For recording in a DAW: initial signal does not need to be very high. You definitely don't want to redline, but you don't need a large waveform either. There are many ways to make the signal louder. There are saturators that can give you a nice round distortion if that's what you are looking for. But to keep the noise floor low or nonexistent is the most important. Pickup noise is the biggest culprit. That or cord noise. But even at that, there are AI noise suppressor plugins that can fix it. And as far as plugins, they give you a lot of flexibility. And there are some great ones from 10 to 30 dollars apiece. Lately, I've been using some designed by Butch Vig and Tony Maserati respectively.
For recording in a DAW: initial signal does not need to be very high. You definitely don't want to redline, but you don't need a large waveform either. There are many ways to make the signal louder. There are saturators that can give you a nice round distortion if that's what you are looking for. But to keep the noise floor low or nonexistent is the most important. Pickup noise is the biggest culprit. That or cord noise. But even at that, there are AI noise suppressor plugins that can fix it. And as far as plugins, they give you a lot of flexibility. And there are some great ones from 10 to 30 dollars apiece. Lately, I've been using some designed by Butch Vig and Tony Maserati respectively.
Great advice about input signal! Thanks for this and I'll have to give those plugins a look at some point soon . . . Take care!