I´m about to do a recording with a brassband in my home studio. My
problem is to prevent distortion of my A/D interface because of the
wide dynamic range of the horns. My preamp is a Allen & Heath GL2
analogue mixer, with Presonus ACP-88 compressors in each channel
insert. The mixer group output is sent to the A/D interface which is a
Creamware A16 Ultra, 44.1 kHz 24 bits. I don´t want the sound to be
influenced by a compressor, so the ACP-88 is only used as a limiter
with ratio 20:1, attack and release 1ms. But I can´t prevent the
horns to overload the AD interface sometimes.
What can I do to get a good leveled recording ?
Can I set the ACP-88 to the lowest attack and release with the highest
ratio to cut the peaks ?
Should I use a compressor for reducing dynamics first and a limiter in
line to cut the remainig peaks ?
Thank you very much for your recommendations.

Ewald