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Post by OtisGreying on Jun 21, 2022 1:43:44 GMT -6
I run my hardware as hardware inserts, and can manipulate the gain going into my units and coming out of my units very easily. I'm wondering - what exactly is the benefit in outboard gear with more headroom rather than less headroom?
In my mind, if a unit I'm using is receiving a signal too hot because perhaps it has low headroom - I would just attenuate the gain going into the unit with my hardware insert tool, and after the signal has ran through the unit I add that gain back as makeup gain with my hardware insert tool in my DAW - therefore the headroom isn't a crutch and I'm getting the desired effect of the outboard at the wanted volume. Am I missing something there? Is there more to it than that?
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Post by thehightenor on Jun 21, 2022 2:02:14 GMT -6
It depends on the dynamic range you are trying to capture or process.
My Millennia STT-1 has a massive amount of headroom, matched with a mic that can capture very high SPL's you can record from a whisper to a roar without distortion - if needed!
For me, headroom means the ability to stay clean and undistorted and usually presides in gear that has a really low noise floor.
For the kind of pop 'n' roll I make some of the gear I use colours the sound nicely and doesn't have particularly high headroom.
If you don't need it - you don't need it :-)
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Post by Omicron9 on Jun 21, 2022 8:07:26 GMT -6
It can also mean lower self-noise. I'm really finicky about noisy/hissy gear, but whenever I mention self-noise, I usually get odd looks, so maybe I'm the only one that notices and/or is bothered by it.
-09
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ericn
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Post by ericn on Jun 21, 2022 10:31:54 GMT -6
Having come up in the era of cheap gear = little head room it means 2 things.
1. Less work / babysitting/ house keeping of gain. Spend a week with a old Kelsey mixer and you will be wishing for a rack of DBX 160x to keep everything from clipping.
The noise everything adds more noise, then those house keeping 160x’s compress all that noise as well and it feels like your in a room of hissing snakes.
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Post by christopher on Jun 21, 2022 10:32:56 GMT -6
Those are really good reasons and the main benefits I think.
A piece with lots of headroom I’d expect it to not color the sound differently whether I feed it a quiet or loud source. And so if I build a chain where I push things to the “perfect” amount of drive and tone, I can put it after and keep that sound without it also going non linear and screwing it up
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Post by thecolourfulway on Jun 21, 2022 10:37:37 GMT -6
It’s that makeup gain after that will get you in trouble, as mentioned before lower headroom probably means less room above the noise floor and when you make up the gain you’re bringing all that noise up with it.
Also maybe it’s a less common situation but I don’t use computers at all, with my current console I have no level control on my inserts, both the gear taking the signal and especially the console’s return need to leave me plenty of headroom
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ericn
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Post by ericn on Jun 21, 2022 10:37:39 GMT -6
It depends on the dynamic range you are trying to capture or process. My Millennia STT-1 has a massive amount of headroom, matched with a mic that can capture very high SPL's you can record from a whisper to a roar without distortion - if needed! For me, headroom means the ability to stay clean and undistorted and usually presides in gear that has a really low noise floor. For the kind of pop 'n' roll I make some of the gear I use colours the sound nicely and doesn't have particularly high headroom. If you don't need it - you don't need it :-) Yeah the big point you and your Milll Media bring up is the whole chain needs to be high headroom, one stage will create a bottleneck. |
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Post by OtisGreying on Jun 21, 2022 18:11:59 GMT -6
It’s that makeup gain after that will get you in trouble, as mentioned before lower headroom probably means less room above the noise floor and when you make up the gain you’re bringing all that noise up with it. Also maybe it’s a less common situation but I don’t use computers at all, with my current console I have no level control on my inserts, both the gear taking the signal and especially the console’s return need to leave me plenty of headroom I see, so if I were to attenuate the signal lets say 20db just cause I can, and makeup that 20db I could be raising noise at a really unwanted amount. I didn't realize that I just figured "oh perfect flexibility with my DAW no problem attenuate 10db, 15db! Whatever!"
I'll say I atleast haven't heard any noise in my recordings that I've noticed or disliked. Maybe I'd catch some moving forward if I try to listen for it. The main reason I'm asking is cause I have ALOT of 500 series gear and was wondering if there is any crutch there I guess this means there would be more noise coming from a mix chain of 10 500 series units as opposed to 10 rack units because of the different headroom.
Edit: Also, I actually do sometimes attenutes hardware inserts by like 20db to gain stage for compressors that may go on a full mix or sometimes just some quiet background vocals - is this amount of makeup gain a bad idea? It's the only way to use the unit for some quiet single track then put it on a full mix without messing with threshold knobs..
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Post by thecolourfulway on Jun 21, 2022 18:59:38 GMT -6
You gotta do what you gotta do, and trust your ears. Makeup gain and boosting certain signals is bound to be part of the job, you just gotta do it with care. Are you commonly running up against low headroom and having to attenuate? Even with most 500 you should have quite a lot of headroom.
Also, what’s wrong with adjusting your compressor threshold? If going from a quiet vocal to a full mix you should expect to change some settings, I wouldn’t just use your insert level to adjust for this
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Post by OtisGreying on Jun 21, 2022 20:22:45 GMT -6
You gotta do what you gotta do, and trust your ears. Makeup gain and boosting certain signals is bound to be part of the job, you just gotta do it with care. Are you commonly running up against low headroom and having to attenuate? Even with most 500 you should have quite a lot of headroom. Also, what’s wrong with adjusting your compressor threshold? If going from a quiet vocal to a full mix you should expect to change some settings, I wouldn’t just use your insert level to adjust for this It's just another step that I didn't think was necessary given I could just adjust the insert level to where it was compressing the amount I want. Cause the compressor may be on completely different things for different sessions so switching projects would mean recalling threshold settings etc.
So you'd reccommend getting in the habit of adjusting the threshold more often rather than just using insert level for noise purposes?
And with the compressors its usually not headroom I'm solving for - its that the signal is too hot so the compressor is compressing too much. Maybe I should just turn all of my compressor thresholds higher and then just gain UP the quiet tracks going in rather than gain DOWN the louder sources?
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Post by EmRR on Jun 21, 2022 22:40:22 GMT -6
Headroom doesn’t directly correlate to noise floor, apples to apples, from one thing to the next.
Addressing the thread title, is there a silent “more headroom (than my converters)” in the question? Seems to be. What happens when you change converters and 0dBFS is a different level? Rearranges all relative headrooms. Rack versus 500 is not apples to apples “different headroom”, BTW. Many things that exist in both formats are identical, because they just are, no one being crippled by a form factor versus another.
A Stalevel has headroom approaching 10W, if you let it run wild. That headroom is necessary for the side chain to do it’s thing for gain reduction, as designed.
Many many great sounding pieces with headroom over 1W (30dBm), if you’re into pushing things, you gotta go past what most converters are gonna take and bring it back down with some kind of attenuator/pad.
I can’t get my head around NOT turning knobs, so I’ll exit.
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Post by OtisGreying on Jun 21, 2022 23:39:11 GMT -6
Headroom doesn’t directly correlate to noise floor, apples to apples, from one thing to the next. Addressing the thread title, is there a silent “more headroom (than my converters)” in the question? Seems to be. What happens when you change converters and 0dBFS is a different level? Rearranges all relative headrooms. Rack versus 500 is not apples to apples “different headroom”, BTW. Many things that exist in both formats are identical, because they just are, no one being crippled by a form factor versus another. A Stalevel has headroom approaching 10W, if you let it run wild. That headroom is necessary for the side chain to do it’s thing for gain reduction, as designed. Many many great sounding pieces with headroom over 1W (30dBm), if you’re into pushing things, you gotta go past what most converters are gonna take and bring it back down with some kind of attenuator/pad. I can’t get my head around NOT turning knobs, so I’ll exit. The threshold knob. I was using insert level in my hardware insert plugin to dictate the amount of compression so that’s it’s recallable and way more convenient than taking notes on threshold settings for each session - my question being does this method of deferring the job of the threshold knob to the insert level (gain stage HW insert plug-in) for convenience negatively impact the sound (this wasn’t the original question of the thread but my new question based off responses) |
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Post by EmRR on Jun 22, 2022 5:58:39 GMT -6
I don’t see a reason why it would. I find I generally only have a couple threshold settings WITHOUT ever changing outside levels, which I suppose points to consistent gain staging on my part. The varying settings have to do with the ratio or attack speed I might choose. My SB4001 always seems like it needs less input level to get threshold in a good range, no matter what I do, it’s a standout oddity.
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