Trim and Levels posted by mclir9

Trim and Levels

Posted on Jun 17, 2008 07:36 pm
mclir9
www.witchsmark.com
Member Since: Aug 13, 2006

I am learning alot of new things as I am beginning this recording journey. One of the things I noticed this session was that in Sonar6 there is a Trim setting that is defaulted at 0, but when I raise it it significantly pumps up the volume, so I am aware that this is equivalent to the Trim on a Mixer. So my question is I have my Presonus FirePod with its input gains and I have the Trim in the Sonar software... how do I know what to set to what?? I am guessing I may punch the individual Firepod Inputs level up until just before clipping and then use the Software Trims to control the level of the tracks to where I want them. Is this correct??

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Noize2u
Czar of Midi
Administrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002

Jun 17, 2008 09:04 pm

Kind of. The Trim in Sonar is similar to another gain stage in reality.

But yes, you want to follow the same gain staging structure you would use for anything. Set your Firepod as you suggested to as high as it can go without clipping. Then use the trim in Sonar to set the final level reading in Sonar for input. It will work as a channel output gain as well, but try to stay away from that.

Your meters will default to input in Sonar when you have record enabled so they will tell you what is actually coming into Sonar. Then when you click off the record enable for that track the meters will default to playback level's.