bc05 Posted December 20, 2017 Share Posted December 20, 2017 Hi all Don't want to beat a dead horse but in the official Line 6 "Helix Native Quickstart - Input and Levels Setup "tutorial video:- they say to keep the input signal into Native in the Green Zone of -36db to -12db. Currently ALL my Variax models and the JTV89 Mags DI levels coming from USB7/8 are exceeding this and I would have expected the plugin to behave as the floor unit but it appears by this logic I need to LOWER the input in the plugin so it doesn't exceed -12db at it's Maximum DI level. Is this correct? I ask as recording this way is my ideal but I want the monitored (processed by Helix Floor) sound to match the Native reamped/processed sound exactly if possible as a starting point. Thoughts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soundog Posted December 20, 2017 Share Posted December 20, 2017 Yes, -12dB PEAK levels going into Native works best. Adjust your audio interface levels accordingly. I usually like to record my waveforms a little hotter (while avoiding digital clipping), so I adjust Native input gain and play a loudest passage to set the input gain so the meter hits no higher than -12. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rewolf48 Posted December 20, 2017 Share Posted December 20, 2017 Native and Floor are identical, so your guitar signal is likely to be a bit hot on Floor as well, depending on the type of patches that you use you may or may not notice. The reality is that every JTV guitar in the world has a distinct set of pickups and body material and so levels will vary wildly depending on set-up, playing style, pick used... if you create your patches based on what your guitar is doing and are happy with the results then it isn't a problem. And it won't be a problem in Native either. The -12db is the nominal definition of "normal" as it allows a lot of headroom. Interestingly the concept of sticking with -12 db is global within VST and DAWs in general; in the old days of tape you got as hot a signal in as was possible without distortion in order to keep noise down, but digital signals especially at 24 or 32 bit resolution are noise free and unlike tape when you hit 0db it is an absolute ceiling so most effects/VST are optimised for a -12db signal; recording with levels higher than that risks hitting that 0db limit with just eq or delays. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bc05 Posted December 20, 2017 Author Share Posted December 20, 2017 Thank you for these informative responses guys. Clears things up a lot. I now am running Cubase 9.5 which has a 64 bit float point allowing for even more headroom apparently but I don't turn that on until mix time Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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