Peak Levels for Vocals

[Basil]

I realize you don't want any level to go past 0 when recording however I don't know what the preferrded method is.

When recording vocals do you want a wave form that goes almost up to the top (Hot Signal) of the graph without getting clipped or is it ok to have it set at a much lower ( Mild Signal) level just incase you need the extra room for some peaks?
How low of a level is acceptable?

[NickT]

Basil,

In general - If you are recording 24bit, -6 is plenty. That takes into consideration the your source is good (low signal to noise ratio)

At 16 bit, as hot as you can get it without clipping. I'd aim closer to -3.

Nick

[Basil]

Just the info I was looking for.

Thanks Nick.

[CosmicDolphin]

One thing that's always a bug bear of mne when mixing other peoples tracks is how low a level some of them record stuff at, and I have to really boost it up which can bring up the noise floor.

I'm talking tracks recorded at -15 to -20 db's PEAK       

Check your gain structures guys it can make a huge difference in sound quality 

ok.... I'll get off my soapbox now 

[Basil]

Hi CD,

That's interesting.
I've been recording with a high level and it always seems that I peak out.
That's why I was wondering about recording at lower levels.

Question....if you record at lower levels can you take the track and render it as a seperate wave file and than boost the levels back to where they should be ?

[CosmicDolphin]

Hi CD,

That's interesting.
I've been recording with a high of a level and it always seems that I peak out.
That's why I was wondering about recording at lower levels.

Question....if you record at lower levels can you take the track and render it as a seperate wave file and than boost the levels back to where they should be ?

You can but ou're just rasing the noise floor too, sothe signal to noise ratio will be worse than if you recorded it loud enough to begin with.

 I guess if it's a pop or rock mix and the track is never exposed you wouldn't notice, but you would on a more acoustic track.

Alot of pre-amps include a limiter to stop this..I think most DAWs have soft-clipping now too, but it's a bad habit to run it into the read all the while too.

CD

[Tacman7]

It was a big change for me when I started using hardware compression on tracking. I need a little help to create a track without too much change in dynamics.