When I'm recording myself (not something I'm a fan of), I just play it uber safe with the meters and concentrate on the actual performance. It's too easy to get distracted. I'd say set levels using the chorus and the climax you mentioned, maybe take a slightly longer run at that part to make sure you're ramping up as much as you're likely to during an actual take. If your peaks are where you want them to be during those sections, the verses and other quieter parts will be gravy as we say here. If you're still nervous, back off the gain a smidgen for safety. Assuming you've got a relatively clean signal path, a couple DB less on the way in isn't gonna do anything that can't be compensated for with a touch of clip gain later on in the process should you discover that you need to hit a compressor a little harder.
Good luck Scott On 3/26/15, Christopher-Mark Gilland <clgillan...@gmail.com> wrote: > This might seem to most of you like a very very obvious question, and yeah, > I know ultimately at the end of the day, probably what it's gonna boil down > to is, "Just listen and use your ears," but I have a song I'm going to be > recording. It really doesn't have much dynamic volume changes in the lead > vocal. Don't get me wrong, there is! a climax to the song, but pretty much, > for what it's worth, the song stays fairly close to the same level > throughout. > > If it helps, so you all can listen to it on Youtube or something, the song > is called Mercy Said No, and it's by Greg Long. > > Anyway, I don't want to clip during my recording, and obviously I want > enough wiggleroom before applying any compression, or the like to that vocal > track. I want to come in probably notch peek around -12DB, no more than -10 > pushing it. That said, seeing this song really doesn't seem to change much > in dynamics, again, it does, but not very much... what is therefore probably > the best way of doing a sound check? I know how to look at my meters, and > yes, I do have them set to infinity, so that they hold at the peek until I > reset them, but what I'm saying more is, how do I determine what part of the > song is probably the loudest, as I hear that is really when setting mike > levels where you want to aim. I hear you really want to sing the part of > the song where you feel you're going to spike the highest level. But if the > song doesn't have much dynamics, then do I just shoot over all for -12, or > is there a little trick to this. What my fear is, is that I'm gonna not > strain, but seeing the chorus does get ever so slightly high for me, I'm > gonna have to push a bit. Also to get the emotion I need, I'll have to > push. Again, I did, not! say strain, big difference! It's perfectly within > my range. Anyway, my fear is that even with a compressor going, which I > really don't wanna apply until the vocal track is actually totally done, I'm > going to hit some of the higher notes a little too hard, and therefore spike > to the point of clipping, and that's what I'm desperetly trying to avoid. > > Is there a sure! fire way to make double dawg sure? I don't clip, or is it > gonna be best really in this situation to just really really use my ears and > pay very close attention. > > Chris. > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Pro Tools Accessibility" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to ptaccess+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Pro Tools Accessibility" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to ptaccess+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
