Guys, we've discussed this before, I think, quite some time back, but
the answers I got were kind of vague, and honestly, and this is of no
offense to any of you all, weren't very helpful at the time. That's no
fault of you all. It might have just been my knowledge/experience at
that time was not of such that I could fully grasp the concepts.
Here is the situation again though. Trust me, too. I've Googled like
crazy. I spent over about 3 hours last night Youtubing, and just
Googling in general and am coming up pretty much empty handed.
I normally record lead vocals on top of already purchased instrumental
tracks, so I'm not really normally working with stems. Once in a while,
I'll do something which takes more than 2 tracks, one for the music, one
for my vofal, but that's rare. Regardless, this is occuring.
In the past, I made a really really bad habbit of cranking my input gain
on the mike input way up. Well, OK, fine. Not way up, but up enough to
get good audible level going into PT. I obviously needed the level to be
balanced with the music track.
Problem is, that music track usually would have been mastered at gain
unity 0, which you know, anything above that, you're clipping. This
means anything I drove on top of the music track, that's gonna push my
master over that 0 no no limit. But! I had to. Or so I thought. It's the
only way I could get any good volume on my mike input.
So, a few things. First my hardware. This way you know what we're
working with. This interface is popular enough, surely you all know
enough at least about it to help. I'm running a Focusrite scarlet 2I2
interface, and the first generation of a Blue Bluebird microphone. Let
me be clear. This is the Bluebird, not the baby bottle. Again, the first
gen, not the 2nd, nor the beta.
Now, I'm trying to break that habbit of running my gain so hot. I'm
finding that with where my input dial on the scarlet now is set, I'm on
my peeks hitting probably around -13DB or so on average, and again,
that's on the loudest peeks of my vocals. Obviously, that's much much
better.
The problem is, when recording, obviously having the level that low, I
can't hear myself hardly at all in my cans. I normally have to get
around -2 to 0DB in my peek meter on the output of the vocal track in PT
before I can really hear myself well.. Also, when playing things back,
it's barely audible.
Obviously, same problem with my keyboard using a virtual synth, or for
that mind, patching it directly in the scarlet. As for my vocal, I get
that to hear it well in my cans, and on the final mix I could pop a
compressor on the vocal, like the Gray compressor, and set it to a
preset like steady, which very very significantly does boost the volume.
The only issue is, no, I'm not clipping, but adding compression for the
simple reason to boost that output gain is a horrible! idea in most
cases. It's adding color, sometimes saturation, etc. that I definitely
do not want into the mix taking away the natural beauty of the vocal
characteristics.
Yes, I could get a pre like a cloud lifter, but that's gonna present the
same issue. You turn up that input, bam! now you're clippen again. I
don't think the issue is on my input side. - I'm fully convinced of
that. This is an output thing. As level wize, my peek meter in PT is
showing just fine at -13 roughly.
I know I also could turn down the music track. Wayyyyy down. Then, add a
stereo master fader track, and turn it's output volume slider way way up
to compensate, but is that really the best methodology? I have to run
that thing with no plugs on the master fader up to nearly positive 8 or
9 DB to get the volume back to normal comfortable listening. Remember.
I'm trying to compensate for that lower -13DB level going in.
I don't think the Scarlet has a separate IO path output just for
headphones alone, so I can't exactly create a bus in the IO settings,
then send to it individually creating a submix.
On the master fader though, again, going to +8 or 9 DB... yeah! That's
barely giving any headroom at all. Maybe I have a ton on the mike, but,
yeah. I get I could turn up the output level itself on the vocal track
but is that really a safe thing to do? I was always told you wana try
keeping your vocal tracks output volume sliders as close to that default
0DB as possible. Only interact with Voiceover on those sliders and crank
them as a very last resort. I'm told you really wanna be using your
master, not the level of the mike tracks.
Basically all I'm trying to do is keep things at that -13 average, yet
get them loud enough to hear them through the mix. I could just crank up
the cans volume knob on the scarlet, or the main output volume fed to my
speakers, but then, again, I'm gonna have to then crank things almost to
the point of normal blaring level which means if I do anything listening
to a regular mp3 outside PT, or try doing anything with Voiceover, etc.
Yowel! Lookout! Can you say, ow, my aching ears?
I just don't know how to deal with this. I'm kind a damned if I do, and
I'm damned catch22 if i don't.
Chris.
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