when you’re recording from an ANALOG external source like a synth or a mic through a preamp, you better record as loud as possible, without clipping of course … But i think renoise recorder indicates when your input is clipping anyway .
So recording not too loud to avoid clipping is not the way to go. Recording as loud as you can without clipping is the way to go. Digital clipping may be bad, but it’s what it is , digital. So either you clip either you don’t, and it’s generally easy to avoid it cause every decent recorder will tell you when you clip.
On the other hand it occurs very often to record not loud enough, and then if you raise it afterwards, you’re just raising your noise floor. You can use gate effects to pally that but this is more of a dirty fix, than a real solution.
Don’t underestimate this problem ! Recording on a consumer grade sound card (wich most of what we use is), in a consumer like environment, with AC power not isolated, preamp inside of your SC, etc… Can generate quite a bit of noise, and if you record several tracks, this may get even worse !
The problem is to calibrate the input. With a synth it’s ok cause you can easily get the maximum volume, and tune your gain accordingly. If you’re recording drums, it’s harder, cause drums peaks at very high SPL, and so can easily make your input clip ! Generally all live instruments have a VERY wide dynamic range, and that’s why if you do a lot of live recording, a decent analog compressor can be a good investment.
When you’re recording inside renoise, or from a digital source, you generally don’t care, except if you’re 80db down, where you can loose a bit of resolution.
This is on the technical side of things on the artistical side, a bit of noise can be trippy and enjoyable, depends on what music you’re doing