I’m a multiinstrumentalist (drums, bass, all winds, vocals, a little piano, technically guitar) who operates on a mosquito-proboscis budget. I use a cheap USB microphone with no knobs, plugged straight into my Windows laptop typically running Audacity.
I’ve decided to switch to Ardour because Audacity is practically bereft of features and, as a bedroom musician, I need every tool I can get if i want to make good music.
I cannot control the volume of my instruments because they physically produce a certain volume of sound that, at full input volume, clips without fail. Even a crisp clap from a few meters away will easily clip, which is utterly unworkable.
Audacity features a giant monitor/fader bar for the input which directly controls my microphone’s sensitivity, basically an in-software access of the volume slider found in Windows settings.
I rely heavily on that fader to track at the appropriate volume, but there seems to be nothing like it in Ardour. It’s like nobody even has to bother with this issue and just has a solution I haven’t thought of or found anywhere.
Is there a plugin or setting in Ardour that lets you do this, or do i need to keep Windows settings open and hot-swap whenever i want to make an adjustment; maybe a UI modification? There’s no way nobody has a solution for this, surely…?
Thanks in advance and sorry for being confusing, stupid, or both,
-Mary
There is a gain knob at the top of each track’s mixer strip that can adjust the input level. It is the small knob below the #2 in the screenshot of the mixer strip on this page of the Ardour manual:
That adjusts the gain within ardour, but does not adjust the hardware gain. The only difference between that gain control and just lowering the channel fader is that lowering the input trim will keep the signal level within expected operating range if you have plugins which are level sensitive.
The most appropriate gain adjustment would be at the hardware if the driver offers a software-controlled hardware gain control.
Ardour is very flexible, you can connect any input to any channel, and the input could be mic level or line level, or something in between. There is a huge number of possibilities, so the design of Ardour relies on the user having appropriate hardware and setting it correctly for use.
I would guess the majority of people using multitrack recording software have an audio interface with a gain knob on the front, and they can just reach over and set the hardware appropriately.
Based on your description of your hardware that is likely best if the Windows settings actually changes the hardware gain. If it is just a software gain control then you can use the trim control mentioned by GuntherT, or add the ACE Amplifier plugin, which lets you adjust the software gain from -20 dB to +20 dB.
Without more details on the exact microphone you are using it is impossible to know whether the Windows control panel setting is actually changing the gain of the internal amplifier of the microphone, or whether it is fixed gain and you can only modify the data after the fact.
How are you playing back the audio, by the way? There are important considerations if your playback and recording are from different devices. See the entry in the FAQ: Say no to USB microphones
I think just inexperienced, and currently having an unfortunate equipment limitation.