I am now the happy owner of an Ampeg Venture V7. Its sat on my desk right now, balanced DI out into the UAD Volt 1, which is usbc into my PC desktop and into Reaper.
I plan on using this setup for quiet pracitcing with headphones through the UAD sound device and the occasional rough recording. The big question I have had (and I am very new to this) is about gain staging. The way I see it, I have 6 stages of gain. First from the bass to the amp, which i just leave fully dimed, then amp itself, then the input gain on my audio device, the input and output gain on reaper and then finally the headphone gain on the audio device.
Some of it is straight forward, like while in reaper, I set the input and output to be flat, +0db, no extra gain, no taking gain out. The headphone gain I dial more or less depending on comfortable listening.
The head scratching comes with my Amp gain and the input gain on my audio device. I find it annoying that the UAD doesnt have any indication on what the gain stage is doing. I dont know if there is a +0db setting? Like, does having the knob turned fully anti-clockwise mean there's no gain added? Or is it actually +0db at 12 oclock, with clockwise adding gain and anticlock wise removing gain? I cant find it mentioned anywhere in any manual.
The current train of thought, which is probably wrong, is setting the gain on my UAD Volt 1 to fully off, full anticlockwise (I turn on the "instrument" button), then taking the gain of my Ampeg and dialing up until I get around -12db in Reaper, if that makes sense?
In my head, this means I am fully using the gain of my amp and not adding any extra gain from the UAD?
Is this right? Have I got this all wrong? Any tips or suggestions (especially if you have used the gear im currently using, or anything similiar) would be super appreciative!
I plan on using this setup for quiet pracitcing with headphones through the UAD sound device and the occasional rough recording. The big question I have had (and I am very new to this) is about gain staging. The way I see it, I have 6 stages of gain. First from the bass to the amp, which i just leave fully dimed, then amp itself, then the input gain on my audio device, the input and output gain on reaper and then finally the headphone gain on the audio device.
Some of it is straight forward, like while in reaper, I set the input and output to be flat, +0db, no extra gain, no taking gain out. The headphone gain I dial more or less depending on comfortable listening.
The head scratching comes with my Amp gain and the input gain on my audio device. I find it annoying that the UAD doesnt have any indication on what the gain stage is doing. I dont know if there is a +0db setting? Like, does having the knob turned fully anti-clockwise mean there's no gain added? Or is it actually +0db at 12 oclock, with clockwise adding gain and anticlock wise removing gain? I cant find it mentioned anywhere in any manual.
The current train of thought, which is probably wrong, is setting the gain on my UAD Volt 1 to fully off, full anticlockwise (I turn on the "instrument" button), then taking the gain of my Ampeg and dialing up until I get around -12db in Reaper, if that makes sense?
In my head, this means I am fully using the gain of my amp and not adding any extra gain from the UAD?
Is this right? Have I got this all wrong? Any tips or suggestions (especially if you have used the gear im currently using, or anything similiar) would be super appreciative!
