New, and a question about recording levels with analog synth

Hi there. I'm new to these forums, but I've had an Akai MPC-5000 since April. I also have an Akai Miniak analog synth. Now, I have a question about recording levels.

I've got a nice drum sequence written on the MPC, and when I go to HD record to record it to a wav, I want to play over it with my Miniak synth. Well, the MPC has its main volume knob and recording volume knob, then the Minak has its own volume knob.

When I play the drum sequence and the synth while HD recording, the synth sounds at least as loud as the drum sequence. Then, when I play back what I recorded, the synth sounds much softer than the drums.

When I try to mess with the recording volume or synth volume, I can only turn up so much before the sound starts to distort (I don't have the switch set to "phono", before you ask). So what gives?

My only other idea was to turn down the drum sequence levels after recording, but wouldn't that make the entire song too soft, overall?

If anyone has any suggestions, please please please send them my way. Thanks.

hi, i only use analog synths and the mpc for drums and sampling.

with the drums, I have to level all pads between 40 and 90, to get everything in a well balanced mix. some drums are loud, and some are to quiet. so I have to mix the loud drums down, and mix the quiet ones to the max. it doesn't kill the punch at all, because the mpc punch isnt related to the overall main volume. I mostly do direct record of the analog synhts (those are played live to the mpc sequencer and recorded as a sample), but i never got volume problems when the mpc pad sounds (in the programm you can mix every pad) are averagely set around 70 or 80.

analog synths and mpc 5000 work perfect together. good choice!

That is so great to know! Thanks for your help!

I'm pretty sure you've already tried and also I don't know much about the MPC 5000, but possibly you can just record the synth at low gain and normalize it via the MPC 5000 to try to get the levels up. When you record in and it sounds low, it's possibly the MPC 5000 changing the volume setting of the synth to a lower setting then when you listened to it first (while recording.)