Recording level and normalization

[vinylvark]

So I found some topics on recording level and normalization. They answer my questions mostly, just want to reconfirm if you don't mind.

When recording at 88.2/24 or 96/24 its considered okay to record at a little lower volume since there's plenty of headroom and we can amplify or normalise afterwards without loss of quality.

My question would be if between 25-50% of max is too low?

My problem is that my recording device has 2 small stepless knobs for controlling gain on each channel and i find its impossible to set them to an equal level. Gain seems to "jump", I can turn the knob 3 fractions and nothing happens and then suddenly with the next fraction of a turn, it jumps up above the other channel.

I guess with some music its okay to normalise individual channels, but with quieter, more dynamic music I don't want to do that so I need channel balance to be good when recording.

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

Hi,

I would think that's OK, but watch out for background noise at low settings.

[vinylvark]

Does this look good to you?
This is after normalizing to 0dB.

I think it does but I don't really know what I'm talking about

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

The level looks very low to me, but then I don't understand the scale on the left-hand side.  How was the screenshot produced?

Also, what's that gigantic spike?

[vinylvark]

I'm sorry I assumed that would make sense to you.

That screenshot is zoomed in to the lead in (no music, just silent groove before the music). If you look at the vertical scale you'll see the 0.01.

Here's a full scale for reference. these are made in Audacity. Lead in, the the start of the music.

[Paul Sanders (AlpineSoft)]

OK, that looks more reasonable.  I would listen to it (on headphones perhaps), see if it sounds OK.

[vinylvark]

I was able to improve a lot. My recording device has 2 sets of inputs, one set allows +10 dB input signal while the other allows +18 dB. I was using the wrong inputs and had to lower the gain on my phono stage to prevent clipping, but it also resulted in that very low recording.

Using the other inputs I can increase the gain on the phono stage by 6 dB (from -3 dB to +3 dB), its now averaging 75% on the loudest parts I tested. No more need to amplify/normalise afterwards. Also these inputs are fixed level, no knobs or controls so perfect channel balance!