Headphone Level Question
Greetings MP friends,
I have a question about recording — specifically about getting more headphone level while recording.
I’ve been producing an album for someone and helping them record in their home studio, so I’m not as familiar with the gear as I am in my own studio. They have an EVO 16 audio interface, which I’ve been using with Ableton for tracking.
My client is complaining that he can’t get his headphones loud enough while recording, mainly for vocals and acoustic guitar at this point. I checked the headphones myself, and the level is loud — certainly loud enough to record — but it’s noticeably quieter than the headphone output on my Apollo interface.
From what I’ve researched, it looks like the EVO provides around 12 dBFS of headphone output compared to over 20 on the Apollo, so I understand it delivers less gain than many interfaces. I’ve checked that there are no pads engaged or anything like that. Both of us have to turn the headphone volume close to maximum (100) to feel like we’re getting sufficient level.
So I guess I have two questions:
1. Headphone level while recording
If the mic gain is set appropriately, no pads are engaged, and the headphone volume is maxed out, does that mean we’ve reached the maximum achievable headphone level from the interface? Would this be a situation where a headphone amplifier could help? For example, if I ran a line output from the interface into a headphone amp, could we achieve a louder headphone mix that way?2. Playback louder than direct monitoring
Something else that confused me: in the mixer console we can adjust the DAW playback level, and when I raise the playback level while listening back to the exact same tracks we just recorded (vocals and acoustic guitar), I can get noticeably more headphone volume during playback than during recording.All faders are at unity, there’s no processing on the tracks, and no limiters or processing on the master channel. Since the DAW is routed back through the same audio interface, I don’t understand how playback can be louder than the direct monitoring signal coming in. Are DAWs somehow louder than direct input monitoring, or am I misunderstanding the signal flow?
Sorry if this is confusing — but if this makes sense to anyone, I’d love to hear whether you’ve experienced something similar and what the best solution might be for getting more headphone level.
Thanks in advance for any insight or advice!
JLew
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