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Paul Stamler Paul Stamler is offline
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Default Revox PR99 Mk III question

"Emiliano Grilli" wrote in message
...

I have another question

The manual instruct me to feed the recorder with a 1 khz tone at the
"desired operating level" when calibrating the inputs.

I'm using csound for generating the tone, and the opcode ampdb (http://
mitpress.mit.edu/e-books/csound/fpage/pub/csbook/Manual4.0/valcnv/
dbamp.htm) for setting its level.

If I understand correctly this level is going to represent 0 VU on the
machine's meters, is that right?

What is considered a good value for this operating level compared with
0db digital?


That's going to depend on your sound card and how many volts it puts out for
0dB digital, and what you're going to use the Revox for. The following
assumes that the sound card will be the source of whatever you record on the
Revox -- in other words, you're dubbing from the computer into the Revox.

Really, the issue is what kind of "nominal" level you record at. If your
*average* level is, say, -14dBFS when recording digitally (this would be the
level a VU meter would read), then that should correspond to 0 VU on the
Revox. The Revox is measuring average level, while the digital system works
only with peak levels.

If it were me, since I use -14dBFS as a nominal level in digital, I'd
generate a 1kHz tone at -14dBFS and set the Revox's nominal 0VU level to
that signal. How many actual volts that might be will, as I said, depend on
your sound card.

If, on the other hand, you'll be recording from your mixer into the Revox,
then it's probably a good idea to set the VUs for +4dBu (about 1.23V) input
level 0 VU. That's a good world standard. Do your level monitoring on the
Revox, not the mixer's LEDs.

Peace,
Paul