So I made a very upsetting discovery while doing some mic a/b testing recently. I had a band in that will be starting a project and we wanted to see which mic(s) worked best w/ various sources.
On the guitar amp tests, I was having major issues w/ a 57 clipping on a relatively decent volume amplifier. That is, not hush hush, but nowhere near LOUD either.
Well, after much trial and error I came to this conclusion:
It HAD to be ADC clipping. Which didn't make sense until...
I realized that inputs 1-2 of my Firestudio are Mic/Inst rather than Mic/Line like inputs 3-8. So I figured the FS must have been looking for an instrument level signal and getting a line level signal (I route my ISA 428 into channels 1-4 of the FS, and my Sytek into channels 5-8, all via XLR-TRS cables).
Then I recalled having similar issues w/ Micing a guitar amp (w/ a 57) and some vocal tracks in the past (see my posts about the Bluebird and others). Never had problems with digital clipping while using these channels (and the ISA 428) when tracking kick and snare drum, though.
So...
I wanted to ask if my assumptions are correct.
To give a heads up to anyone else who may be dealing w/ "mystery" clipping.
And to see if there is a work-around to run an external preamp into channels 1-2 of the Firestudio.
This reminds me of a post about having a tuner calibrated to A441 or such and not realizing it for a long time. (jg49, maybe? - whoever it was, I FEEL your pain!)
Comments
The tuner thing was Gabriel but I can relate. I was tracking dru
The tuner thing was Gabriel but I can relate. I was tracking drums and playing a scratch track using a guitar DI into the Presonus. I was really concerned with the drum sound and not paying any attention to the guitar part which I had inadvertently plugged into 7 or 8 (not an instrument level input) and when I was playing the tracks back was amazed at how poor the guitar sounded. Won't happen again, at least I hope not! Use the line ins on the rear for track 1 & 2, Boswell's right on here, as always.
For channels 1 & 2, use the Insert Returns on the rear panel of
For channels 1 & 2, use the Insert Returns on the rear panel of the Firestudio instead of the Instrument inputs on the front combo jacks.