Recording level low USB

[Jon]

Newbie here. We have a SQ7 and we are trying to do a simple recording using just two condenser microphones and recording it via stereo to the USB thumb drive. It seems to be recording fine and the volume is fine when we play it back through the main house speakers. The issue is that when I remove the USB from the sq7 and plug it into a computer the DB levels are extremely low and we can hardly hear the performance. Any guidance would be much appreciated. Thanks.

[volounteer]

that is the way digital works

SQ gives 18dB headroom to protect against clipping.
Your DAW will give it another 18dB (maybe a little lesa)

you need to normalize for peaks and remove the DC offset while amplifying the usb file to the level you want to use for playback by the PC

[Jon]

Okay good to know. I will play around with it in audacity and hopefully the sound quality will sound just as good as when I play it through the house. Thanks so much for taking the time to get back to me much appreciated.

[volounteer]

@Jon

use audacity normalize function – that is more than adequate and easy to do for this purpose

normalize to -18 dB while removing DC offset
do any other editing tweaks fx yada yada that you want
then normalize to -6dB for playback (you could go to -1 safely but some AD/DA chips have minor issues at their extreme limits)
lower the gain on the SQ input or DAW to reach the dBSPL that you want to listen at, or raise it some if you should need more gain

[JohnOC]

Thanks for the topic.
Had noticed the same when pulling the USB into OBS as well and thought it was around 20db.

Would also second normalising using the Audicity Effect function – its my first action when I take the recording off our Qu-16 in the other church.

[KeithJ A&H]

As @volounteer says, there is 18dB of headroom in the digital realm so the main thing to remember is that 0dB on the meters = -18dBFS (Full Scale, used for digital).
You can find more info about levels and metering in the SQ (and Qu) on our knowledgebase here – https://support.allen-heath.com/Knowledgebase/Article/View/levels-and-metering-in-qu-and-sq

[volounteer]

@JohnOC

you get 18dB headroom from the SQ
you may not have recorded to the peak so get a few more dB – that could be your 20 value
and you may get up to another 18dB from the PC/DAW

but it is all digital and the DR is humongous as is the SNR
so you can still raise the signal in the PC without problems with noise

[Author]

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