That’s right! It’s not magic, it’s not a trick or secret ingredient, and it’s not complicated. Judging by the amount of articles, youtubes, and questions about this, you might think gain staging ranks up there with quantum mechanics. But it’s actually easy, and it will definitely improve your workflow and your mixes.
What is Gain Staging?
Well yeah, every article about this starts with an H2 heading asking this, for SEO reasons if nothing else! Gain staging is making sure the level of your audio signal is optimized as it moves from step to step in the recording/mixing process. Optimized means that the signal coming out of one stage feeds the next stage in a way that will create the best sound in that next stage. This is accomplished by maintaining a fairly consistent level for each track as it moves through each step. You are managing the levels rather than having them randomly determined by whatever effect, processing or amplification they go in and out of.
Having all of your tracks within a consistent range of levels to each other makes metering and mixing a much easier job. Your vocals are recorded and hitting the meters at the relatively same level as your drums at the same level as your bass at the same level as your keys and so forth. The key is consistency, and when a pro looks at your tracks (to mix them, for instance) they can pretty quickly tell if you know what you are doing by whether your levels are consistent.
Well, what are the optimal levels then?
You have to decide! But let me give you some stuff to help with your decision.
No “advice” about gain staging would be complete without talking about the history of why it started, analog equipment, signal-to-noise, clipping, and blah blah blah. In the analog days, equipment was noisy and finicky. Gain staging came about because engineers needed to find a middle ground between recording a lot of noise if the signal was too low, and getting distortion if the signal was too loud. Gain staging was finding the right spot in between.
To assist in this, engineers used meters to measure the signal strength. At first this was done using what was called the dBVU scale. This was basically (I’m simplifying) a measurement of voltage. A measurement of 0 dBVU was set to be the best level for broadcast or recording. Later, with the introduction of mixing consoles, metering evolved into measuring using the dBU scale, commonly referred to as RMS or nominal levels. 0 dBVU = +4 dbU. (You may recognize +4 as it is often called “line level”.)
Ok, this is starting to combine history and mathematics and is beginning to seem complicated, and you said this was simple. Ok sorry, just one more thing! Digital audio is not measured using either of those scales, but uses dBFS. The FS part means “Full Scale” because 0 dbFS is the top of the scale. In digital audio nothing can be louder than 0 dBFS. It is the maximum that a AD/DA converter can handle. If a signal tries to go above that it is chopped off, clipped and horribly distorted.
What those last three paragraphs mean other than compressing about 100 years into about a 100 words, is that there are three common scales for measuring audio levels. Guess what? If you want to really understand how sound is recorded you need to understand at least a little about them. So here is the little you need to know: +4 dBU = 0 dBVU = -18 dBFS. (But see note 1 below if you still want to complicate things.) The typical optimal level for working with analog gear, including plugins that emulate analog gear, is 0 dBVU. This is -18 dbFS. Most meters are calibrated for this, both on hardware and in plugins. (But see note 2 below if you want to complicate this as well.)
The -18 dBFS is somewhat arbitrary, but over time it has become something of a standard. But you can choose to use -12 dBFS or anything you want as your base, as long as you stay consistent. Be aware though that (as was mentioned) hardware and plugins that emulate hardware are almost always calibrated for -18 dBFS. Also, if you plan to work or exchange files with others, take your tracks for mixing, or even go through a converter (and who doesn’t) then it is good to honor the -18 dBFS “sort-of-standard”.
[Go to the link at the bottom of the page for a FREE set of gain staging presets for UAD, Waves and IK Multimedia plugins.]
Uh… Come on, digital is not constrained by all these old limitations so do I still have to do this?
If you use a mic or DI to record vocals or real instruments, then uh, yeah.
Yeah, well I’m all digital. So I can push it really loud and who cares about all this gain stage stuff?
Yes you can push it really loud. Do you use an AD/DA converter? What does the “A” stand for? Guess you aren’t all digital after all.
Yeah, well I just use loops and virtual instruments, so I can forget about all this right? And I don’t care about emulation plugins. I’m a producer and just make music, dude.
• That is your choice of course, but remember a few things. The faders on your DAW are logarithmic, which means they have more precision at their unity gain setting. As you go below unity this precision decreases. (Unless you start typing in your levels rather than moving them.)
• Secondly, much of this is about consistent workflow. Your tracks will all be at about the same level before they get to the faders.
• Also, if you use send channels or auxes having consistent gain staging makes life easier.
• But if you just sit there in your neon-lit room, never record anything real, never send your tracks to anyone else, produce and mix and master and put up your beats on youtube so you can get 20 likes from your friends and show how cool you are, then no, you don’t really need to worry about any of this. And that’s cool, it really is. It means less competition for others who want to be professionals and sound professional. But I suspect if you have made it halfway through this article, you are wanting to improve both your knowledge and the quality of your sound/mixes. You actually are passionate about bringing your ideas to life. And that is exactly what learning professional methods and techniques is all about!
Easy summary of Gain Staging
[Special note: I am using -18 dBFS as the standard, but again read above. This means the average level of the signal is -18 dBFS. It might have peaks at -12 dBFS or even higher, or vary in other ways.]
The simplest possible explanation: The signal goes into everything at -18 dBFS and you control it so it comes out of everything at -18 dBFS. Remember, this will vary with peaks and it is not some kind of immutable law.
So… you record a vocal or instrument through a preamp. You adjust the input for whatever you need (clean, distorted, whatever) and adjust the output so it tracks at -18 dBFS as you record. Maybe you then go through a compressor, it will enter at -18 dBFS. You make the adjustments you need for compression. The final adjustment is that you have the signal leave the compressor at -18 dBFS so it is ready to move to the next stage, maybe an equalizer. It enters the EQ at -18 dBFS, you make adjustments, and set the output so again it leaves at -18 dBFS. You do this with every effect or AUX send you might use. Now, your faders can work the mix for you and you have maximum control with them.
Do you have to slavishly follow this? Of course not. You are going to be tweaking EQ and compression and other effects as you mix and you don’t have to keep looking for -18 dBFS or resetting your levels. Remember, this is a method to get your levels set up correctly in order to begin your mixing workflow. If you start out with proper gain staging, you are going to maintain a nice consistency and have the confidence you are using effects, sends, etc. properly.
So this is a great starting point, and a really good discipline especially when you are learning. After you do this a few times and set up some projects this way you won’t even think about it that much. You will record or bounce at proper levels and keep following that along as you mix. This is why you hear top mixers say they don’t even worry about gain staging. They don’t have to. They are working with well recorded tracks and the levels and signal path have become second nature to their process.
When you learn to play an instrument, you don’t start out being all experimental. Rather, you learn the proper techniques and practice them over and over and over until you don’t have to think about them anymore. Once that happens you can develop your style and your own interpretations.
The same with recording and mixing. When you are starting out you follow good, professional techniques and you practice them. Gain staging is one of them. Not “rules” or tricks or secret celebrity plugin settings or lists of “5 things to be an amazing mixer”. You work hard and you practice, and eventually these things become second nature. Then you can start using your time to be creative, and not chasing down why some track is distorting through an equalizer somewhere.
[Go to the link at the bottom of the page for a FREE set of gain staging presets for UAD, Waves and IK Multimedia plugins.]
Glossary:
Level – Usually means output.
Gain – Usually means input.
But you have to look at the context to really how they are being used at any given moment!
Clipping – Imagine you are in the sewer (not to be confused with a mixing session) and climb up and stick you head through a manhole and a bus comes by and decapitates you. This is clipping. It’s what happens when a signal reaches a level that the hardware or AD/DA converter can’t handle. It gets to this certain point, and that’s it—decapitation. (And now you know where that plugin got its name!)
Digitally this happens very suddenly. There is no warning. Once the level hits 0 you get very unpleasant distortion. Or, at the very least, crackling and and a basic collapse of the sound. Which brings us to—
Saturation – On analog equipment clipping typically happens somewhat gradually. The sound begins to distort as it moves louder toward clipping. This is commonly called saturation. On old time tape machines, the sound would start to overload what the heads, tape, or preamp could accurately translate. This overloading was referred to as saturation. It created a gradually increasing distortion and natural compression of the sound (among other things). The term saturation began to be used for any of this somewhat gradual clipping that happens with analog components.
A lot of plugins emulate this, and it has become somewhat of a holy title for that magic analog you have to impart to your tracks to make them warm, fat, full, clear, crispy, or any of a bunch of other terms that mean absolutely nothing except to marketing copywriters.
Saturation is simply a relatively gradual distortion applied to a sound as its level increases. How quickly and at what level and what frequencies and how much is determined by the tubes, transistors and electronics of hardware. Or by the coding developed by the programmers when it comes to plugins.
Just a side rant: One of the best ways to check out the accuracy of analog emulation is to look at how the “saturation” compares to the real hardware. Does it happen at the same levels, the same frequencies, the same amount, and then collapse into full compression at the same peak? There are companies that obviously spend a lot of time and effort getting these things right. Whether you think plugins can emulate hardware or not, you have to admit the reputable developers get it pretty darn close.
Unfortunately, a lot of so-called emulations with copycat GUIs and similar names to analog hardware just add some harmonics (some of them the same for every one of their plugins!) and tell you this is saturation. This is pretty dishonest, in my opinion. Don’t make a GUI resemble a piece of hardware, give it a similar name, and play make believe without it sounding like the hardware at all! (Although, it’s always fun to read people gushing over the sound of something that sounds nothing like the something it proclaims to sound like because they have no idea what the original sounds like!)
Note 1: The technical measurement is more like 0 dBVU = -20 dBFS, give or take. Why give or take? Because it is not an exact measurement! The dBFS scale is somewhat arbitrarily assigned. But it has settled on -18 dbFS and that is what everyone says it is and uses it that way and if you don’t like it, sorry.
Also, dBU measures average, while dBFS is based on peak level. The peak is 0, and everything else is in the minus range. It is easy to get confused when you see a +3 on a standard VU meter, and the digital meter is saying -15!
Note 2: “Most” plugins… But in many Tape emulations, like UAD’s, 0 on the dBU meter equals -12 dBFS. And on their 670 emulation the meter is calibrated to -10 dBFS. I believe this mimics the actual hardware. This is why it’s important to test, calibrate, and understand what you use—even plugins!
FREE Gain staging presets for UAD, Waves and IK Multimedia plugins. ( * Take a look at the manual here *)
Some good perspectives on gain staging (guest youtube video): “Gain Staging: What to know, and why you shouldn’t stress out about it.“