greetings earthlings welcome back to
another episode of the FAQ series today
we're going to be discussing one of the
most important aspects of your recording
how to set your microphones gain or
level okay so I'm gonna try to keep this
video as shortened to the point as
possible so if you just want a very
short answer go ahead and set your gain
so you're hitting around negative 12 to
negative 6 decibels but if you want to
know more go ahead and keep watching the
video and I'll break it into three
separate parts
what is gain how do you set your gain
and how does gain affect your sound and
I'll also go ahead and throw some
additional reading down below if you
want to read more about microphone and
preamp gain part 1 what is gain well
gain is basically how much you are
amplifying or increasing the level of
your microphones output signal and you
do this because microphones output
signals are insanely quiet ranging from
negative 30 down to negative 70 decibels
and that needs to be increased to get it
to a level that you can actually work
with and that's exactly why we have pre
amplifiers and just to clarify this
preamps can come as standalone units
like this guy right here or they can be
built into USB audio interfaces like
this guy so for example if you have a
preamp that has a gain range of +6 all
the way up to plus 66 decibels that
means the least amount that you can
amplify your signal is +6 and the
greatest amount that you can amplify
your microphones output is 66 decibels
and that pretty much covers what gain is
and what it does I know it wasn't an
exhaustive explanation but it gives you
a general gist part two how do you set
your gain and actually before I answer
that I want to address a question that I
get all the time and that question is
what is the best gain setting on this
preamp or this USB microphone and it put
it simply there's no absolute answer
here because there are multiple
variables that you have to consider when
you're setting your preamps gain and of
course we're gonna cover those right now
the first factor is the loudness of the
sound source and in this case my voice
is the sound source so if I was talking
really quietly I would have to increase
the gain on the preamp or if you're
recording a really loud guitar amp you
would have to set your gain
significantly lower the second factor is
the distance between the sound source
and the microphone so right now I'm at a
decent distance but if I was far
away I would be much quieter and would
have to increase the gain on the preamp
if I was a lot closer I may have to
consider bringing down the gain on the
preamp so depending on the distance
between the sound source and the
microphone you'll have to adjust your
gain accordingly and the third factor is
the sensitivity or output level of a
microphone so if you have a quieter
microphone like a dynamic or a ribbon
you will need significantly more gain
but if you're using a standard condenser
microphone typically those have higher
outputs so you need a less gain so now
that you know what factors impact the
amount of gain that you need what level
should you be shooting for on your meter
and honestly I've heard a lot of
different opinions on this topic
I've heard some people say you need to
record at negative 18 DB and then others
say you need to record at negative 6 DB
and when I say you're recording at
negative 18 or negative 12 or negative 6
that is where your Peaks will be the
loudest part of what you're recording
should be hitting that level and the
reason you to record using this method
is to gain Headroom and what that is
it's the difference between the loudest
part of your recording and 0 decibels
where you begin to clip so for example
if I'm recording spoken word and I set
my preamp gain so I'm hitting around
negative 10 decibels on my meter my
speaking voice can get 10 decibels
louder before I start hitting zero
decibels and start clipping distorting
and ultimately ruining the recording but
on the other hand if I were to set my
gain too high so I'm hitting around
negative 1 decibel I would have to be
very consistent with my tone in my
speaking volume to avoid any peaks in
level and avoid clipping and distorting
the recording I think what it really
comes down to is how dynamic the sound
source your recording is and what I mean
by that is how much variability and
volume does a sound source actually have
so with all that being said now I'm
gonna go ahead and actually show you how
to set your gain I'm currently running
the BP 40 direct into the - I - 2nd gen
and up on screen right here you can see
that I got Logic Pro X running so since
the Focusrite doesn't have a decent
meter I'm gonna go ahead and just use
the meter on Logic Pro and as you can
see with just a normal speaking volume
I'm hitting negative 14 negative 11
decibels and in case you don't know
where to find a meter pretty much every
piece of recording software or DAW that
have come across over the last decade or
so has had one built in but if it does
have a volume fader
is this slider right here make sure it's
set to unity gain or zero decibels so it
doesn't affect the reading that you're
getting now we'll go ahead and decrease
the gain of the preamp to zero and just
slowly increase it while I'm speaking
into it to show you what I would look
for when setting my gain increasing it
as you can see on my meter negative
twenty nine decibels negative twenty
five negative 20 negative 20 negative 17
negative 14 there we peaked a negative
seven point seven so we'll go ahead and
roll it back a little bit and let's go
ahead and clear the meter so we can see
what we're actually hitting now and when
I get a little bit excited I'm hitting
around negative eleven and that gives me
a lot of Headroom to go from if I do get
even more excited and scream into the
microphone lots of headroom to play
around with and that's how I set my game
part three how does gain affect your
sound and I'm not gonna sit here in wax
poetic about this settle coloration
added to your recording by driving your
preamp tube man I'm not gonna do that
I'm just gonna talk about the measurable
and really noticeable impact on your
sound so the first and the most
prominent impactor that I've come across
on line stems from people setting their
gain too high and that will ultimately
lead to you clipping and if you are
recording digitally that is just
terrible and it will ruin your recording
so here's an example where I set my gain
too high so I'm hitting around negative
one decibel which is fine when I'm
speaking normally but then if I get
excited it starts clipping and
distorting and sounds terrible and once
that's recorded into your audio there's
almost nothing you could do to salvage
that so either you will have to come to
terms with a terrible sounding recording
or you'll just have to go ahead and
rerecord it and the second impact which
I come across much less stems from
people setting their preamp gain too low
and what that does is if you have a
subpar preamp the sound source that
you're recording can now get mixed up or
lost in the noise floor of that preamp
so here's an example where I recorded
the signal to low and my Peaks are
hitting around negative 30 decibels so
that means that in post I'll have to go
ahead and boost this 30 decibels to make
it a decent listening level and the
problem with that is I'm not only
boosting the microphone or the sound
source that it's recording but I'm also
boosting the noise floor that's inherent
to the preamp and to show you the real
flaw here I'm gonna shut up so you can
hear the noise
and a really drive home the point now I
have my gain set appropriately so I'm
hitting around negative 12 negative 9
decibels on my meter I know this
personally gives me plenty of room to
play with in terms of Headroom and it
gives me a pretty good signal to noise
ratio and to illustrate that I'll go
ahead and shut up so you can hear the
noise floor well I think that's gonna do
it for today I hope you guys found this
video helpful and I hope to hear a lot
less clipping and a lot less noise any
recordings also let me know in the
comments down below if there are any
topics that you want me to cover like
this in the future if you did find it
helpful go ahead and give me a thumbs up
if you hated it thumbs down if you want
more videos like this go ahead and click
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and I will see you all later thanks for
watching bye
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