Hello ,
I am recording in logic pro x from the x1800 via usb. In order to get my rec level in logic to be good i need to have the line faders all the way up with the line level at 77 percent. (eq flat)
Im only using spdif connection from players.
Is this normal?
I am new to digital. I would never have thought digital would have such a low output.
Any suggestions?
Thank you
Go into the mixer settings utility and reduce master and booth by 10dB so that their unities are at max on the knobs (where output equals a single open channel level). Stick the master out knob at max so you can monitor what you’re doing with the meters. 0dBVu on the X1800 meters should be around 18dB down from digital domain clip (0dB full scale). This is normal average recording levels in digital domain, as opposed to final mastered digital audio products, where people used to bump everything up to peaking at just below 0dBFS and now Apple is recommending to only -3dBFS. Just bounce your loudest peaks in the white somewhere. Stay out of the blue. Give yourself some headroom to work and don’t try to make everything the same peaks… music varies in dynamics.
Ok i will try this. Where do u keep each separate line level knob? Does this mean u are only using the fader to adjust the levels? Thank you
Wherever necessary to achieve proper channel levels based on the channel meters and your ears for the following…
Would boosting the usb output affect the recording quality if i stay under -3 in the daw?
I forget if the X1800 has USB output level settings in its Utility (I have other mixers hooked up right now), but if it does, stick that at -0dB. I would not mess around with the live level of the USB ASIO/CoreAudio stuff when you are recording. Leave yourself the headroom! You can mess around with it later after you’ve saved the session. For example, if your loudest peak is -9dBFS or lower in the recording when you’re done, you can do a +6dB doubling of the sample levels in-post and get a mathematically-perfect version of the recording still. But it’s up to you how you do that… most people just normalize to a certain max. Yes, the general advice now is not to go much above -3dBFS in the final version of the recording due to the possibility of inter-sample peaks in DACs and other post processing audio players now do. So if you use a non-perfect normalizing feature, set it to normalize up to about -3dBFS.
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