Run a search for the board member called "Massive Mastering" and you'll probably get tons of answers for this in the first few posts you find. :)

Ok thanks

It would make sense to leave
your trim pot at a 0 level. If there is a detente leave it there. So that the
line is neither attenuating nor boosting the signal from your modeler. From
there you can raise the level coming from your modeler 'til you get as loud a
signal as possible without clipping. You can always turn down the fader after
you've tracked the part at a decent level, but if you recorded at a poor level,
all you will be doing is boosting noise. In regards to vocals as opposed to
axe: treat them in the same manner initially. You may want to compress your vox
to disc. Once it's all tracked you can change the levels as you please during
mixdown.

Buckethead wrote: Im a noob at this. But I have a Fostex VF-160 16 Track Recorder, and I was wondering when recording what should my general recording level be (in Db)?? Should I get it as loud as I can without clipping it or is there a trick. When I try to record I always have the problum of how loud I should turn up my effects modeler compared to how loud I have the Inputs on the Recorder. Please help me thanks!

And is there a diffrence in recording levels for guitars and vocals??

Really quick answer - You want to run your preamps around 0dBVU. Depending on the converters, that's going to hover around -18dBFS or so. Peaks will go higher - A snare whacked crazy might hit -10dBFS or so, but will generally come in a little more "normal."