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I guess that's what you'd call my question, Lol.

Here's what I need to know:

How do you record and get a good volume without it getting to the point of distortion?

Yes.... I've been doing this computer recording thing about 4 1/2 years, but No.... I still don't really know what I'm doing.

Here's the deal though- I can record and after I'm done mixing, raise the
volume of the mix to just below what would be "peaking" volume I guess you'd call
it (where it would be just under a distortion sound).... and sometimes the volume
of my recording is MUCH quieter than that of other submissions I hear. And..
those other ones aren't distorting. I've listened to mine, then listened to others, and
I just can't seem to get the overall volume on a recording that other people can without it getting distorted sounding.

There's got to be some kind of *trick* that I don't know about.

And it's not my soundcard.. I have a decent one.. not my mic either... and it can't be that I'm "singing quiet", cause I'm a bigmouth on the mic...and it's the all over mix, not just my voice.. it has to be some kind of thing I'm not doing right to the mixdown.

Any suggestions? Am I making sense? I mean, I can leave my headphones full blast and listen to my song I just subbed, then go off to listen to another subbed song, and it just about blasts my eardrums off... yet their song is not overmod at all.

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Vocals should be recorded at -6db after being compressed to limit the spikes or peaks. During the process of adding EFX and setting levels with the music the levels are gradually increased. Then during the mastering the final level should be at 0db. A typical mixer or amp will have headroom to handle over line level inputs and the final volume should be nowhere be near distortion.

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Ollie, I'm lost.

I use my Behringer PMH2000 mixer into my computer soundcard to multi track record into CEP.

I don't honestly know how to "compress vocals" or even what that means. I use the volume setting of "normalize" and do that to like 94% when the mix is completely done... I don't know if that means anything to you.

My mixer volume is up (from the vocal channel)... my sound card line in on my PC is under 1/2 way. (errr, 45% volume input)

Is compressing vocals something you do "after" recording the vocal or "as" your recording the vocal?

Really, yeah, I'm that dumb.

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♥ Laugh your heart out, dance in the rain. Cherish the memories, ignore the pain. Love and learn, forget and forgive. Because you only have one life to live. ♥

In multitrack recording I like to apply a wee bit of compression during the recording then apply compression and experiment on a trial basis using playbacks and edit undo.

Normalizing is used to bring up to line level but should not be applied to a low low signal. During mixing you want to increase in small steps and use the volume envelope for certain words or passages. When you have the balances and sounds you want. Then normalize at this stage it only takes 1 or 2 db gain

Multitrack recording takes a long time to master. It takes a lot of patience and I am by no means an expert but everybody gets lucky sometimes. There is no quick tricks or instant perfection.

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