Depending on what you’re recording, and how loud it is, you may find yourself in a situation where the mic’s positioned properly, the gain is turned up to 3 O’clock or higher, but the level coming into your recording program is nowhere near 0dB. On most mixers, you’ll find that beyond 3 O’clock, the preamps get increasingly noisy. The reason behind this is that all amps (guitar amps, mic preamps etc) are designed to be quietest when operated within a range of levels. As you experienced, however, cranking the mic preamps to their maximum setting often results in unacceptable levels of noise. This means that these units can apply more clean gain to a signal than many other devices.
The good news is that most computer audio interfaces have a lower noise floor than many of the most legendary and respected mixers out there, and provide up to 50db of gain. According to the SM58’s specs, if a 94dB audio source is placed 1in from the grill, it will register at -54 on a Mic input set to unity gain.They’re designed to be shouted into without generating a signal that would clip a mic preamp.For example, either mic can be placed in front of a guitar or bass amp, and with the mixer set to unity gain (applying no additional gain). Dynamic Mics (like the Shure SM57 and SM58) are designed to handle very loud sound sources without distorting.Consider the output level of the mic and the volume of the sound source… Note that while the content below refers mainly to recording with microphones, the same principles apply when recording guitar, bass or keyboards direct as well. You didn’t mention what type of mic(s) you were using, and what audio sources you were recording, or what signal level (numerically) you were getting into your recording software, so I’ll try to cover a range of possibilities. We’ve helped lots of folks with this question over the years, with various combinations of Microphones, Mixers/Mic Preamps. Is something wrong with my mixer/interface, or am I doing something wrong? Q: I'm getting a low output from my microphone. Solution home General | Getting Started General | Audio Device Troubleshooting Gain Staging 101
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