I am wondering about the RMS and peaks levels I should be hitting when recording vocals. I've seemed to gather from different sources that I should be anywhere around -24 to -18 RMS with peaks no more than -10. I would just like to hear other people confirm or reject this idea. Once the track has been recorded into Logic, I can make any other level changes ITB. I am recording through a Blue Baby Bottle/AT4040, Blue Robbie, and Aphex 661. The sound that I get from this combination is beautiful so I would like most of the level to come from this chain rather than a plugin compressor. How loud is loud enough to get a sufficient level that avoids noise, and enough gain that I'm only having to do light compression if any ITB.
Comments
Haha. That's an interesting explanation, bent. I imagine that th
Haha. That's an interesting explanation, bent. I imagine that this, like many other things in recording comes down to personal taste/preference/idiosyncrasies. I've become comfortable somewhere between -15 and -9 peak, basically because of where I've had my preamp and compressor set for the majority of time, but I wanted to hear what people like you thought just so I know that in the long wrong I'm really not running into some ridiculous error/misinformation in recording.
I pretty much try to stay within the -12 to -6 dB range. As I've
I pretty much try to stay within the -12 to -6 dB range. As I've posted recently, I'm not sure why I do this, other than the fact that zero used to equate to -12dB in a DAT machine, and I started in the biz just a few years before digital took over, so...
Maybe it's a comfort thing? Maybe I just like to think that I've pushed the meters enough if I've peaked at -6 and can normalize and brickwall ITB if I want without too much hassle. I dunno, just makes sense in my mushy-brain...
Maybe I just made it all up as I went along?