soft synth recording level

seafarer31569 · Post by **seafarer31569** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 12:26 am

I am new to the soft synths and was wondering why the level of the soft synths that I am using are lower than the loops that I use. I am currently using Acid music studio and Cubase LE. The main soft synth that I have is Proteus X2. I have tried several others including Crystal but each does the same thing.

Am I missing something? To even get a signal I have to crank up the input level to max.

Gary

The Manitou · Post by **The Manitou** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 2:03 am

It's a mystery to me as well. I get around this by routing the quieter VSTs to a BUS in my studioware (I use Sonar). Anyone else have an answer?

-TM

MrHope · Post by **MrHope** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 3:00 am

A lot of softsynths are set up so that you won't cause output clipping if you trigger a bunch of notes all at the same time. Personally I think it's kind of a bad design since a lot of peopl just play softsynths monophonically (one note at a time). It's better to have a volume control on the synth itself and have it loud enough for monophonic use but able to be turned down if needed.

I use this to help out sometimes: http://www.gvst.co.uk/gfader.htm

In my VST host program it gave me more gain than I thought was even available with the host faders and EQ. It's also useful after a compressor insert when the host fader can't be moved without affecting the compressor threshold.

seafarer31569 · Post by **seafarer31569** » Fri Sep 07, 2007 5:45 am

Thanks for the help. I tried this and it worked in Cubase. I need to play around with it a bit since it did not work in Acid Music Studio.

I really wanted to use the Proteus X sound set but will just use the hardware keyboards that I have in the meantime until I can get this sorted out.

Gary