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Q: I have a decent sized project studio that gets used by my band and some friends which is setup with a DAW and a fairly large amount of outboard equipment.

We’ve been using the studio for some time now and always get fairly good results.

However, every once in a while we get some weird distortion and I’ll see a clip or something on one of the 20 different meters that’s either in the DAW or on the outboard.

I’m just wondering, is there some kind of hierarchy to these meters?

I mean, should they all be watched equally carefully or are some more or less important than others?

A: We’ve all been told that the key to great digital recordings (or analog for that matter) is getting the hottest signal possible to the hard drive (or tape) without clipping.

Nearly everyone finds themselves in a situation similar to yours at some point where they’re using multiple pieces of outboard gear (preamps, compressors, etc.) in addition to a DAW.

This can definitely lead to some confusion, as there are often numerous meters displaying very different results.

So if your preamp has a meter and your DAW has a meter, which one should you look at as a reference?

Well, theoretically, you should keep an eye on both meters, but pay extra attention to the outboard gear meters.

Pushing the preamp or compressor too hard will evidence itself on the meter on that piece of gear, but may still look fine on the input meter of the DAW.

Pushing a preamp or compressor too hard can cause the recording to be distorted or over-compressed, or both, but the input meter of the DAW will still be bouncing happily at -3dB.

The pitfall of not accurately monitoring the outboard gear’s monitors is that distorted vocals or squashed tracks can’t be undone.

With gear that has multiple monitoring modes, like a compressor that can switch between Gain Reduction and Output, it’s a good idea to keep an eye on both functions to get the truest picture of what’s going to the input of your DAW.

The real answer is to watch them all, however make sure you’re watching not only with your eyes, but with your ears as well.

As always, we welcome input from the PSW community and would love to know how you handle metering during the input stage. Feel free to let us know in the comments below.

 
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