It doesn’t matter the principle is exactly the same whatever the recording source. Or you may be DI’ing (Direct Input) an electric guitar straight into your audio interface, and recording using an amp sim. You may be recording using a microphone placed in front of a guitar amp, or a microphone in front of an acoustic guitar. How to set guitar recording level right every timeįollow this process, and you will consistently record your guitar at the correct level… 1 Plug your guitar/mic into your audio interface You can buy the Focusrite Solo from Amazon (affiliate link) for a very reasonable price. I have been using the Focusrite Scarlett series of interfaces for years, and they have always given me great sounding recordings for not very much money. However you do your recording, you will need an audio interface. If you have a few peaks that are a little bit higher, I wouldn’t worry about it.Ī useful rule-of-thumb to keep in mind is if you’re regularly seeing the meter reading above -10dB, then your recording is too loud and should be re-recorded at a quieter level. Other times you might see -15dB average, peak -12dB suggested. Sometimes you will see -18dB average, peak -14dB being advised. As long as you are in the same ball-park, you should be fine. ![]() If the guitar is already very loud, there might only be a tiny amount we can increase the volume by before we are at risk of causing unpleasant distortion and/or clipping.ĭon’t get too hung up on the exact numbers. This is important at the mixing stage, as we want to make sure if we need to turn the guitar up, we have sufficient volume available. Headroom – this is the amount of volume we have left to increase a signal by.Avoiding distortion/clipping – digital distortion is always unpleasant (unlike analog distortion, which can be desirable), so we want to avoid it at all costs.There are two very important reasons why levels should be set in this range… It seems low, as it is a lot lower than we would have recorded at using an analog system, as already stated. You may well be thinking that this is a very low level, but it is absolutely the sort of volume you should be aiming to record at in a digital system. Whether that’s using a microphone in front of an acoustic guitar, a DI’d electric guitar or a mic’d up guitar amp, the same principle applies. This applies to both acoustic and electric guitars, however you are recording them. This gives you lots of headroom to raise the volume at the mixing stage. Its average position should be around about -18dB, and this is roughly where the meter should be for most of your track. When setting a guitar recording level, you should aim for the meter to peak at no higher than -15dB. If you are interested in checking out the best recording gear such as audio interfaces, studio monitor speakers, microphones, etc., you can find them at Amazon by clicking here. Read on for a process to use to get your guitar recording levels right every time. This is a comprehensive beginner guide to recording, and takes you right through from setting up your first equipment to recording your first track. ![]() If you are new to home recording in general, I highly recommend you check out my beginner’s guide to recording music at home. ![]() These days we are all recording digitally, and to set levels that hot for a digital recording is a very bad idea. ![]() In the analog recording days, it was good practice to set the level much hotter i.e. There is confusion around setting recording levels due to how they used to be set. Generally, if you have peaks greater than -10dB, that is too loud. These numbers are a guide, not a hard and fast rule. It is acceptable for peaks to go up to around -15dB. I have since learned that the correct level to record guitars at is a lot lower than I originally thought.Īs a general rule, guitars should be recorded at an average level of about -18dB. This caused my recordings to not sound great, and caused problems with a lack of headroom when mixing. When I first started recording guitars digitally, I would set the level far too high.
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