VO-BB - 19 YEARS OLD!

[Tom Greenlee]

Sorry to keep plugging you guys with these odd gear questions I keep coming up with, but this is a puzzler. I just received the Focusrite Platinum Voicemaster pro I had ordered. I took my mackie out of the loop...totally disconnected it and removed it (I was using it as my preamp). I hooked up the Focusrite and made sure everything was disengaged (compressor, eq, tube sim etc). Everything disengaged except the mic pre. I followed the manual to set my mic level using the led meter. The problem is....in order to get the leds to even begin to light up as I speak into the mic....I have to turn the mic gain way up. By the time I have it set correctly....staying mostly at around 0db with a rare red light brief flicker the mic gain is 3/4 of the way up. That being said.....when I record using that setting, I am blasting.....super distortion in audition......my signal looks like a solid rectangle going accross the screen. Now....I can turn the gain way down to around 10:30 or 11:00 on the mic gain control and use the meter at the bottom of the screen of audition and get a beautiful sounding signal.....but at that setting, the led meter lights on the Focusrite don't even flicker. Not even the lowest light on the meter....won't even flicker. I had no problem like this when I set Unity gain on the Mackie.....the perfect mackie setting was the perfect recording level......what could be causing this?
_________________
TG2

"Communication without intelligence is noise; Intelligence without communication is irrelevant."

Gen. Alfred. M. Gray, USMC
Former Commandant of the Marine Corps

[VO-Guy]

Sometimes with these kinds of things it's a simple setting that's off. Check your output knob on the Focusrite. If it's jacked way up it'll overfeed the system. That's the first thing I'd check.

[Tom Greenlee]

the manual said to set the output knob to 0db (which is the midway point) then adjust the mic gain control knob as I speak into the mic, to adjust the input level so that the reading on the led meter stays around 0 with an occasional red light flicker. That is what I did, but to get that kind of setting, the gain control knob has to be around 3/4 of the way up.....when I use that "ideal" setting to record in audition, it is clear that, that setting is not correct. You can't even understand me the distortion is so bad. To get the "ideal" setting as far as the end result in audition.....I cannot go by the meter on the focusrite. I have to make my adjustment as I watch the meter that is part of the audition program. When it is set that way, everything is perfect, but the focusrite led meter lights are not even activated at that level....the lowest meter light doesn't ever even illuminate briefly at the loudest peak. The focusrite led meter lights don't start to illuminate until I've got the mic input gain control knob turned up to about the 1:00 or 1:30 position with the "ideal" setting ending up with the knob about 3:00. Which of course as I mentioned, is not the actual ideal setting when it comes down to recording like that.
_________________
TG2

"Communication without intelligence is noise; Intelligence without communication is irrelevant."

Gen. Alfred. M. Gray, USMC
Former Commandant of the Marine Corps

[VO-Guy]

What type of mic are you using? Some mics need more gain than others. I'd get my level right on the preamp and then adjust the output on the Focusrite accordingly to get the right level in my system. To get the full use out of the pre it has to be driven at a good level. Just an idea.

[Tom Greenlee]

I'll mess with that tactic tonight. I didn't do that already, because I was trying to set Unity gain. But it doesn't look like that will happen, so might as well lower the output. I'm using a Studio Projects C1 and I also have/tried the Rode NT1-A. The same thing with both of them.
_________________
TG2

"Communication without intelligence is noise; Intelligence without communication is irrelevant."

Gen. Alfred. M. Gray, USMC
Former Commandant of the Marine Corps

[VO-Guy]

Good luck with it. I know when I used a Symetrix 528E 2 or 3 O'clock on the gain knob wasn't uncommon. Most of all, ya got a new toy! PLAY

[donrandall]

Tom - why not just go with whatever sounds good and gets the best results?

It may well be that getting all the meters to match up is just not going to happen. My Presonus Eureka has a VU meter - I don't use it, I don't even look at it. I do a quick level check, using the analog meter in Goldwave and go with it and everything works out just fine and dandy, so as far as I'm concerned, the rest doesn't matter.

[Tom Greenlee]

Thanks Don....It basically has boiled down to that. The reason for the concern to begin with is, I was trying to set Unity gain. Input at 0 and output at 0....which is what the manual said was how to set it up. They say the circuitry in the Focusrite preamp meter is optimized a certain way and following their instructions will give you the optimized input. What I ended up doing, is I enabled the -20db pad on my audio interface and started from scratch again with the input gain on the Focusrite.....I followed their instructions and got it set for optimized input according to their meter. Then starting at the recommended 0 setting of the Focusrite output, started turning the output knob down until the peak light on my audio interface showed optimal input without overload. So the input of the focusrite is set to optimum, according to the manual...and the input to my audio interface is set to optimum...the only thing that doesn't match up is the focusrite output setting, which had to be turned down to accomodate the input level of the audio interface. here's a sample of how my signal sounds now using the focusrite preamp. This is not meant to be a piece for critique other than if you want to comment on the sound quality....lol...I just read some garbage from the introduction of the voicemaster manual.

focusrite sample
_________________
TG2

"Communication without intelligence is noise; Intelligence without communication is irrelevant."

Gen. Alfred. M. Gray, USMC
Former Commandant of the Marine Corps

[donrandall]

Tom - I got an idea that you are one of those detail oriented people that has a strong compulsion to make everything conform to your idea of what it should be, right? I used to be that way. I got over it. Too much work, too much stress and too little gain after a lot of fretting and working to pursue the unnecessary.

My thinking is that, once you get a good clean sound that is an accurate representation of that which you recorded, you have done what you set out to do. The question then becomes, what more can be gained?