Preamp Gain vs. DAW Recording Level

[The Colonel]

Hi All,

I have an Apogee Duet and use its preamps to feed phantom power to a pretty decent stereo mic. Here's my question:

Is there any realistic difference between boosting the gain on the Duet (the preamp) as opposed to boosting the recording level on the particular track in Garageband? Put another way, if I have the preamp levels down, but the track's level set high, would I hear something different than if I had the preamp level high and the track's level set low?

Thx,

the Colonel

[RRuskin]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

Hi All,

I have an Apogee Duet and use its preamps to feed phantom power to a pretty decent stereo mic. Here's my question:

Is there any realistic difference between boosting the gain on the Duet (the preamp) as opposed to boosting the recording level on the particular track in Garageband? Put another way, if I have the preamp levels down, but the track's level set high, would I hear something different than if I had the preamp level high and the track's level set low?

Thx,

the Colonel

Under most circumstances you want to set your DAW level to "unity," the point at which signal is neither boosted nor attenuated. Set preamp level so that you get the desired recording level.

[MikeBmusic]

I don't know garageband, but if you mean the sliders on the mixer view, this does not affect recorded level in most DAWS, only playback level.

For best mixing/mastering headroom, you should be aiming for -18dB to -12dB recording level.

[The Colonel]

For each track in Garageband, you have the ability to increase the volume of the track as it records.

[sdelsolray]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

For each track in Garageband, you have the ability to increase the volume of the track as it records.

Yes, but that increase in volume only applies to the playback of what has already been recorded and written to disk (milliseconds earlier).

The voltage level of the initial recording is determined when the analog signal from your mic preamp meets with the analog to digital converter. It is at that point where the level is calculated. All this occurs before your DAW software sees anything.

Yes, you can lower or add gain to that initial recording (i) temporarily (when playing back the source file trough your DAW or (ii) permanently (by rewriting the disk file rendered with added gain).

You can (at least in ProTools you can, dunno about Garageband) add a gain plugin to the track before recording and any additional gain set in that plugin will be added to the signal coming from the AD converter before the file is written to the hard drive. Similarly, I could add reverb at this point too, but that reverb would always be present in the original recorded track written to disk, i.e., I can't remove it later.

[MikeBmusic]

Originally Posted by The Colonel

For each track in Garageband, you have the ability to increase the volume of the track as it records.

You're only increasing the playback/monitoring volume of that track, not the recorded volume.

[The Colonel]

Got it. Thanks.

[rick-slo]

What Rick Ruskin said.

However some preamps take on a different sound with higher gain - some have input gain and output signal adjustments you can make. The quality of function of the D/A filters may be affected by the level of the input signal.
You can experiment whether the sound you get by setting different preamp gains changes in anyway you can detect.