bbystrek wrote:
>
> What is the correct way to establish a preamp gain setting? My
> current understanding is to always set it as high as possible without
> clipping to maximize dynamic range. Is this correct? Of couse it's
> difficult to deal with digital overs in post recording editing, and
> from everything I have read, you have to test your recorders level
> indicators to see how they actually work to see where clipping is
> actually occuring - given that they don't all necessarily represent
> the output of the digitizer, but sometimes a value derived from the
> amplifier.
That's the traditional recommendation for analog tape, and is not
justified for digital. In fact it's dangerous. Analog required this as
it's dynamic range was limiting, and it's clipping was pretty soft.
Always set your levels with a pad, digital has plenty of dynamic range
to spare. For a starting point with frogs try 20 dB down. You can narrow
that, but only if you monitor while watching the level meter for a
while. That's problematic with DAT like you use as it should not be
paused long.
Yes, it's well worthwhile testing you level indicators to know what they me=
an.
What counts for digital clipping is the level of the analog signal being
fed into the A/D converter. And making sure you don't increase the gain
in any of the digital processing steps.
> Am I right in also concluding that the perceived noise generated by
> the microphone is unaffected by gain setting of the preamp (given
> that input sections are typically much much quieter than mics) such
> that if the final recording were later amplitude normalized, the
> quality of the recording is the same?
The mic noise is amplified right along with the signal you want by the
preamp. Only way to get gain without increasing the mic noise too is to
do it before the sound reaches the mic, like is done by a parabolic mic.
That's why if you opt for a shotgun mic, you have to spend bucks on a
real low noise one. It has no extra gain over a regular mic, so you need
to use a preamp to get gain for increasing reach. The preamp has to be a
low noise one too, don't assume a preamp is low noise, not all are.
Walt
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