Cubase Gain Staging Hacks - Simple and Fast

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Cubase Gain Staging Hacks - Simple and Fast

Gain staging doesn’t have to be a long, drawn-out process… I’ve gotten to the point where I can take care of it in just a few minutes, so I can get on to the rest of my mix.
In this video, I’ll share some of my favorite gain staging hacks to help you speed up your mixing process, so you can crank out more tunes in less time!
If you need to back up a step or two, check out the links to some of my earlier videos on gain staging:

Gain Staging Playlist :

Do you have any questions or useful gain staging hacks of your own? Let me know in the comments!

Timestamps
2:00 Why just lowering faders isn’t the answer
3:05 The importance of the sweet spot for analog modeled plugins
3:30 How to color your meters
3:55 Why -18dBFS
4:25 Meter settings in Cubase
5:40 Using Clip Gain to lower levels
7:35 Using PreGain in Cubase
9:45 Manually lowering part of a selection
10:50 More advice on gain staging

Some of the gear and plugins I use in the studio:

STUDIO MONITORS:
HEADPHONES:

VIDEO FILMING GEAR
Video gear shared in this video

[musicinsession]

I've been following this guy since he had 100 subs!! Hands down my favourite music producer on youtube! Super charismatic, straight to the point, no ego! Thanks for inspiring us Chris!

[мигельбасалыго]

the first thing everyone must know before mixing!! thank you very much, Chris!!

[DavidDavis-FA-photog]

Chris, I love this high view of gain staging. Seems a lot of people make it a much bigger thing than what it is. Even though it's important, it doesn't have to be difficult. Thanks!

[MorisoniProductions]

Excellent clear explanations, thorough, easy to understand ... couldn't ask for more! Thank you.

[CokePaul]

One of the best explanations about gain staging I’ve ever found on YouTube, that unswears all the questions, nice👍🏻 Thanks!

[magdielrodriguez]

Hello Chris, After so many year I can understand that I have been trying to overthink the Gain Staging process, you have explained this so simple and with Impressive results. This is Master class in twelve minutes. Thank you.

[michaelgarding]

I did NOT know about the clip gain pencil!!! Thank you so much Chris!

[athonygraham]

This is a really great tutorial, you really have a knack of doing this sort of thing superbly Chris. One thing I really think should be in every modern DAW as absolute standard (I've seen lots of other people saying the same thing) and that is the option to have the DAW Auto Gain Stage on every aspect, from raw files, through plugins internal and external, sends, inserts, automation, all the way through to the stereo bus final out. It really should have been standard many years ago, it's a no brainer and would absolutely savage the time and workflow that doing it all manually takes and it would remove another needless pain.

[LeonThomasian]

That little tip at 9:40, how did I not know You saved my life. A lot of times, I don't like playing with my volume automation because then it makes it harder to adjust the overall volume with the fader in the mix window while it's on READ, so this will come in real handy. Thank you so much.

[nabeshin]

I think it's also important to note that another situation in which gain staging is highly recommended is when we use VST instruments, however, we can do it directly from them by adjusting the output before even tweaking the pre-gain knob on the mixer 'cause some of these VST instruments are sometimes way too loud by default.

Anyway, another useful video here on this channel, keep the good work, mr. Selim. 🤝

[thomasJcollison]

Truly excellent - as ever. Thank you Chris! I know these features haven't been around for the whole 25 years that I've used Cubase, but the clip gain pencil l was news to me, and I've never been near the fader editor. 2 valuable and Instant workflow boosts that will help me out everyday. 😊🙏

[sound-engineer]

I remember you telling me to get rid of the pink noise leveling technique to set channels' level. When I became a pro at gain stating and leveling, I understood how you were right : )

[TomRocks]

Thanks for showing the drawing tool trick Chris!

[gnt]

Este canal debería tener 1 millón de suscriptores!

[madmuso]

I use the pencil clip gain tool all the time. On vocals I set my compressor but there may be a few spots where a word or two need to be driven harder into the compressor. Works a treat.

[grahamwitcher]

Hi Chris. Gain staging really well explained. Excellent.

[originunknown]

Incredibly useful this!!! Brilliant!!!!

[xXValomatXx]

Andrew Schepps: "I never gainstage" I guess he has an intern, who does it for him... :D

[lnkd]

Very complementary of the Chris’s mixing course in Cubase 😉

[JanEkbom]

I just had to watch this again, even if I saw it in your course on Mixdown Academy.