Pre-Fader Metering | Interviews

Pre-Fader Metering

Mar

2010

billy_hume_closeup2

I want to address something that is a pet peeve of mine.

Recording levels.

I am always getting mixes in here where the audio was recorded at such a low level that I have to put trim plugins on tracks and boost them 10 db before I do anything else. There seems to be this mis-conception that because it is digital that the recording level doesn't matter. Well it does. I am not as technical as some engineers, but I know what sounds good. Audio recorded in digital at a low level doesn't sound as good as something recorded at almost full level.

Now if you go on Gearslutz.com you will find plenty of post with endless rants about the proper level to record at. But as I understand it you don't get your full 24 bits if you are recording at low levels. Alternately, recording at too high a level isn't too good either as digital is not forgiving the analog. In analog you could push the meters far into the red and the tape would just give it this really nice compression (tape compression). In digital it just clips the wave form and sounds awful. I've also read that the converters on most interfaces are not calibrated to handle those levels (this is one of those hotly disputed issues with engineers).

But to me it's fairly simple, make sure your record levels are above halfway, don't slam them. Probably keeping the levels hovering around 60% - 75% on the meters in your DAW would be good.

However, how do you know that you are really seeing the proper levels? That is where pre fader metering comes in. In most DAWs there is an option to view your levels pre fader. This means that the meters are showing you the signal level on that track before the fader or plugins affect it. If you are recording and don't have pre fader metering on and you have your fader on your record track up really high you will think you are getting a strong signal and turn down your record level (input on interface or output on your preamp). This will result in you recording too low of a signal.

If you are recording with pre fader metering off and have the fader on your record track turned down low you will crank up your record level and thus probably clip the signal.

Always use pre fader metering when recording. Then turn it off when you are mixing so you can see if you are over-driving the signal by boosting too many frequencies in an eq plugin or just have too many faders pushed too high (this leads into a whole other topic of gain stage which is something any engineer from the analog days would know about but most engineers today have no idea about).

Recording - Pre Fader Metering ON

Mixing - Pre Fader Metering OFF

More reading:

Gearslutz Recording Level Debate -

http://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-much-gear-so-little-time/452226-please-settle-disagreement.html

ProSoundWeb Recording Level Debate -

http://recforums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/t/15038/6996