Apogee Duet + Garage Band

[joyze]

Am attempting to learn how to record my stuff at home, using Apogee Duet + Garageband on my iMac.

Having troubles with levels.
There are too many places, to adjust sound levels and it's got me very confused.
Looking for someone else who might be using this same equipment, and might be able to help me sort it all out.

Thanks

[RawDepth]

Hi and welcome here.

I don't have any of that equipment but I can give you a general rule on gain structure.

When it comes to levels, think of your system in reverse. That is, start at the end of the signal chain and work backward toward the mic or preamp. Turn up all levels to 0 dB or unity except for the preamp, where the mic or guitar plugs in. Leave it down for now. (Well, and except for your monitor speakers, of course. Always monitor at a comfortable level.) The mic preamp should be the last thing you turn up. Bring it up only as much as is needed to feed adequate signal level to the rest of the system. While watching the meters in the software recorder, bring it up only enough to accommodate proper level for the track being recorded. The track level meter should be bouncing around -6 to -12 dB. All other meters in your system should now read the same or similar.

Let us know if this works for your system.

[joyze]

Thanks for such concise/basic walkthrough.

Will give that a try tomorrow. 

Joyze