In addition to that 'set & forget' channel balancing and basic gain setting for a particular set of mics, there is a separate issue of needing to adjust overall gain for various SPL recording situations with gross gain adjustments. As you mention, that adjustment can often be made by adjusting the recorder’s input gain (within its adjustment limits and/or the limits of acceptable noise at one end and overload distortion at the other).
Unfortunately, the range of usable gain adjustment on some recorders is pretty limited. The line-input of the Tascam DR2d is limited to about a 5dB total useful adjustment range. So without re-adjusting the UGLYs, my gross gain adjustment for different styles of music is limited to 5db using that recorder.
I try to keep the same UGLY gain setting for almost everything I record with this rig, both to retain my set channel balances and avoid wear on the pots. So to avoid overloading the Tascam’s inputs I’ve reduced the gain on the UGLYs. Now that I’ve re-measured it, I know now the gain is -5dB, or about 10dB less than my previous setting of +5dB).
I set gain levels so that the loudest, close-proximity clapping peaks at about -2dBFS on the recorder. That works OK since I don’t usually record super loud material and also don’t hear a noise problem when increasing the level of the recording later for quiet material without loud nearby clapping, even though it was recorded at a level far lower than I’d otherwise prefer.
I thought about this again recently because I just made some ambient nature recordings which really could have used additional gain, but didn’t want to re-adjust the UGLYs.
Here’s my question for you Chris:
How much headroom is there in the UGLYs? I’m using DPA 4060s which have a relatively high sensitivity of 20 mV/Pa as you know. What if I set the base gain of the UGLYs high enough to accommodate those quiet nature recordings (set-and-forget) and then used external attenuators of several values between the UGLY and recorder to accommodate higher SPL material? I could choose between, say, three attenuation values. Would I reach unacceptable distortion levels in the UGLY that way for the loud stuff? Lets assume I kept the gain on the UGLYs near +20dB and then selected between using no attenuation, -10dB, -20dB or -30dB depending on the highest expected SPL level.
That would give me a range of adjustment wide enough to accommodate anything I wanted to record by inserting the appropriate attenuator, and I wouldn’t need to adjust gain on the UGLYs.