Setting input and personal mix levels

[carvinae185@gmail.com]

I appreciate this post because it gets into the all to common scenario, 'is it me or them' scenario.


You don't mention if the other folks in your session are regulars or you're getting unsolicited random feedback from session hopping and random people are saying they can't hear you. Either way, I would agree if it's more then a couple of players it's likely something at your end and, is good you are paying attention. In this case I would NOT ask others to turn you up, just yet. Achieving a good signal is a balancing act and best done in your off time - in  private session to tweak your settings.  Then In you sessions going forward,  you can solicit feedback asking how you sound. I have an excellent setup but always ask others how I sound after the first song. This is my sound check.

We differ in our Input approach. I'm a firm believer of hitting the peaks! An ideal signal does not start in JK. Here's how I do it. This pertains to both Vocal and Instrument. I have found it's best to figure everything out end to end first in a private session, before you take your changes into a Session. Unless you have a dedicated friend who is willing to give you real time feedback

Starting with my rig and Audio Interface, I make sure my AI input level as strong as possible without clipping - think Loud and Clear. This means, you will likely be above 0 db. My signal usually is at the +3 or 4 db and sometimes when I play strong, I peak to 6 for a second  (the highest on my meter). This is needed to push a strong signal to JK and is the only input control you have to JK. In my case I do not experience any distortion or clipping sound in the AI.

Next, In JK, keep in mind the meter range you see is different from what others see for your track. You will see two Reds, while they see one, for you.

With the strong signal going into JK, I peak into the second Red frequently, and there is no clipping. My normal signal lives mostly in the first Red and below, but frequently touches the 2nd Red.

Worth mentioning. Because our hardware and interface is different; some comments about sounding distorted to yourself, when others say you should fine.

If you distort in your own mix. while it can be associated with being to far into the Red but others think you sound great. It is time to use your own Track volume slider. Alternatively (I frequently do this), I use the JK PowerMixer. There are sliders that give you control for your overall 'monitor' mix and individual track settings for yourself and everyone in session. In my opinion, I do not believe the PM is common territory for most folks and can be daunting at times. To be critical, it's surprising to this day I cannot find any documentation about it. But for those familiar with a DAW, the mixer makes sense. Identifying your problem distorted track and lowering it down will clear things up in your headphone mix.

Note. The changes you make in the mixer do not affect others. They only hear your input signal starting from your Rig>AI>JK

FYI: I did not mention the AudioBooster settings where your Frame Rate settings are. Assuming your local device latency is Green, or sometimes at Yellow it should sound fine. If it's in the Red, or too two low a frame rate (depending on your AI drivers), could distort your sound. This is rare and infrequent.

Once you have your own internal mix clear, you're hitting the second red some times, and others say you sound great, you're good to go. Again, get feedback from others and if they say you're coming into to hot and distorting, you first stop is your AI input gain. Bring it down a a couple of db and you should be good to go.

----- Forgot to thank you for this.  I did go back and revisit levels.  All of the patches in my Line 6 Helix are running around -18 to -20 db and the unit's built in level meters are showing somewhere in the 75-80 % of max without peaking. peaking there leads to pops etc.
I did bump my audio interface guitar level up quite a bit and now in JK the input track is hitting the 2nd red bar quite often, but no unexpected pops etc. So we'll see how it goes.   I jam once a week with a regular group totaling five people.
Everything in JK shows green expect the occasional yellow on jitter and occasional yellow in a session on total latency.  
If they can't hear me now they either need to pan, or as someone else pointed out, lower others in the personal mix  and raise their overall headphone volume.
I run audio frame rate/size at 2.5ms because we play  our own drum backing tracks on every song -- 2.5 is the minimum for those to remain glitch-free  ( I am seeking input on whether I should use much smaller, lower quality OGG files instead of FLAC --- to see if that might help.)