After reading many glowing reviews of the Focusrite VoiceMaster, I
went out and got one. I'm just starting to build both a home
DAW/studio and a small live setup. I'm using the unit for my
daughter's singing.... don't need to run guitars or drums through it
(though I may experiment with running a Motif through it).

I am a novice and am trying to read/learn to make the most out of
this.

What I'm seeing is that the gain on the unit doesn't seem to be
linear. I'll get almost nothing registering on the input LED level
meter until I crank the knob up to almost full gain, then it quickly
pegs-- so I have perhaps 1/8" travel on the knob from minimum read to
pegging. I thought it was defective, so I went and tried a unit in
the store and it does the same thing, on about 4 different mics so
far.

So far, the sound seems good coming from the unit, but then again I
don't really know what good is yet :-) But it bothers me that the
gain is so difficult to adjust.

Do you think this is a big deal, should I go get my money back?

One nice use I have found for it, is to set the preamp on unity gain
(of course, nothing registers at all on the input level LEDs). Then
clicking in the expander, the vintage harmonics and the compressor-
I'm getting a good output level with virtually no background noise or
feedback. You have to sing right into the microphone, anything else
is ignored. This seems like a good setting for live use, but am I
losing dynamic range for recording?

The sales guy at Guitar Center thinks I might like the PreSonus Eureka
better-- I played with it and it does respond linearly to the gain
adjustment. I see that this list is very fond of the RNC (for $200,
I'll probably buy one just to check it out).

Do you think I should stick with the FocusRite and just live without a
usable input level monitor? Any other recommendations? Since this
piece is so critical, I don't mind spending a chunk of change on it--
as long as it will really make a difference (once I know how to use it
that is).

Thanks for your advice.
Eric

In article ,
Eric wrote:
What I'm seeing is that the gain on the unit doesn't seem to be
linear. I'll get almost nothing registering on the input LED level
meter until I crank the knob up to almost full gain, then it quickly
pegs-- so I have perhaps 1/8" travel on the knob from minimum read to
pegging. I thought it was defective, so I went and tried a unit in
the store and it does the same thing, on about 4 different mics so
far.

Well, the last few degrees of travel on any gain pot might not be so
smooth, but the fact that you have to wind it up all the way doens't
make sense. Are you sure the noise gate/expander is turned off? This
box has dynamics processing stuff built into it, and if that's not
disabled, the device will certainly not have a simple linear gain.

Also, the output meters are not exactly wide range either. The first
LED lights when the output is at -10, and the peak light comes on at
+15. This perception of gain 'tweakiness' might just be a metering
issue.

I'd suggest trying to use meters that are inside of your recording
device and just use the Focusrite meters as a ballpark indication.

So far, the sound seems good coming from the unit, but then again I
don't really know what good is yet :-) But it bothers me that the
gain is so difficult to adjust.

This probably more has to do with the quality of the performers than
anything else. Pros will produce consistent levels all by themselves,
and inexperienced performers will generally be all over the map.
However, I wouldn't rule out the case that the meters simply have a
small range, and they "look" wrong to you psychologically.

One final possibility is that you for some reason need a ton of gain,
and you're trying to run the box near the upper limit, where the knob
might not work so well. You have two other places inside of this box
where you can get extra gain. One is the master fader at the far
right, and another is the makeup gain knob inside of the compressor
section.

First off, set the master fader to zero dB (which is not 12:00) if
it's not set there already. Try to adjust the mike input gain knob
now, and see if that helps. If you still need more gain, stay away
from the very last part of the input gain knob and instead use the
master fader for more gain. It's OK to turn the master fader knob up
all the way.

If you still need more gain, put the compressor in line, turn the
threshold fully clockwise to disable it and turn up the output control
to get more gain. If the front panel says what I think it does,
you'll have an extra 20dB of gain to play with from the compressor.
If this isn't enough gain, then you have some other sort of problem.

BTW, I've never used one of these boxes, so the input gain knob might
be designed really poorly, but it's more likely that the unit is
simply not set up properly.


Best of luck,

Monte McGuire