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Author Topic: MixPre6 Gain Settings  (Read 3179 times)

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Offline krowllaw

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MixPre6 Gain Settings
« on: November 20, 2017, 12:20:24 PM »
I finally had the opportunity to use my new MixPre6 yesterday.  I really like it.  I was in a small club, less than 300 people.  My levels were low, I peaked at about -12db.  I was nervous to push the gain too much and the fader was at about 80%.  I set the gain to 12db to get that. 

My question is, what is a good setting for gain on this device?  I was using the phantom power and a pair of Neumann km184s.  Would pushing the gain past 12db have been ok?  Appreciate any advice!

Offline vwmule

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Re: MixPre6 Gain Settings
« Reply #1 on: November 20, 2017, 02:07:56 PM »
You had plenty of room to push levels. But if running 24-bit, the position was good as you can bump in post production without fear of introducing noise.

Offline Fatah Ruark (aka MIKE B)

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Re: MixPre6 Gain Settings
« Reply #2 on: November 20, 2017, 07:27:03 PM »
If I'm in the -12db range I call it good and just fix the levels in post. I'd rather do that than have the recording have the increase which makes it a lot harder to get equal levels for the full recording.

I think the highest I've ended up running was -6db and couldn't tell the difference in the final product vs. when I was running -12db.

Basically I'm not worried about the levels if I'm somewhere between -15db and -6db. Under -15 I'm worried about noise (although I'm pretty sure I could go lower and be fine). On the top end I don't like to over -6 so I have plenty of head room in case the show gets louder.
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Offline fanofjam

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Re: MixPre6 Gain Settings
« Reply #3 on: November 21, 2017, 08:41:23 AM »
For recording live music, 20db gain seemed to be the sweet spot for many of the old school fixed gain preamps like the Oade M148.  So that's where I've preset the gain in my Advance mode presets (this is the 'gain' setting in the advance mode menu).  At the start of a show I position my faders straight up to 12noon and then adjust from there once the show starts.  Seems to work out pretty well.  I don't need to move the faders too much from 12noon during the show and my meters are peaking in the -12db range with good, but not ridiculous ear splitting, volume.  I never record in 16bit anymore, so I've been using the -12db peak meter reference for many years now.  I'm OK with -12db peaks because I'm not worried about the noise floor since I'm recording live music (so, you never hear any self noise anyway), and by keeping the headroom with peaks at -12db, I never need to worry about 'overs', which is great because I don't like to rely on limiters.  Obviously, this requires me to bump levels in post, but I'm totally OK doing that, since I'm recording in 24bit and these mixpres have such a low noise floor. 

I actually prefer running the Mixpre-3 in custom mode and use the front knobs as gain controls rather than faders.  In Custom mode, go to the Custom setup menu and select Basic under the Gain setting.  Again, at the beginning of a show, I'll set the gain around 20db on each of the gain knobs and generally get peaks around -12db on the meter during a loud show without having to do much tweaking.

Hope this helps.
« Last Edit: November 21, 2017, 09:05:19 AM by fanofjam »

Offline rippleish20

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Re: MixPre6 Gain Settings
« Reply #4 on: November 21, 2017, 09:38:34 AM »
I try and run closer to -6db but often end up running more down near -12db. I prefer not to do normalization or any post processing. I encountered the early bug where levels are like -40db when turning off l/r recording and there was still no noise so you can record low without consequences if you want.
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Offline krowllaw

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Re: MixPre6 Gain Settings
« Reply #5 on: November 21, 2017, 02:35:46 PM »
Very helpful, thanks so much!  For this recording I did some post editing (compression) to get the volume up a bit and it sounds fine, especially considering the fact I was recording a group of 12 year olds in a mediocre club. 

 

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