M-Audio DMAN [9/52] Digital recording dos and don ts

design practices as in the DMAN, the only way to make a noisy

digital recording is to add the noise yourself!

Digital Recording Dos and Don’ts

Meters are not meant to ever go into the red. Digital recording is

very unforgiving of clipping. Unlike analog systems, where tape

saturation gives a nice smooth compression, digital distortion

sounds like someone is breaking a pane of glass in your ear.

Make sure that you give yourself lots of headroom both when

recording and mixing. You’ve got all that dynamic range -- use it.

Measure twice, cut once. With most hard disk recording

software, like the version of Samplitude that is bundled with the

DMAN Digital Studio, you will be doing your mixing in the

program. Because you won’t be able to run each track to

outboard gear (effects, compression, etc.) when mixing, you want

each track to sound right when you record it. Take your time to

make sure that mic position, EQ, and effects settings are exactly

what you want when tracking. “Fix it in the mix.” hardly ever

works, anyway.

Know your signal chain. Some programs set the levels

internally, others use the Windows level controls. Make sure you

know which is which. If you are not getting the levels you

expect, retrace your signal chain and make sure that you are

adjusting levels in the correct places.

Plan ahead. Think about tracking ahead of time and decide in

what order you are going to record the tracks. Keep a track list.

Use it to make notes when you are recording (where you might

need to punch in and out, etc.). With hard disk recording you

don’t have to worry about the bass track bleeding into the vocal

track or whether the heads have the same response on different

tracks, but you still want to have a plan.

Back up your work. Sure, most editing functions with HDR

systems are non-destructive, but some are not. If you are doing a

lot of editing, (or even if you’re not, but don’t want to take any

chances) back up your audio tracks. Audio takes up a lot of disk

space, so you might want to have a large format removable drive

(Iomega Zip or Jaz, Syquest EZ Flyer for example) on which to

store audio files.

Optimize your disk often. Fragmented audio files can cause

problems.