recording

Hi Stevoe if your recording at 24bits you wanna just hit the yellow on your meter. You will have plenty of headroom. I hope this is what you were looking for

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Same advice for 16 bit digital recording (CD quality is more than enough for what I do) - keep the peaks of your tracks in the yellow (no peaks above -3db), and all is good. Unless you record with compression, though, you may find it is safer to keep the track well below that, so a random peak will not ruin the take.

Something like the Kemper can be recorded at a lower level (entirely in the green) without running into noise problems, because there is no room noise added by a microphone.

BTW- when recording to an analog recorder, you DO want the signal on each track to be as loud as possible without distortion, so the tape hiss will be far below the sound. That is the where the tradition of 'as much signal as possible to tape' originated. I pretty much ignored the meters on my old Fostex reel to reel recorder, and kept the signal "warm, but not quite distorted".

Generally speaking, in the digital domain a low recording level might give you not volume enough if you want that specific track to sound louder in the mix.

As for gain staging, you should start from the source of the sound, and step by step (and stage by stage) check that any stage feeds the next one with the strongest clean (and safe) signal.
Ideally, all your levels should be @ 0 dB. But since you not always see the spikes, -9 or -12 is a good compromise. I wouldn't go above -6 anyway

0db on Vu meter. That translates to anywhere between - 24 to - 12 on your daw meters depends how Vu meters are calibrated. Read up about k system and gain staging, in short you want to keep your levels nowhere near as loud as 0 on daw meter.

EDIT: forget it. I misunderstood.

Use the SPDIF on the Kemper and the Focusrite! It will sound much better than using the analog inputs on the Focusrite. (If you're already doing this, disregard) Plus it frees up your analog inputs for other stuff.

Quote from okstrat

Use the SPDIF on the Kemper and the Focusrite! It will sound much better than using the analog inputs on the Focusrite. (If you're already doing this, disregard) Plus it frees up your analog inputs for other stuff.

A big +1 on using SP/DIF for recording... it makes me smile everytime!!

Quote

Use the SPDIF on the Kemper and the Focusrite! It will sound much better than using the analog inputs on the Focusrite. (If you're already doing this, disregard) Plus it frees up your analog inputs for other stuff.

Remember OP if you do this to set your interface to slave as the KPA has to be the master and DAW sessions must be 44.2 khz as well

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Quote from Stevoe

I heard the SPDIF doesn't make any difference with the sound of the recording

what do you here in the difference.. might try it if you really hear something different

thanks

steve

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Cleaner. You're not converting digital to analog in the kemper, then going to an analog cable, then analog to digital in the Focusrite. Basically you're staying in the digital domain the entire time so there is zero loss or coloration from the conversion and/or your cables.

Quote from Stevoe

Morning.. you wouldn't happen to have any samples comparing the two wold you. I remember reading this way back and the outcome was that it didn't make any noticeable difference.

steve

With good gain staging and reasonable equipment it doesn't make much of a difference.

Digital is the simpler and safer way though. No need to check interface levels, and you'll get the exact same levels from a rig every time. Most importantly, if you record a dry guitar track for reamping this will add absolutely no noise, and for high gain reamping keeping the noise floor way down is crucial.

Quote from Stevoe

Thanks

so the Spdif cables only go from the KPA to the interface and then usb to computer.. where will I find the settings that I need to change in reaper and on the interface, I can't see any on the scarlett box itself..

steve

You need to set your interface to clock to SPDIF. Guess it's in your Scarlett mixer. Your Reaper projects need to be in 44.1kHz....in "project settings/options" or sumthin'?