Ewald Streitenberger wrote:
I=B4m 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=B4t 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=B4t 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

You're on the right track. Lower your threshold and you'll wipe out the
peaks and your waveform will be at the perfect level.

The only problem is when you play it back it won't sound like the
instrument you recorded. Depending on the music you may like the sound,
but most people don't like the sound of limiting.

Turn the level down and tell the player to give a leveled performance.
He may even want to adjust his phrasing when he understands what needs
to happen with his part later in the mix. I assuing that you want a
leveled perfromace for musical reasons as opposed to taking something
that is intended to have a dynamic range and levelling it for academic
reasons.