What level do u record your guitars at

[pigmaker]

as someone who has been misrecording guitar tracks for years

it seems pretty odd to me that my wav files now look so small



ive read that -25 to -20 db with peaks around -15 db is where i wanna be for individual tracks




i cant remember what the type of metering is i'm refering to with the db's... but it's the same metering that DAW's and digital meters use

[darthbatman]

I guess that makes sense so that you can later normalize it out with a lower signal:noise ratio

[pigmaker]

http://www.massivemastering.com/blog/in ... Levels.php

I read this - it made a lot of sense to me.
it's written from the viewpoint of a guy who does mastering, so...

im sure there are differing schools of opinion

im recording at 24bit 96khz so leaving all that headroom seems less harmful?

[Decibill]

Your levels sound fine. Once you start bussing tracks, add compression and begin to mix you'll find that you have plenty of headroom and volume. Your mixed, unmastered tracks should be -12 to -6 MAX in order for the mastering to have room to work with.

[pigmaker]

thanks bud. it seems counterintuitive to see such a puny waveform of a recorded guitar, which is actually at the right levels, after years of doing it the wrong way

[Decibill]

I hear ya. I used to do the same thing when i started recording in the digital world. Then I got my gain staging right and things improved dramatically.

[sonidero]

Record at Unity, no need to brickwall these days...

[Vuvuzela]

Record at Unity, no need to brickwall these days...

if it's around unity you're in good shape. depends on what guitar sound you're recording too. light compression on high gain tones tends to help things tidy. on cleaner sounds i tend to shoot for a nice fluctuation around unity. you don't want peaks but sometimes a stronger note here and there isn't a bad thing.

[pigmaker]

ive been trying to record close to unity as i can...the mastering article i linked eariler itt essentially says "record at unity" without saying the words... (http://www.massivemastering.com/blog/in ... Levels.php)

recording guitars in stereo at 96khz/24bit
2 shure sm57s, both close to the speaker, recorded input levels around right around -20dbfs.
preamp is an FMR RNP1 if anyone is curious

[Decibill]

At 96/24 you really don't need to worry too much about headroom. If your levels are at -20 you are good to go. You are recording and mixing stage. Let the mastering stage do it's job and get things up to proper volume levels.

[pigmaker]

i think it's official. i hate the way the shure sm57 makes my guitar sound.




luckily i have a pretty nice condenser with a -10 db pad and a 3 way pattern switch. and as you can see very little coloring.




(theres also a low end rolloff, that dotted line, but i dont think ill be needing that)

[MaggotBrainNY]

Decibill has the right idea. It's best to be peaking in the "yellow" range of the meter in digital, and keeping the average levels modest. That way, the accumulative levels of all of your tracks hitting your master will leave plenty of headroom for mixing/mastering. That idea of "using all the bits" in a 24-bit system is a myth. In digital, signal to noise is essentially a non-issue. The noise floor of most [properly working] digital systems is somewhere around -144 db, which is pretty far below the audible range of human hearing. It's more important to balance s/n within your analog gear, or the noise floor of whatever mic you're using. For example, ribbon mics require a substantial amount more gain than condensers, so if you're recording an acoustic guitar with a ribbon mic, you're going to start hearing the self noise of the mic and/or preamp more, because a quieter source requires more gain, and the trade off of that, is having to jack your pre to the point where the mic/pre noise becomes audible (not always, but a lot of the time, and mostly during quieter playing passages). This sort of thing becomes pretty much a non-issue if you're recording louder sources, like a guitar amp, or drums.

One of the problems that I have with digital, and people that are new to recording digitally, is that you can see the waveform, which in a lot of cases (including my own when I first switched from tape to ProTools) results in focusing on the visual aspect of things. NEVER MIX WITH YOUR EYES!!! What the wave form looks like is completely meaningless (with very rare exceptions, liking checking for DC Offset). Just use your ears. If it sounds good, it is good, etc... It's one of the reasons that I love when studios I'm freelancing at have the computer monitor off to the side where I can't see it without spinning my chair around. If the waveform is small as a result of recording at a lower level, and the track is quiet in the mix, just turn the fader up. It's really that simple. There is no need to normalize things.

Tracking things at a more modest level, rather than just jacking everything up until it's peaking JUST below the red, is one of those "HOLY SHIT, THIS WORKS!" things, and has improved my mixes more than I could have imagined.

[Decibill]

One of the problems that I have with digital, and people that are new to recording digitally, is that you can see the waveform, which in a lot of cases (including my own when I first switched from tape to ProTools) results in focusing on the visual aspect of things. NEVER MIX WITH YOUR EYES!!! What the wave form looks like is completely meaningless (with very rare exceptions, liking checking for DC Offset). Just use your ears. If it sounds good, it is good, etc... It's one of the reasons that I love when studios I'm freelancing at have the computer monitor off to the side where I can't see it without spinning my chair around. If the waveform is small as a result of recording at a lower level, and the track is quiet in the mix, just turn the fader up. It's really that simple. There is no need to normalize things.

Tracking things at a more modest level, rather than just jacking everything up until it's peaking JUST below the red, is one of those "HOLY SHIT, THIS WORKS!" things, and has improved my mixes more than I could have imagined.

+1 to this. I was going to mention it in my post, but forgot.....Well said MaggotBrain......Recording at visually "hot levels" is a carry over from analog recording. It doesn't apply or help in the digital world.....it in fact hurts.

[pigmaker]

Recording (electric guitars) at 96khz, 24 bit
I try to hit around -25db maybe 5-7 db hotter or colder
depends on the pedal config i am using and how much volume the speaker is kicking out when it starts pushing a little, but before it starts getting muddy.

then im using plugins. eq (a very small amount, and i always try to take away db's rather than add) and comp.
thats pretty much it for my guitars.
at no point am i adding db's to the guitar signal "artifically" (such as, in the plugins, by increasing the input or output level before or after an effect)


u guys cool with that ? or am i not recording hot enough for yall?


doing a mix of the at4050 condenser about a foot away, and an sm57 jammed right into the bottom edge of the speaker,
each mic recorded discretely
blending both channels in the mix (by taking away db's in one channel or the other NOT adding db's)

and man they sound fucking great now mannnnnne

[MaggotBrainNY]

one thing too, that is sort of an exception to the "rule" of tracking with low to modest levels in your DAW, is when I want the sound of my preamps being pushed hard going in to add a little extra filth to a track. In those cases, specifically when using a preamp that doesn't have an output attenuator, I sometimes will record at a hotter level than I normally would (because it requires more gain hitting the input stage of your pre). Even then, it's not gonna hit the red ever.

Also, don't get hung up on the numbers... don't worry about "oh man, I'm peaking at -6db, and averaging -12, is that ok?" It's something I used to worry about, but now the only time I check stuff like that, is when I'm bouncing down a final mix, or rough mix where I'm using a peak limiter on the master fader... to make sure I'm not going to get any accidental overs that the limiter is missing.

Just let it become intuitive. If it sounds good, it's good.