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Hands on the TRACE PRO AE
Sounding Good
Background
Surely at least once in your life you have recorded something with a
cassette recorder. You also probably noticed that the signal can let the
overload lamps flash in the bottom parts once in a while, without the music
instantly sounding distorted and unpleasant. On digital audio systems, the
level meter must never reach the overload status. In that case, distortions
would appear instantly. On the other hand, you try to get the signal as loud
as possible, in order to keep the noise floor, caused by an A/D converter on
small levels, as low as possible. For every analog signal you’d like to
record with the TRACE PRO AE, you have to start with adjusting the
level! This happens within the TRACE PRO AE Mixer, with the help of the
gain knob.
How to do it?
1.
Turn on the “PRE”-button in the lower part of the concerning
channel strip. Now the level meter is independent of the fader
position. That means you hear the signal with the desired volume,
without affecting or falsifying the level meter.
2.
Carefully turn up or turn down the “GAIN”-knob of the channel strip,
but only so far that the red overload indicator will never light up.
Hint:
If you are about to record a guitarist let him play a “real” song, while you
do the leveling. This often comes a bit louder and with much more dynamic
range. That really shows you how far you can go, pulling up the gain knob.
