Tips on Levels of Samples

[JOHNSONDONTSURF]

Whats up guys!

I was wondering how everyone goes about recording the volume level of their sample. How loud do you record your drum samples and vinyl sample etc?

I use fruity loops 10 to record into, if you use this too, what are your preferred settings?




Thanks a whole heap, mon!

[MattCoops]

I record straight from the turntable into SampleTrak.
And on that you can have different Levels on each pad.
So I "mix" that way.

[Om_Audio]

Ya I tend to try and record as loud as I can then mix using the pad volume levels. Not sure if this is the best way though- the more I learn about digital recording the more I hear you need way more headroom than analog- well below distorting 0db. So I might actually try to to start working quieter overall, turn up the headphone volume, and do mastering compressor in PC to compete with how loud everyone else is.
The best way would be if everyone just stopped making things as loud (so that the dynamics of the recorded frequencies could be uncompressed, distortion free and natural) and we all just turned up our playback levels on our iPhones and computers a bit. Fat chance.

The "K System' proposed by Bob Katz is an effort to adress this industry-wide for those who may be interested:
http://www.digido.com/how-to-make-bette ... art-2.html

Also Bob Katz's book "Mastering Audio' is the shit and comes with a cool old poster of the frequency range drawn up I think in the 40s.

Also, Bob Katz is the shit. 15 years ago or so I had questions about dithering and my then new Lucid audio clock and Bob took the time and interacted with me freely and directly on a newsgroup. Very generous and helped me grasp dithering.

C

[hseiken]

@Ohm, I think the reason for the headroom rules on digital is that analog saturation sounds way better than digital clipping.

[Om_Audio]

Yes agreed, but if you can record safely at -6dB or whatever then why does it -really- matter let's say assuming you are getting the addtl gain from within your DAW and not overdriving your analog section?
In any event I am def going to incorporate this new info into my process. Great to know that years ago they simply decided they had to add headroom to the digital scale to allow for the ability of analog to go way past 0dB and still sound great.
C

@Ohm, I think the reason for the headroom rules on digital is that analog saturation sounds way better than digital clipping.

[JOHNSONDONTSURF]

The "K System' proposed by Bob Katz is an effort to adress this industry-wide for those who may be interested:
http://www.digido.com/how-to-make-bette ... art-2.html

Also Bob Katz's book "Mastering Audio' is the shit and comes with a cool old poster of the frequency range drawn up I think in the 40s.

Also, Bob Katz is the shit. 15 years ago or so I had questions about dithering and my then new Lucid audio clock and Bob took the time and interacted with me freely and directly on a newsgroup. Very generous and helped me grasp dithering.

C[/quote]
Woah thanks for sharing this OM!

[hseiken]

Buying a kitchen will make any mix sound better....lulz

[Om_Audio]

Buying a kitchen will make any mix sound better....lulz

Hah- No shit. :/

[JOHNSONDONTSURF]

HAHA!

Already purchased my new kitchen, waiting for it to arrive



MIXING is no longer a problem!

[hseiken]

Mixing them margaritas and bloody mary's like a champ in dat new kitchen!

Wait...oh audio mixing. My bad.

[LO-]

404 vet here,

anywho, i think the red lamp is peak indicator, I think the only way to tell what the red lamp does, if someone exports a sample that flickers red, and also a sample that blasts the indicator full drum. then we can tell if it's clipping or what is going on, also a test on a non flickering sample just to be safe.

what i mean to suggest by stating that, is, I think it's a peak indicator not a clip detector. I hear the a/d converters are magic, so it's not like clipping to 0db on a mic input on your computer. (hehe)

also, most of the time i used the 404, i had the volume always full blast, this causes problems with subsonic and if you have loud samples then crack to the dome ! ok I went full master because I was copying what I saw growing up, everyone had their mp's full blast out, to get mega thump, times have changed though, and im shure theres no rule where your master should be. gain staging is a skill though and once you got a hang of it, then it's like riding a bike.

[Ron-Jay]

first post.

I believe the manual says to set the input volume so that the red light lights some of the time. That is super vague but I think it insinuates that if it hits red it is close to clipping. So you would have sufficient headroom on everything else in the sample and you can finely tune from there as to whether or not the part of the sample that is lighting the red light (a kick or snare) still sounds good.

Does anyone know if the 404 is analog or digital?

[Om_Audio]

Digital all the way. Nothing uses analog bucket brigade chips any more for looping and there are no tape loops in there hehe. You are right about the manual stating the occasional red light is your guide. Personally I think part of the issue is the internal processing/resampling bit depth. I have found so many times on my 404SX where the sound I have gets f****d after resampling it esp low frequencies. This suggests reduced bit depth during this resampling process versus the bit depth of the fx engine and/or DA converters.
C

[LO-]

the 404 og resample will always almost sound the same,

the 404 og Version one has the best sound engine,

but coming from the 303 to 404, I noticed a drastic change in the sound and FX.

not in a good way, in a bad way.

[Om_Audio]

*sigh* I'm gonna have to get a 303 one of these days just to see what all the hype is about.
C