Im not sure where to post this. having a hard time navigating the forums here.
i know nothing about mic preamps. but the vu meter on mine reads nothing, i have the gain and drive set at minimum (if i turn it up any it will clip). on my delta card, (default mic input settings are either +30dB,or +19dB. can be switched to line settings +14dBu,or +3dBu. via hardware jumpers). then it has further settings via software control panel, +4dBu -4dB or -10dBV, can also be set manually to anything between.
My problem is recording levels clipping. i lower recording level and now it is too low and sounds distanced and distorted with (digital echos? don't know how to describe). if i get it to an acceptable level without clipping, it seems like the audio is over-compressed and distorted as if it clipped (signal has long flat peaks like a majority of the audio clipped, but peak level was only -6dB). i can upload samples of audio if that would help.
and what range should my preamp be peaking? where should my audio card meter peak and where should the mass of audio range?
MXL 990 and a presonus tube pre. into a M-Audio Delta 1010lt
mic
http://www.mxlmics.com/condenser_mic/condenser_index.htmlpre
http://www.presonus.com/tubepre.htmlthanks to anyone who can help.