This topic may be of interest to others and keeping it in my blog or handling through PM's seemed to be too limiting. If there are other questions, suggestions, or comments, please feel free to post them here.

In my blog, I posted the following

... And just to further spread myself thin, I just upgraded my PreSonus software to Studio One 6 Artist. As a result, I'll probably be asking @ABitRusty some questions as I've not yet learned the software very much! And for the first one, what dB level to you normally record? I'm using a Shure SM57 through a FocusRite Scarlett 2i2 3rd Gen pre-amp.

Greg's answer was as follows:

if looking at the DAW channel in presonus, around -24 to -12.its not an exact science.  turn gain on interface to 10:00 and bow something while watching level and adjust somewhere below mid level on your daw input channel.. The main Channel on the far right comes later.

On my interface the left stereo channel was hooked to a small condenser mic and 48v phantom power was on. the physical real world gain knob i can turn with fingers was about 11:00-ish.

On the interface...my right channel was hooked to another device made by se electronics and is called dynamite  THAT device was plugged straight into the bottom of my ribbon mic.   The dynamite is an inline booster.   i use it on the ribbon and dynamic mics.   This allows me to turn on phantom power and use less gain provided by that real world knob on the interface. without it my interface knkb would be around 3:00 to 4:00 and i probably would hear some shhhhh from input circuitry.   The humidifier running in background is already annoyinv enough.

one thing to remember is the signal will be there in the daw even if you record it at -30 or something.   you can always boost it INSIDE the daw software 

you cant reverse too much gain which can cause clipping.