Gentlemen, Thank you for taking your time to chime in.
Biasrocks said:
LA2's in particular like to be hit fairly light unless you're looking for gobs of compression. They will distort easily if you turn up the output with a hot signal.
Try this with your 1176 using a signal like guitar or a vocal. Input on "30" output on "18", 4:1 ratio, attack 3, release 7. Turn down your mic pre all the way and insert it into the 1176. Bring up your level on the mic pre until you start to see some compression, 3-4db is plenty. If your A/D is calibrated for -18dbfs you should see a healthy level into your DAW.
Try it and report back.
Regards,
Mark
Mark, thank you very much for helping. I followed your instructions while speaking into the mic. Healthy level, yes, into D.A.W. was achieved. Compression was averaging around 3dB but when I switched over to see what the output dB was, it was going far into the red often.
emrr said:
If you are set to VU on the meter it will definitely be slammed tracking hot to the average +18dBu modern input. VU meters in that case are pretty useless unless they have an attenuator, which is not usually the case.
Then I have to wonder why they are set on VU, rather than gain reduction.
And I have to wonder why they are there then? I thought in the red meant distortion even though I couldn't hear it myself. Thanks for bringing that up.
Brian Roth said:
Indeed, we're all a bit in the dark re:
1. What "Neve" unit are we talking about? A vintage 8068 desk, or some sort of reissue/clone box?
2. As was asked by Kingston, what Apogee, and what fader are you referring to?
Also, which make/models are your DIY compressors?
Bri
1. 1064 with e.q. - not a reissue, original 100% (well, recapped,etc).
2. Duet, fader=in Logic
3. 1176LN rev D - I forget the LA2A revision number.
deuce42 said:
Just a general comment without knowing all your gear and circumstances, comps can have huge output level gains -eg the la2a. I know this has been mentioned above. Does your preamp(s) have a pad db switch on it? You may find lowering the preamp output signal gives you a bit more freedom with the comp without blowing your recording levels.
Also, and this might be obvious, but one off the most embarrassing experiences I had once was during a session where the audio was distorting perpetually and for the the life of me I couldn't work out what had become faulty in my outboard gear. Later in the afternoon I realized that the person who borrowed my gear the night before had set the apogee software settings to mic instead of line! My point? - check the obvious before you embark on serious gain staging data
A very good point. I have four settings for the input on the Apogee; +4dBu, -10dBV, XLR mic and instrument. The Neve has 20 to 80 -dBm output. I have been using the +4 dBu setting on the Apogee and the Neve for this test ended up at 35 and the -10 dB pad on the U87 was off.
Kingston said:
...signal to noise ratio where? within your DAW? Recording even 20dB below A/D clipping threshold is perfectly fine with a modern 24bit converter. It's unlikely that either the LA2A or 1176 would have their own S/N ratio above even 80dB. Recording them closer to the clipping threshold would achieve nothing since all you are doing is recording more noise at LSB's (least significant bits of the converter).
If I recorded the output of the comps at an output value where the VU on the comps did not go into the red, as I thought it shouldn't, the ratio was not great. Obviously, turning up the volume fader in Logic would result in magnifying the noise floor as well as the vox or gtr, etc,