John,
It's a good general rule to apply to other mixers/recorders until you
get to
know your equipment.
Turning your preamp down to 1 or 2 means the signal is very loud and a
good idea to use some sort of attenuation either on the mic (first) or
on the mixer (second)
On the other hand, Volume all the way up may mean you may need to get a
more sensitive mic, preamp with more gain, or ask the frogs to croak
louder for you. Of course, recording nature sounds is difficult at the
best of times due to the huge dynamic range... Try various different
settings in different situations (for non critical recording) and
listen at home to find out how your equipment reacts, thats what i do.
btw: i often use my mixer at "10" but it's an SQN and preamp noise is
not an issue.
GF
> Also, you mentioned:
>> My rule is not to use it unless the gain setting I end up with on
> the
>> Portadisc is lower than 3-4 to obtain the headroom I want to
> see on the
>> meter. Then attenuation will get your preamp gain back up in
> it's best
>> performance area. 5-7 is it's best performance area.
>
> Does the 5-7 best performance range apply specifically to the
> Portadisc ? If so, do you know of an easy way to determine the
> best performance range for other recorders?
> -John Hartog
>
Grant Finlay
http://www.ultrasound.orcon.net.nz
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