[linux-audio-dev] Re: Mixer controls

[Alfons Adriaensen]

On Thu, Nov 10, 2005 at 04:24:25PM +0200, Juhana Sadeharju wrote:
 
> Fixing the hardware input and output levels makes sense to me.
> The input devices all have fixed SNR -- it does not help to
> crank up the soundcard input level as it brings the noise up.
> The output would be fixed for the same reasons.

It depends a bit on what your sound card is connected to, but
I'd say in most cases the card's gain settings should be fixed.
The only exceptions maybe are recording a mic or instrument
connected directly to the sound card. Once you have an external
preamp / mixer or some such, you'll do the gain settings there
rather than on the card, and you'll want the card's gain to 
be calibrated.

In my case, I have 8 analog ins and outs from my Terratec, and
these are connected to the multitrack tape interface of an external
mixing desk. Card levels are fixed and calibrated against the
mixer's metering. As it turned out, I just had to set all faders
in envy24control to 0dB, as the designers at Terratec had taken
care to have standard levels (+4 dBu) in that case. I never
touch these settings, and probably even don't have envy24control
installed ATM.

-- 
FA