| How do I set gain? | ||||
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It's safe to say that all of us have been guilty of haphazard gain settings. Whether running low on time, laziness, or just not knowing any better, we have either ruined a project with unwanted distortion (clipping) or an inefficient signal to noise ratio (when the equipment noise is too loud relative to your recorded sound). Correct and efficient gain settings are neccesary to achieve a brilliant and clean recording of your subject whatever it may be! So where do we begin? First it's neccesary to understand Dynamic Range. What our ears hear covers a large dynamic spectrum, from the sound of a quiet whisper to an incredibly loud jet engine. A more common term is loudness. As the signal enters an analog enviroment, the loudness from the real world is translated into voltage. This may range from a few volts for a very loud sound to a millionth of a volt for a very soft sound. That is then recorded on your analog or digital device. So when you record a sound into your device, you are in a sense recording the dynamic fingerprint of the sound among other properties such as pitch and Timbre. Secondly, we must understand the lower and upper limits of our equipment. On the lower side, audio devices may have varying abilities to add or reduce voltage,but they do so at a cost. They all add noise to the signal. The difference between the desired sound and the noise is called "signal to noise ratio". On the upper side, too much voltage will result in distortion as it exceeds the clipping point of the gear. So what does this mean when we are adjusting that little gain knob? We need to turn up the gain high enough so that the desired signal is well above the noise being added, but low enought so that clipping does not occur. You will most likely utilize the PFL function for the mixer channel. When the button is depressed, you will see the signal strength on the PFL meter. If you are recording directly to a device, there should be some kind of meter that displays signal srength (For most recording devices, you will not see a signal until it is record enabled). You want to make sure your peaks (loudest sounds) are pegging zero every now and then, but still below the clipping point. If you have mutiple devices in the chain it is important to set your first device to the appropriate level and then set the gain for each device in the order they are connected, ensuring a strong and clean signal.         |
| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 25 March 2009 18:25 ) |
