JazzSinger
Am I allowed to ask a question here?
In the Webinar, you guys talk about synth plug levels being set too high and distorting by some folks and that thats not a good thing.
But for recorded tracks (microphone or DI'd), what nominal level should I be aiming for?
I do understand that, from a sound quality point of view and the 64bit sound engine it hardly matters, and in contrast to tape, with a DAW it's better to aim low.
But surely FX plugs, especially compressors, expect a certain level to work properly?
So where should I aim for my average/max peak levels to be on naturally recorded instruments/vocals?
Even if I normalize or up the gain after the initial recording, what average level should I aim for?
I typically shoot for around -6 to -12 when recording audio and also mix my synths and other tracks in SONAR at the same level. Many soft synths are extremely loud and some even clip, so what I usually do is either turn the synth's main output down or adjust the Gain (Input Trim) on the Instrument or Synth track that the soft synth is feeding.
I like adjusting the Gain because usually a synth's main output on the synth itself is set on a per=preset basis, so if I were to change the preset or patch in the synth the volume would go back up. Adjusting the Gain on the track level avoids this problem.
The reason I, and many other people (I didn't invent this technique), mix in the box this way is because it allows plenty of headroom for adding plugins to your tracks, and also allows plenty of headroom when processing the overall mix with master compression, limiting, etc. It's really at that final mastering stage that you want to get your track as loud as possible, not during mixing.
SP