Thanks, everyone, for the useful answers. I'm getting much closer to making a recording I'm happy with, but I still have a few newbie questions.

First, the BlueTube mic preamp: I tried the experiment of plugging the headphones directly into the back of the preamp, and it doesn't need the pad for my acoustic guitar (It does when I mic my amp). And it has a peak meter (the pretty lights) not a VU meter. So, what's the difference?

Now...levels on the preamp: I discovered that I can actually drive the peak meter on the BlueTube up to +3db without hearing any distortion. Is this related to the more headroom thing? That is, coming out of the BlueTube, the signal is analog, and there's more headroom than after the signal is converted to digital?

And with regard to the levels in Vegas: If I keep things peaking at -12db on the track meter, the recording is not distorted in any way, but here's my question:

I found some drum loops (.wav files) on the net at www.edrummer.net and they are much louder than the tracks I just recorded. On his site, he says the drums are played on a midi drum set, not created in a software program, if that makes any difference to my question. In order to make it so the drums don't completely overpower the guitar, I have to decrease the drum volume considerably. And the wave forms look totally different. The drum wave has very distinct highs and lows that fill the space above and below the line. And yet, I don't hear any distortion, and I don't see any squared off waves. My tracks (acoustic, electric, and vocal) look like straight lines with a little bit of fuzz on them. Should my waves look more like the drum waves? Does the edrummer have better recording equipment? Or is this just a function of drums being louder than guitars?

Also, I'm using Vegas Audio LE. (My intention is to get my feet wet and then upgrade my soundcard, buy a dedicated harddrive and upgrade to the full Vegas once I understand a litle about how this all works.) Is the help menu that comes with the download the only thing there is in terms of a manual? It's rather brief. I seem to recall something about a PDF file, but I can't find any reference to anything on this website.

Thanks,
Colin

If you right click on the vocal waveform, there is a "normalize" menu item. Normalize the waveform, now does it look similar to the drum tracks? It should be approx. 12dB louder now, which is 4 times louder. Also do you have the output of the blue tooth plugged into the "line In" Input of the soud card and not the "Mic In"...it kinda sounds to me like you're not getting enough headroom from your sound card. Make sure it's plugged into the Line In.

Hey, My understanding of the VU vs Peak meter is that the VU will give an average that you are hitting. The Peak will tell you where your at and if it has a "hold" (that number at the top of the peak meter)it will tell you the highest you've gone untill you reset it. The meter in the track of Vegas is also a peak meter, just like your pre amp. Find that place where your pre amp is pushing the signal but not distorting it and keep it there. In vegas, find the same sweet spot and try to hang out in that neck of the woods throughout your recording.
As far as the comparison of the git audio wave and the drum loop audio wave, I would say don't try and compare. If you get a decent wave out of your git track, you will be able to mix with the drums just fine.
Now I will step aside and watch all this semi-newbie advice get laughed at and ripped apart by the boys and girls that make a living knowing this stuff.

And, by the way, I made a horrific mistake and spent a lot of $ on a multitrack that didn't serve me well. Then I spent a lot of money on Vegas. I am very happy so far. If you're not into midi so much and havn't an affinity for vst plugins and such, then climb aboard and document some music.

Theron.

Normalize--Yes, that's it. Sounds much better. And yes, the wave looks more like the drum track. Thanks.

Regarding the soundcard: It's in the line-in. However, it's not a very good card (Sound Blaster PCI 64). When I was experimenting with the headphones directly from the output of my preamp, I was startled at how clear the sound was. I think my sound card adds a lot of mud flavor.



I

If you can normalize and it sounds much better then you should be able to raise the input level in Vegas and hit around -6 to -3dB with your guitar tracks, and -6dB should be a good safe level with vocals also, then normalize after that. If you get distortion at those levels then just back it back down. You've now first handedly noticed the sound quality difference in a soundblaster sound card and why I always laugh when someone says they're a pro engineer and then follow that by saying I'm using a soundblaster sound card. Yes that card will smear the quality of your audio and is probably a good source of bad quality going in and out of your PC. I recommend you buy an Echo Mia card, which is very affordable and gives you analog and digital I/O's.
I will give you an explanation of peak vs. Vu meters that makes since and is hopefully easy to understand. Unfortunately that peak meter that the mic pre your using isn't a good example for this explanation, because it's actually a peak meter that's trying to immulate a VU meter. I would recommend that you peak levels right around, so that the red light (probably the +3dB light) is coming on every once in awhile, but not most of the time. Sounds like it is optimal around 0dB.....it's really one of those cheap meters made for dummies.

A VU meter works on an average level, like someone already pointed out. VU meters are most often used with analog gear....this is actually a better meter for your pre-amp, but would most likely raise the cost of it if they used one (sorry I'm also an electrical design engineer and think in these terms). Peak meters are most often used with gear that use digital signals, because they are better suited for them (ie VEGAS). With peak meters there is really no guess work. At the top of the peak meter it is most commonly labeled 0dB. A peak meter measures the peak of a sound wave...thus however high a soundwave reaches that's what the meter reads (you can think of the peak as the highest peak on the waveform how it would be drawn in Vegas...thus the name "peak". In digital devices 0dB peak is the highest a signal can be recorded at, so if you go over 0dB with the level of your signal...the digital device runs out of number levels and can't assign it a digital number...thus distortion occurs. This is why you want to set levels at -6dB in most cases when recording live music, so you have enough headroom to allow the performer to get twice as loud before distortion occurs, -12dB if you're extra careful. I personally usually set for
-9dB and the performer will usually get another 3dB louder after they're warmed up. Now when using a VU meter it's a totally different ballgame. In most cases you want to set the meter level at 0dB. Well the problem is that these meters read on the "AVERAGE" amplitude of the soundwave. So if a soundwave has a very sharp high peak, then it doesn't have much average level. Take a look at a waveform of a highhat of a snare drum opened up in Vegas. These percussive parts have what is known as very high "transients"...which is that spike you see. So if you set to record that snare drum or high hat to record at 0dB on a VU meter, well the Transient peaks are well over the average level and what happens is the electronic amplifier can't handle amplifying the high peaks of those snare or highhat hits and they get "clipped" off....thus the term "clipping"...it actually clips off the peak of the waveform as if someone took a pair of scissors and cut it off....you might recognize this term better as "distortion". So when recording using a VU meter, you have to consider things that have these transients, most all percussive instruments have them. From personal experience you will record a highat somewhere around -20dB Vu, a snare around -15db to -10dB, a crash cymbal around -20dB. Acoustic guitars can have transients like this from finger noise and pick noise on metal strings, so you might record at -6dB VU. Things like electric guitars and Basses, you are pretty safe at running these levels at 0dB VU, their peak values are pretty close to the average values. The good thing about a VU meter is that your ears hear volume on an "average" level....thus if a snare hit and a bassline read -6dB on a VU meter, you will perceive them at the same volume, although their peaks are at very different levels, probably the bass would be at -12dB and the snare at 0dB looking at the same signals on a peak meter.

I hope this lengthy discussion helps someone, I use to teach classes on this crap 3 times a week and haven't done that lately, so I guess I have a bunch of pent up knowledge that I have to spew out every now and then.

That's all for now,
Brian Franz

That was excellent. Thank you. You even anticipated my next question about upgrading my sound card.

-Colin