Quote:
Originally Posted by MarkRB  OK, Imagine this or better yet try it if you have a desk.
Set your pre on a channel at a sensible level with your fader at zero and measure the noise.
Now turn your fader down to -10 and add an additional 10dB gain to the pre.
Which is noisier? |
You're comparing analog gain-staging to digital tracking levels; or at least I understood the original topic of this thread to be
digital tracking levels.
When tracking digitally, you can set your pre to its best S/N ratio (or whatever other setting you are happy with) and track away, steering clear of digital overs of course. There's no need to artificially lower the gain on a pre (i.e., to settle for a suboptimal S/N ratio in the pre) simply because you are tracking a part that will ultimately have a low volume in the final mix.
Digital faders and digital summing don't work like an analog console. If you pull all the faders down to negative infinity in a DAW, the output will be silence (in the digital realm anyway). An analog console makes noise even if you pull every fader all the way down.
-synthoid