned out to be the best way to do it.

This is not something I do everyday or all that often for that... but I just wanted to remind you guys to Never say Never. Even if I have to take some greif for it...

 

[NashBackslash]

I really think mrT is talking about overdriving the gain BEFORE the converter (or soundcard, audio interface, whatever you wanna call it).

Anything above 0dBFS through the digital converter will NOT sound good, PERIOD. In the DAW, it'll look like the peaks have been destructively cut off and the track is ruined for good.

Most of the tracks that are purposely made to sound "dirty", "gritty" are usually driven on the pre-amps and stuff, before they ever get into the digital domain.

 

[xstatic]

Actually, I think he is talking about distorting the converter. If he want s to do that one a track for a certain fact, I see absolutely nothing wrong with that. As long as he is not trying to pass that off for the most copmmon or "best" way to track. As for digital distrotion sounding bad, sure it does. But like many other things it changes in sound the harder you push it and different converters have different sounding digital distortion and/or built in limiters. So, in a few cases (not very common I would imagine) the distortion from pushing a track over 0dbfs may be a better sounding fit in the mix than any other way of acheiving it. So now there is an example. We all still (hopefully) know though that this is a single exception and not to be used as common practice and the way to do general tracking.

 

[trls063]

im glad this message got out of hand, it's helped me learn more about analog gain staging, and i would like to know more.!!!!!!