I’m recording vinyl on Pioneer turntable, Onkyo receiver, Behringer UCA222 USB device. When I play the vinyl the volume is very good. When I record via Audacity 3.7.3 with recording volume of 100%, the resulting .mp3 file has very little volume. When recording the sound graph looks good. I have to crank up the receiver volume to at least double of what it normally is. (9 o’clock position to 12 o’clock).
It’s probably OK… The UCA 222 doesn’t have an analog recording level adjustment and the LAST thing you want is to clip (overload) the analog-to-digital converter in the Behringer. If the digital data gets clipped, lowering the digital volume won’t remove the distortion.
-12dB (25%) is usually OK and you can amplify after recording.
When recording the sound graph looks good.
There is an easy “trick” for checking you peak levels - Run the Amplify effect and it will default to whatever amplification (or attenuation) is needed for maximized-normalized 0dB peaks.
For example, if Amplify defaults to +3dB your peaks are currently -3dB. You can cancel effect if you just want to check but you might want to go-ahead an apply the effect.
Note that peaks don’t correlate well with perceived loudness and it’s natural for digitized vinyl to sound a bit quieter than the CD, even with the same maximized-normalized digital peaks.