Re: Microphone preamp advice

jon.mithe@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

Due to my circumstances (apartment) I record direct from the amp head
speaker out using a Radial JDX and a THD hotplate to act as a load ->
can record my amp silently (well, get the best approximation to it
without speaker / mic / noise). I take that mic level signal the JDX
produces and stick into a Behringer tube ultragain preamp and the
output of that into my Echo audio Layla 3G soundcard.

Problem is the proper level is just too quite, if I adjust the gain up
on my behringer it starts to clip / distort / hit a ceiling and my VU
meter in the echo console get just over half way.

If I put the ~4db switch on I think it is (cant remeber which way
round it was) I get more noise and my preamp overloads the soundcard
when its set on a normal level. So what I have to do is turn the
gain down on my preamp, so that its peaks at ~1/2 way on the preamp vu
meter but then the soundcard levels are spot on

I dont know much about this, but the proper setting is obviously not
usable as its too quite and if I add gain in my DAW I might get it
loud enough but to my understanding the sound will loose alot of its
dynamics

There are a number of things at work here. First off, "half way up" on
a VU meter, and this is pretty much the case whether you're looking at
the analog meter on your preamp or the digital meter in your sound card
or computer program, is a perfectly good level that allows for some headroom,
which you'll surely need.

The biggest distraction is when you look at the waveform graphic that you've
recorded. They don't scale the graphic in a very informative way, so a recording
with occasion peaks close to full scale but mostly with 10 to 15 dB of headroom
(a good thing) looks really skimpy. If it's quiet, turn up your playback volume.
You can make final level adjustments when you're working on the mix. And
remember that if you're comparing your recordings to a commercial CD, you'll
never hear that much level because your work hasn't been mastered to blast
the listener.

It's perfectly OK to record 10 dB or a bit more below peak level and then
boost the level on the digital side if you need to do so. And it's even more
OK if you record in 24-bit resolution. Don't worry about "losing dynamics."
That only happens when you need to reduce the dynamic range by
squashing the peaks so that you have room to bring up the average level.
That's what makes commercial CDs sound louder than your recordings,
but it's a separate process and you shouldn't worry about it while you're
tracking your guitar parts.

If I use the +4db switch, I'm introducing a second pre amp stage which
will add noise, amplify existing noise and is also like above
effectively going to squash my dynamics and make noise more
prevalent.

Not really. You're attenuating the source less.

> Also, I image my/any preamp will have a "sweet spot", and
its going to be towards 3/4->full vu / normal recording level, not
half way.

If there's a "sweet spot" it's something that you'll be able to find,
not imagine. Don't worry about anything you can't hear. But on the
other hand, turning up gains so that you can hear noise with no
input and then complaining that you can hear noise isn't very
useful either. The question is this - is your RECORDING too
noisy? I'm a little suspicious of the Behringer preamp, and I have
no idea of how much noise is coming out of your guitar amp, but
otherwise, you have good gear and you should be able to find
a good combination of settings so that one isn't all the way down
and the other all the way up.

This is where the -10/+4 switch will help you. It shifts you to a
different operating level range. You'll still need to adjust things,
but "half way up" is good.




--
If you e-mail me and it bounces, use your secret decoder ring and reach me here:
double-m-eleven-double-zero at yahoo -- I'm really Mike Rivers (mriv...@xxxxxxxxxxx)
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