Tips, tricks, Q&A, discussion for anyone recording banjo & acoustic instruments using Apple's GarageBand

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Administrators: MrNatch3L (owner)

Recording levels

From MrNatch3L on 2/28/2013 2:32:22 AM

Kind of quiet here and has been for a while so I thought I would share some recent experience.

Not sure how I came across this, but I got the idea somewhere that I was probably setting levels too high when I was recording. Which meant I was not leaving enough "headroom" for final compression during mastering, and so was always struggling with clipping.

What I'm doing, which seems to work well: I set the master level on 0 db, but I record real instrument tracks at -2.4 db or maybe a bit more... -3.x. And I make sure that all the track effects that can boost the signal level like compressor and EQ are off during recording. I'll warm up the track monitor with a little Master reverb. No compressor or EQ on master (which I don't think would affect the track, but just to be sure).

I find that with the track levels like this getting a good mix is easier - you have some room for compressor and/or EQ.  When I get a track where I want it with the graphic EQ, if I've boosted any bands more than about 1 db I'll select all the faders and bring the whole level down until the most boosted band is not more than about +1 db. 

When I get the mix with track EQs any other track effects, and no tracks are clipping, then (as I think I mentioned in some other posts), I export the mix to disk, setting the master to around -5 to -6 db (all Master effects off), and then import that into a second .band project.

In that project I create duplicate tracks of the mix and pan one left a bit, and one right. Then I set the final compressor on the Master track, and maybe tweak the overall EQ a bit. This is all with the master level on 0 db. If I get clipping on the master I'll either reduce the compressor gain, or the level of the 2 tracks, or maybe a but of both depending on what sounds better.

An alternative approach which has worked well on a couple of songs: in the second project, after panning the duplicated tracks, I turn off all track and Master effects and export this "wider" mix to disk. I then import that AIF file to the project in a new track. I mute the other two tracks, and do a final EQ and filtering on this "master stereo mix" track. I then apply master compression and I'm done. 

I find this approach has really cleaned up my sound a lot, along with learning about filtering, which I'll post about sometime.