Zipfunk Posted March 6 Share Posted March 6 If this is the wrong forum I apologize. Life never been happy with guitar sounds with my Neural DSP plugins. This tip has made my sounds better just putting it here I. Hopes it helps someone else. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tiago Rocha Posted March 7 Share Posted March 7 When I first saw this post and watched the video, it kinda made sense what he was saying (I was trying to understand if he was saying what I thought he meant), but then someone in the comment section pointed out something relevant: The level on your interface is really not that relevant. You can still push the gain close to 0dB as long as it's not clipping. You can even record a whole track with a "garbage"/overly saturated sound. You can always add a Gain plugin before the guitar amp and make those adjustments after you recorded. Maybe you even like that overly saturated sound? Who knows? So as someone also said in the comments, the guy in the video is probably overthinking the whole process. It's not like we are stuck with what we set on our interface. As long as the interface itself doesn't affect the sound negatively when pushed close to 0dB (or whatever high value we want to push it), I even think that's better to have it as high as possible to stay away from any potential low noise (signal-to-noise ratio). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
des99 Posted March 7 Share Posted March 7 I thought the same thing back when this video cropped up and was discussed by a lot of guitarists online. You optimise the recording level for the *signal*, but what you do with it then is in your hands. Yes, it's likely that people are hitting amp sims etc too hard (so good advice here), but the solution is not to under-recorded your signals to bring the volume down, the solution is *to bring the volume down*, and it doesn't require a 20+ minute video of waffling somewhat arbitrarily and unconvincingly discussing levels which kinda demonstrate he's not even that sure of the concept of what a good signal level is in the first place... However, with modern convertors and 24-bit recording, this has freed us from noise floor problems, and the need to get as high a level as you can without clipping like we had to when recording 16-bit fixed point audio (eg, to DAT). The benefits of modern technology is that you don't need to get anywhere near 0dBFS, or just below your convertors' clipping point, to get a good, healthy signal. -18dBFS is fine, and if your audio interface's preamps are in the green, you're good... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zipfunk Posted March 7 Author Share Posted March 7 (edited) 13 minutes ago, des99 said: and it doesn't require a 20+ minute video of waffling somewhat arbitrarily and unconvincingly discussing levels which kinda demonstrate he's not even that sure of the concept of what a good signal level is in the first place… I’m so glad you said this. I had the video in my ‘to watch’ pile forever. I saw the length of the video and decided to wait. Then tried a few times to watch it. ‘a video in need of an editor’ I haven’t tried it with other company’s guitar plug-ins, and I’m assuming this information is based on the neural DSP plug-ins. Edited March 7 by Zipfunk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tiago Rocha Posted March 7 Share Posted March 7 (edited) @des99 exactly, there are 2 steps in this process: from guitar to DAW (arrangement/audio region), then from audio region to the plugin. And if anything, if someone is hitting the plugins too hard, the issue is on the second step, not the first one. The first one only establishes the quality of the audio file itself, not the plugins after that. I don't blame people for thinking about these things. We all make mistakes sometimes or we focus on the wrong issue. It's about perspective. I don't think people are purposely talking about these issues in an attempt to spread the wrong information. Again, it's easy to watch/read something online and if that makes some sense, we sometimes tend to focus on that without looking from the outside. As I said, I was also thinking that what he was saying "kinda" made sense, until I started reading the comments, otherwise I would probably think I should change my approach. All of this to say that there's no need to feel "disgusted". It's not that serious 😉 Even if the noise-floor is not an issue nowadays, I always like to have a good visual representation of what I recorded when I look at the audio regions. I also believe that it's better to be consistent in the way we work (at least that's how I see it) so even if we have to work in a system where the noise-floor is an issue, we always work the same way. If it doesn't affect the audio negatively, I rather have a consistent way of doing things so everything is automatic and the chances of making mistakes, are low. 1 hour ago, Zipfunk said: I haven’t tried it with other company’s guitar plug-ins, and I’m assuming this information is based on the neural DSP plug-ins. The "issue" has nothing to do with the companies. The approach is always the same. The way you record your audio, has nothing to do with the second part of the process (audio into the plugin). Sure, if the audio you recorded is already "optimized" to go to the plugin at a level that will not hit it too hard, you don't have to do as much work, but technically speaking, it makes no difference. Even if your audio is peaking at 0dBFS, you just add a Gain plugin before the amp plugin and adjust the gain to an optimal level (or if the amp has an input knob that allows you to go low/high enough to reach that optimal level). Summary: don't overthink haha Edited March 7 by Tiago Rocha 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
des99 Posted March 7 Share Posted March 7 1 minute ago, Tiago Rocha said: I always like to have a good visual representation of what I recorded when I look at the audio regions. Sure, although Logic has a waveform zoom tool specifically for that case. But yes, work in the way that most makes sense to you... 👍 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tiago Rocha Posted March 7 Share Posted March 7 (edited) 6 minutes ago, des99 said: Sure, although Logic has a waveform zoom tool specifically for that case. Sometimes I use it, but when you have to zoom in like crazy, the waveform is horrible. Usually, if I can do it (meaning, if the audio level doesn't affect the processing such as a compressor, distortion, etc), I tend do just increase the gain of the region itself via the inspector. But yeah, I guess I just got used to record as high as possible, as long as it sounds good, so that saves me some time and work Edited March 7 by Tiago Rocha Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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