"Best practice" for setting recording levels?

[Apesbrain]

I'm using Audacity 1.3.14 with Win 7 x64 and a Tascam US-122MkII USB audio interface and have a question about setting levels in Audacity. I'm primarily recording vinyl LP playback and typically leave the input volume slider toolbar in Audacity set full on while using the L/R input level controls on the Tascam to set recording levels. Is this a "best practice" or would it be better to back the Audacity slider down from "1.0" a bit? I've been recording with Windows long enough to remember the old adage that in order to avoid distortion no volume slider should be set to full maximum. Thanks.

[steve]

The most important thing is that the recorded waveform should not touch the top or bottom of the track. As long as there is a bit of clear space above and below the loudest peaks of the waveform that should avoid any nasty clipping distortion.

[kozikowski]

no volume slider should be set to full maximum.

Maybe on your sound card. It's much more important the make sure the incoming analog sound doesn't overwhelm the digitizer, no matter where the slider ends up. There is usually no great difference between full on and just down. You can probably use either one. The digitizing is occurring in the mixer anyway. All the Audacity volume control is doing is moving already existing bits around.

Play what you perceive to be the loudest groove on the loudest record and make sure the red recording meter peaks in the -6 / -4 range. Wherever the sliders settle, that's where they're supposed to be. I recently transferred a whole bunch of old vinyl and noticed a surprising variation in overall volume. They can't be too far off from each other. There's only so much music you can put in those grooves, and the groove noise is fixed.

Koz

[TheBori]

Be careful you don't end up with a situation where you have "empty amplification". If you max your Audacity input and adjust the levels by using the output from your mixer or other upstream player, you run the risk of amplifying (in Audacity) a very low input signal. I'll let others chime in, but I would up the output of your mixer with a minimal Audacity level, until the VU meter just hits the green. Then you can use the audacity slider to set the correct level (-3 to -6 db). That way you have the highest incoming signal.

I yield back the remainder of my time.