Monitoring Levels
Thursday, March 01 2012 @ 01:29 PM CST

Question for the team, and although I use Pro Tools I would imagine it applies to any DAW.

OK, I normally just leave my "volume" settings the same from recording to recording, but now something is amiss. I have a volume control on my keyboard, one on the mixer it goes into, one on the Pro Tools Hardware that the mixer gets plugged into and here is whats happening:

The level meter (Green - Yellow - Red) off to the Left of the track is Peaking wildly into the Red.
The recording I'm making is distorted. What is confusing me is the "waveform" that is being drawn in the track window is freakin tiny. Normally when I max out a volume and it distorts the Waveform drawn will fill the entire track window from top to bottom, like a solid color with no peaks or valleys.

Here I'm getting the distortion, but the audio waveform being drawn is a tiny little skinny ass representation. I've never encountered that. Didn't even know it was possible.

Clueless with Technology. Any input much appreciated.

Regards,

John

Re:Monitoring Levels
Thursday, March 01 2012 @ 02:38 PM CST

John, Are you certain that the levels on the instrument, mixer and DAW are the same as always? Is there an -20dB input pad on the mixer or DAW that has been accidentally shut off? Are you using exactly the same inputs you always use? Are you recording straight into the DAW channel or are there sends or buses active on that channel?

As to the waveform appearance, are you saying the the waveform is usually an accurate representation of the amplitude of the signal? If so, is it all the way to the top and bottom of the viewable area of the track? This is probably a silly suggestion, but maybe its half sized because the DAW thinks its a stereo track and the representation is only for the one track from the instrument?

Re:Monitoring Levels
Thursday, March 01 2012 @ 04:06 PM CST

I'm not familiar with Pro Tools... but do you have a master out... maybe the master is maxed and what you're hearing is the fold back volume too high.

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Thursday, March 01 2012 @ 06:09 PM CST

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Re:Monitoring Levels
Thursday, March 01 2012 @ 08:12 PM CST

Thx, Steve, John and Harold. Ultimately I broke everything down and then re wired it. I also made a conscious attempt to keep the volume levels "higher" the closer I got to the source, so as to leave the most headroom when it came to the volume adjustments on the Pro Tools Hardware. Whatever the case it seems to have leveled out some. Still don't follow why the DAW draws the waveform so skinny and narrow while the volume monitor clips in the yellow-red zone.

John - I never heard about "holdback" before. Googled it and got mostly articles about on stage monitoring.

I even watched the Sister Mary Elephant and got a good chuckle :-)

Re:Monitoring Levels
Thursday, March 01 2012 @ 09:34 PM CST

Quote by: ktb Thx, Steve, John and Harold. Ultimately I broke everything down and then re wired it. I also made a conscious attempt to keep the volume levels "higher" the closer I got to the source, so as to leave the most headroom when it came to the volume adjustments on the Pro Tools Hardware. Whatever the case it seems to have leveled out some. Still don't follow why the DAW draws the waveform so skinny and narrow while the volume monitor clips in the yellow-red zone. John - I never heard about "holdback" before. Googled it and got mostly articles about on stage monitoring. I even watched the Sister Mary Elephant and got a good chuckle :-)

Sorry... Fold back is a term we used for sound coming through our floor monitors when we played through a PA.

I'm like you... Your wave form shouldn't be so tiny. You should be able to adjust your input and raise the level as needed. On your interface, are you using a line in instead of an instrument in? You should be able to adjust your output level separate from your input.