Believe it or not,you do not have to record at a level close to 0 dB FS (the highest it will go before the red overload indicator lights) these days.in the early days of digital recording, this practice was practice was a necessity in order to keep the noise to minimum, but modern 24-bit recording no longer has this limitation. that means if your signal peaks at somewhere between -6 and - 10 dB even lower on the channel meter, it will usually fine, but that brings up the need to be aware of the concepts of headroom and again-staging when it comes to setting your signal your signal levels for the cleanest audio