How to Record With a Decibel Meter

Position microphones and watch the decibel meter on your recording machine.

If you are planning on doing your own home recording, a few basic principles for sound recording will help to make the first session go smoothly. Many home music recording machines come equipped with a decibel meter for each track or input for the machine. Knowing how to adjust the level and gain helps to ensure that recorded sound is of the best quality, which helps with mixing and mastering later in the process.

Things You'll Need

• Microphone

Instructions

1. Position the microphone close to your musical instrument. Place it within four to five inches of the main sound hole of the musical instrument. Unidirectional microphones work best for recording as they reduce the echoes from the walls and other sound sources. If using a direct input, such as a quarter-inch jack found on guitars or amplifier outputs, then disregard the microphone positioning.

2. Play the instrument with the level (or slider) positioned so that it is between five to eight. Adjust the gain until the light on the decibel meter is green. This will be the baseline starting point for determining the gain and slider positions while recording.

3. Practice your song, playing only one instrument at a time. This ensures each instrument or track has its input levels adjusted for the best recording quality. As you play your song, watch the lights on the decibel meter, ensuring that it does not peak out at the higher levels, indicated by the red lights.

   If the lights reach down below the normal operating decibel level, as seen by the green lights on the meter, they will be easier to work with in the mixing process than blaring sounds coming out from loud and distorted recordings.

4. Go through each track or instrument for your song. Record each track, ensuring the decibel level does not peak out into the red zone. If you need to make small adjustments to your input level, use the slider to increase or decrease the amount of sound coming into the recording machine. If you need to make larger adjustments, use the gain knob to increase or decrease the sound level.

5. Listen to the playback for each track through your headphones. If you cannot hear the music from each instrument throughout the recording, then you will need to record the track again at a higher decibel level. If your music is too loud, blaring or distorted, then the decibel level on your track is too high and you will need to readjust the gain and level so that the peak decibel level does not reach into the red display lights on the decibel meter.

References

• Canadian Music Artists: How To Make A Demo Tape
• Music On My PC: Recording You Guitar On A PC Computer