Before I got (and still getting) outboard gear such as preamps and compressors etc... I recorded drums in a way that I'd make sure that every signal (especially kick and snare) were only in the "green" or as high up in the green, but not coming up into yellow. I think that corresponds to like -14db and I think it was fine afterwards in terms of headroom and how I processed those signals in daw(s).
However, I will be runing a total of 7 drum mics through outboard preamps and so far I've been satisfied how those preamps colored and shaped the sound, so there was little tweaking needed afterwards to get those .wavs to sound the way I wanted them.
My question is: if I am already doing half of the job by shaping inputs with preamps (and maybe some outboard compression as well) and postproduction afterwards comes down to finetweaking, do I still need to keep inputting only in the green? Does it matter, would there be any benefits or drawbacks if I went up, like -10db in those case scenarios... and finally how would SL3 behave with these changes, would it be all the same in that respect?
Looking forward to your thoughts.