Gain Staging - The 3 Rules You Need To Know - In The Mix

Sorry about the bad audio, my microphone broke during this video.
I have sorted this out so it should not happen in future videos :)

Today we are talking about gain staging. This is a highly requested topic, with everyone seeming to be talking about it and chipping in their opinion! This is a good thing but it also leads to confusion.

I remember pouring through articles and videos trying to understand what was important and what was simply myth. It led me to become stressed and worried that I was doing something wrong.

After several months of reading and testing things out, I think these simple steps are all that you really need to worry about when it comes to mixing.
We might make a follow up video about how to gain stage when recording :)

The three guidelines are:

1:10 - Don't clip the mix bus!

Find any loud sources and reduce them or simply lower all your faders slightly to avoid digital clipping on the master bus.

1:50 - Optimise Plugin Performance

Use a trim or gain plugin to make sure that your plugins are receiving the right level - which many quote as -18 dBfs RMS (roughly 0VU). This will reduce the chances of unwanted distortion and ensure that they are working in the sweet spot

3:12 - Optimise fader position for maximum precision.

Add a trim plugin at the end of your effects chain so that you can use it to add or remove gain. This will let you get your fader higher on the mixer and give you more resolution.

When your fader is higher up, you have a lot of control, large movements only change 0.5 - 2 dB.
When your fader is low down, the same movement can cause a 5-10 dB change.

check out this article about the noise floor of modern DAWs, ut's a fantastic resource :

The audio was a little bad in this video but hopefully, it is not too distracting - I think we were getting interference from a local radio station!

[inthemix]

Sorry about the bad audio, my microphone broke during this video.
I have sorted this out so it should not happen in future videos :)

[HsevrasEdrok]

A Tip from my side
3:12 If you want precision on your faders or any other parameter in FL Studio, just hold Control and use left click to drag.
This enables you to do very precise adjustments.
Respect.
- Hsevras Edrok

[TheInfamousChes]

this might have been one of the missing pieces of my mixing puzzle. thanks!! great tutorial.

[alexrocky]

The key is to have in mind that 'less is more'... while recording go gentle levels and then in mixing and mastering there are plenty tools to bring tracks to pleasant volume. Sharing only an opinion:)... congrats for your useful tips and videos.. thank you!!!!

[Ynex]

would like to see the tutorial about how *you* do the gain staging :D

[pmusic]

please make a detailed video on gain staging. I am searching for it from a long time.

[mikeclifford]

You've cleared up a confusion I had about gain-staging, namely that I couldn't quite figure out why having done it one would be working a long way below 0 where the measurement graduations were far less subtle. Your solution to this is to remove 10db (or whatever is required) with a plug in and then to move it all back up near zero to get the benefits of the subtle graduations. That's really clever. That's a great idea in theory, will try. Thanks

[dabobfotoday]

There actually isn’t less control over volume as the fader goes down. This is because the unit of measurement of DB increases by a multiple of 10 every 10 units. So, 20 DB is 10x louder than 10 DB. The fader is set up to adjust for this equation

[PushpendraChauhan]

Just want show your speakers monitor interface plz show it and explain too

[niv]

Hey, been following your videos of late. Great stuff, keep going. Also, as you mentioned at the end of the video have you made an elaborated video on gain staging?

[djwerd]

Thank you !! i never knew this gain staging stuff !! very helpful !!

[cdeoustech]

While no, the DAW itself will not induce any additional hiss with an increase in gain (unless you are using dithering) it should be noted that if you are recording anything with a microphone, pickup, etc there *is* a noise floor. If you don't have your preamp set high enough and try to digitally compensate it to the proper level the noise floor will come up . The amount of additional noise will depend on how good your preamp and A to D converters are. Analog Gain Staging is correctly balancing your preamp gain so that your signal doesn't clip, but also doesn't need to be digitally recompensated inside of your DAW.

[jamestouchmuminkohbeats.]

I thank you so much you the best any time am in difficult or to learn new stuff I just type your name on YouTube and the problem am having, you've never fail me God bless you 🇨🇲

[RowanvanBeckhoven]

32/64 bit gives you a (shit)ton of headroom in your DAW. Therefore, I don't see the need to lower each channel individually to remove/reduce digital clipping on the master bus. This clipping does not occur inside your DAW, so you can simply decrease the level on your master channel. This has the same effect as lowering all channels.

The non-linearity of some plugins is very interesting though, I have never really looked at it that way or experimented with it. The plugin 'sandwich' is indeed a great method for this!

[normanbataille]

Very clear bro. Keep going with this wonderful videos!!!

[HerGatiox]

4:55 Back in the day, EQ three had some distortion to it, if not still has.
Just saying ;) thanks for your advices!

[swargamthakuria]

Excellent vid bro you always teach something new... ❤️ Keep up the great work...

[LazzySenpai]

today I added Slate digital Trimmer to my podcast chain at the beginning and it can help me increase my gain by +9db since Im using a Dynamic usb mic from maono which is called Maono PD100U I cant increase gain knob that much on mic or it will be full of noise so instead I lowered that gain and Im using this plugin in my chain and now I can easily feel the professional level audio from it thanks a lot <3

[travyp_official]

If i understand correctly, after gain staging all sounds to around -18db and adding effects I can then level the mix and sounds to the desired volumes?

[jermainewells]

Young guru mix at -18 as well . He push everything to that limit before mixing . I’m gonna try it next mix