A complete guide to GAIN STAGING (your questions answered)

About this video

• Video Title: A complete guide to GAIN STAGING (your questions answered)
• Channel: Mastering․com
• Speakers: Dylan Pines
• Duration: 00:25:14

Overview

This video provides a comprehensive guide to gain staging, explaining what it is, why it's important, and how to implement it effectively. The presenter addresses common misconceptions, demonstrates practical techniques using VU meters, and clarifies when and how gain staging should be applied to different types of tracks, including MIDI.

Key takeaways

• Gain Staging Defined: Gain staging is the pre-mix process of adjusting the gain (input level) of recordings so they sit around the same level, making mixing faster, easier, and optimizing plugin performance.
• Gain vs. Volume: Gain refers to the input level of a track before processing, while volume refers to the output level after processing. Adjusting volume faders does not affect how plugins interact with the signal, whereas adjusting gain does.
• The Sweet Spot: The optimal level for plugins to perform at their best is around 0 dB VU or -18 dBFS. This is because many plugins are modeled after older analog gear which sounded best at these levels.
• Using VU Meters: VU meters are crucial for gain staging as they measure average signal level, unlike peak meters (dBFS) which measure instantaneous peaks. The target is to get tracks to average around 0 dB VU.
• Handling Clipping: For highly dynamic instruments like drums, it's often impossible to achieve the 0 dB VU average without clipping. In such cases, it's recommended to get as close as possible to 0 dB VU, leave headroom, or normalize the tracks to a specific peak level (e.g., -6 dBFS) to prevent digital clipping.
• When to Gain Stage: Gain staging should ideally be done as a pre-mix step before starting any mixing or applying plugins, ensuring all channels are at unity gain.
• Not All Tracks Need Gain Staging: Tracks that will undergo significant processing benefit most from gain staging. Simple background elements that require minimal processing can often be skipped.
• MIDI Tracks: MIDI tracks can be gain staged by adjusting the volume within the virtual instrument or by adding a gain plugin at the beginning of the channel's plugin chain.
• Time Commitment: Gain staging should ideally take around 10 minutes per mix once you are familiar with the process.