Just A quick Question About Levels for DI's

[kenfobert]

Hey guys

Just wondering something after reading Oz's guide to reamping. He says adjust the preamps gain so that the guitar signal is peaking at -3 to -4 db. Does this mean that when you record the DI track and listen back to it, the signal in your DAW, pro tools, cubase etc should be peaking at -3 to -4?

 

[Wolfeman]

Yes. I think the goal of this is to have as hot a signal as possible without clipping, since any signal to noise ratio here will show up ten fold once you begin reamping or whatever you are doing with the DI.

 

[kenfobert]

OK.

The only thing that's worrying me is when I have the preamp gain on my board turned up enough to get the signal to -3 or -4 in cubase, the signal is clipping on the board, but in cubase it's around -3 to -4.

Just wanted to make sure that won't be a problem.

Another quick question. In OZ's manual he says to mix down the DI tracks as mono files at 24 bit. When recording the DI track should it be recording to a MONO track as well?

 

[AStacy2]

OK.

The only thing that's worrying me is when I have the preamp gain on my board turned up enough to get the signal to -3 or -4 in cubase, the signal is clipping on the board, but in cubase it's around -3 to -4.

Just wanted to make sure that won't be a problem.

Another quick question. In OZ's manual he says to mix down the DI tracks as mono files at 24 bit. When recording the DI track should it be recording to a MONO track as well?

If you're clipping the board that's not good. Turn it down until it's not clipping. I haven't used Cubase in a while but if you have the tracks panned and certain pan laws checked, it might be giving you an incorrect peak value there.


If you're just tracking straight DI's without any hardware FX boxes with stereo effects in the chain or anything like that then yes, a 24bit mono track will work great. As far as volume goes, I've reamped fine with signals peaking as low as -18 but generally yeah, I think peaking around -12 to -3 would be better for the reasons Wolf said.

 

[Wolfeman]

I always record them as a mono track.

As for the clipping, don't let it. I'm not sure about Cubase, but some DAW meters aren't accurate (may show no clipping, but really is)

 

[Wolfeman]

What he said

 

[Metaltastic]

It could be that Cubase is inaccurate, but it also might be that the mixer's preamp is clipping but for whatever reason the outputs on it are low enough that the converters on your interface (assuming they're two separate things) still have some headroom left. What interface are you using?

On the other hand, I know on my old M-Audio PCI sound card, there were input level meters in the driver control panel utility that would clip WAY before the Cubase SX2 (yes it was pirated, this was like 5 years ago ) meter would, so I always went by that (neither of my Onyxes have that feature, however as far as I can tell Reaper's meters are accurate, since they would clip pretty much exactly when the on-board preamps on the interfaces did)

 

[kenfobert]

Thanks for the tips guys.

It's a Mackie Onyx 1640

I'll just make sure the board isn't clipping and hopefully the signal will be somewhere in between -12 and -3 in Cubase.

 

[Metaltastic]

Yeah, honestly I've realized recently that it's not that important to get the levels to the -4/-3 mark, and if anything it's better with cheap(ish) gear to have them peak a bit lower so you don't risk pushing the preamps/converters too hard and getting some undesirable coloration; you (or whoever is re-amping) can always boost the fader of the track the DI is on to match the level of a guitar plugged straight into the amp

 

[kenfobert]

OK sounds good. Thanks for the help guys.

 

[lolzgreg]

I think it is VERY IMPORTANT to get the level as hot as humanly possible without clipping. The result is always better reamping when you have less noise. A good DI and a good, transparent preamp helps a lot as well. I've done a lot of reamping in the past month or so and it's very obvious that the adeptly recorded DIs blow away the even medicore ones tone wise in the end.

 

[Metaltastic]

But you're almost certainly gonna have more noise pushing a prosumer preamp/converter pair to its limits rather than boosting the fader for clean gain, and SNR is hardly an issue when your a) recording at 24-bits and b) still are peaking at like -12 Some good points on the subject here:

http://www.ultimatemetal.com/forum/production-tips/531891-about-ideal-volume-guitar-di-track.html

 

[Metaltastic]

However, before this becomes too Gearslutty, I would say that this all probably isn't gonna make that audible of a difference, I just bring it up because of the OP's clipping issues (and I think we can agree that clipping on DI's should be avoided at all costs!)