recording volume

[airbag76]

a quite silly question I guess.
During recordind different instruments for a mix, is it better to have them all as much loud as we can and reduce their loudness during mixing?
if we have various loudnesses between the tracks do we must first "bring" all the recordings as closer as we can in terms of loudness (normalize-gain) and then mix or its pointless or even harmfull?

thanks

[Carnage]

yes, it is best to get as high a signal as possible without clipping.

[D-Soul]

yup... signal to noise ratio.