When i get a spark of creativity or a melody going round and round in my head that i just need to record quickly before its gone i turn on the guitar amp set the mixer pre and fader to who knows what setting, hit record in logic and bam!! I've got a poorly recorded either clipping or too quite, but at least I've got the idea down ahy!!
Ok so once I've got the idea i can concentrate on re-recording and making sure my gain structure is better!
This time open my input channel fader to 0dB I then turn up the mic preamp until i get between -6 and -3dB showing. Hit record again, now i have a nice clean, clear signal with headroom!
Sometimes its a good idea to record at -6dB in order to take advantage of more headroom that could be needed once some compression and other processing has been added.
Whats your bit depth?!
Your bit depth will effect your choice of input level, record at 16 bit and your limiting to a dynamic range of 96dB, even through this is the bit depth of audio CD's its always better to record with a higher bit depth e.g. 24bit giving you 144dB of dynamic range and better resolution at low level inputs, also more overall headroom resulting in less chance of clipping and making setting your input gain a lot easier.
Heres a bit depth and dynamic range reference table
And finally - A little experiment
I recorded a sine wave straight into logic at -3dB
Overloaded the output via a bus by 3dB and recorded the result
The result shows that the recorded sine wave has not clipped despite being overloaded.
Heres an image of a clipped wave resulting in distortion.
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