Im not much of an SSL man either especially for tracking. The tone of those pres wound up is significantly cooler (Style wise not level wise) than when they are low so it makes perfect sense sense in my mind to do that. I definitely DO crank pres and lower my fader to tape pretty frequently especially if I'm tracking drums on a Neve. I wouldn't record it colder than what i consider healthy because it needs to sit in the mix low. But often ill have a sound that is just recorded at a nice healthy level and I will totally have the fader at -15 or -20 because thats where it needs to be in the mix after recording at a healthy level. I mean obviously you don't record really hot BECAUSE you need something to be loud in the mix. Yeah I think were kinda half saying the same thing.

then why would you do it returning from tape? it's about proper gain staging.Д®dit2: not much of an SSL guy, except for the buss compressor. once again the faders are for minute moves during mixdown, not for compensating for poor tracking.Д®dit: would you crank a micpre and then lower the fader to tape? of course not. turning down the line trims would be more optimal than pulling the fader down. that is why you are having to pull the faders down. there isn't enough headroom for all the tracks to be loud and fit in the mix. you have multitracks going into a stereo track. all i'm saying is you don't record hotter than you need. you have the levels too low because you didn't set your levels against what you need in the stereo bus. that is why the drop from unity isn't significant until the fader is more than halfway down. the faders are for minute moves during mixdown, not for recording hot and leaving the fader -20 db. So if you were to see fader positions of an engineer it might look like its down a bit from unity gain, the reality is its probably not down but a db or two.

If you look at an analog desks faders you would see that the markings for db are spaced so that you move it quite a bit and not drop too many dbs until you got past halfway and then the drop off is more severe. The daw faders are designed to act the same as analog faders.

Generally, the faders are for minute mix changes such as automation, and a gain plugin would be for drastic gain changes. But, if you get the hang of gain staging it will allow more of the 'air' or space between instruments because you aren't cramming a lot of signal and then lowering the faders to compensate.Д®dit: if you find yourself in a situation where you need a lot less signal and you are mixing in the box, there are gain plugins you can use. I do want to say there are no rules, as long as it sounds good it's fine. I'm not saying in some circumstances people don't knock the stereo bus down a bit, but that is generally because of poor gain staging during the mix.

You don't want to slam the stereo bus and you also don't want to get into a situation where you have to lower the stereo bus because you've mixed everything else too loud. The stereo bus meters are very important. Now that you have have the drums you can start getting levels for the bass, guitars and so on. If you listen and watch the stereo meters you will only record the level you need. When you start tracking drums you watch your stereo meter and bring the mic pre of the kick up to where you want it in the mix based on how it looks on the meter.Then you do the snare and so on. There isn't enough headroom for all of this signal so people bring the faders down to compensate when in reality it shouldn't have been that hot to begin with. You have multiple tracks that eventually will be mixed to 2 tracks. If you record too loud and don't need that much of it in the mix you are not balancing the gain properly. You only need to record as hot as you need it in the mix.

Slate vcc on mixbus