New recording gear day

[rhancox]

I had a chance, last night, to try my new Saffire interface with my guitar plugged directly in. Another huge difference over the Omega.

I have the JJB Electronics Prestige 330 pickups installed in both my guitars. If you're not familiar, they are very similar to the K&K Pure Western products, i.e. soundboard transducer system. These are passive pickups and I do not own a DI or an amp. I went directly into the Saffire.

When I recorded with my new mics the other night, I had the gain around "7" on the dial. The mics were no more than 6"-8" away from the guitar. Plugged directly in, I had to set the gain between 4 and 5 to get a decent, unclipped, signal.

The Saffire product info on their website (I read it somewhere) said you did not need a DI to plug into this unit. Of course, a DI would help with the quality of the sound, but wow, there is no need for any intervention to get a hot signal out of the Saffire. Compared to the Omega, I would have to set it around 7 or 8 to get a decent signal. Even then I would have to play with the sample to get the level right. Any higher on the Omega and it would start to clip, but it still wasn't very loud in CuBase. The Saffire generates a very hot signal at a lower setting.

I just thought I'd share this information. I don't have a recording for a sample. With such a lively signal, the sound I was actually getting was a little less desirable than I was getting with the Omega. I used some compression and it sounded better but it's going to take some more experimentation to get a sound I like.

[Fran Guidry]

Originally Posted by rhancox

...
...Compared to the Omega, I would have to set it around 7 or 8 to get a decent signal. Even then I would have to play with the sample to get the level right. Any higher on the Omega and it would start to clip, but it still wasn't very loud in CuBase. The Saffire generates a very hot signal at a lower setting.
...

These two devices are almost certainly set to different line levels. It's often possible to switch our audio interface between +4 dBu and -10 dBV line levels for compatibility with professional or consumer interfaces. When you switch to -10 dBV you gain level at the cost of a potential small increase in distortion.

When most of us start doing digital recording, we're very concerned about the lack of volume in our recordings compared to commercial CDs, and tend to think that louder is always better, more gain is better, higher recording levels are better. But this is incorrect. We need to recognize that a desirable recording level (around -18 dBFS average) is much less than a mastered CD level, and higher recording levels are worse, not better.

Fran