Low Audio Level for USB Audio device

Question

Hello,
I'm recording a voice over for a keynote presentation.
-The internal mic records just fine, but when I use an external usb mic, the level into keynote registers very low.
- in the system preferences the audio input for this exteral mic is perfectly fine.
-the mic has been tested in a pc and records just fine at a good level
-the same thing happens when I run a mic through a mixing board and use the line in on the mac...it shows up fine in audio settings, but has a low level in keynote.
any ideas?

Answer 1

I'm glad you mentioned the preset, Silal. I kept meaning to bring that up, but forgot.
Set Preprocessing to None. That will keep high level short duration sounds, like drums, etc., from overtaking your dialog, and crushing it.
The way DIALNORM is intended to work, you set it to the average level of your dialog from your editing app. If you're working in FCP, then that might be something like -12. That setting will cause the player to attenuate the level so dialog is attenuated by 19dB (-31 minus -12 = 19dB of attenuation by the player).
That, in turn, allows the ridiculously loud music and nat sounds in the film soundtrack to sound "more natural", as they blast your ear drums into bits. "More natural" means "much louder than dialog, just like they are in real life".
Bah, humbug! Let me hear what the talent is saying. I don't care if I can hear every nuance of that rock ballad, I just want to be able to follow the story, the plot.
Hey, I'm an old dude, you whippersnappers.
But back to the point, by setting DIALNORM to -31, the player works out the math like this:
-31 minus -31 = 0dB of attenuation
So, your level should be exactly what it was before the compression/conversion. Why it isn't is a mystery, still.