Does Gain Staging REALLY Matter? Here's The Truth! 

Your channel has quickly become my favorite for music production. What I would've given to have a resource like this when I was learning to record 15 years ago. Great explanations that are clear, concise, and backed by real application.

The thing is that a lot of people get defensive about things like gain staging because a lot of the pros say “I do X or Y” and people just take that as the end-all-be-all for mixing and staging etc. The reality is it does not matter as long as there is no unwanted distortion as you put it. If it sounds right, it is right!

Your videos are awesome! I came across them recently and have found them so clear, informative and helpful. Thank you for sharing your knowledge! I'm an independent musician from Ireland and I record all my music at home and have been doing my best to learn how to mix my songs too and you have taught me a lot.

I'd love to see you do a video on balance, and the levels you aim for on the indivdual tracks, groups and mix bus.

Gain staging saved my mixes. It was one of the vital key elements that I strongly recommend all engineers to understand at a basic fundamental foundation after that you can decide how much of it you follow etc. you don’t need to always do it but it’s important to understand why it’s done.

I agree! The first gain stage is indeed during recording the tracks. For mixing, my mentor strongly suggests gain staging if using analog emulation plugins especially if they are a 1-2-1 emulation. Personally, I use a lot of Acustica stuff so gain staging is really a must for my workflow.

I usually like to gain stage all my tracks to -10db just because I have a template, and in this way I'm hitting my plugin compressors and other plugins at their sweet spots. So yeah, I think it matters

Great, maybe the best video I’ve seen on gate staging.

Never thought of the trim plugin at the beginning of the mix bus. Gonna try that from now on instead of adjusting the fader.

I have been running hot on a synth studio (zero DB), with one indirect mic input. I thought it sounded better; I am recording to a ZoomR24 hardware 24 track. I gave up working with a 20+ year old Sonar DAW with Sonar processors. Over Thanksgiving weekend this year, I helped a friend set up a simple vocal/piano studio so she could easily record RU-vid videos with decent sound quality. I talked her out of recording it all through her iPhone mic and recorder which is awful. We used the 16bit/44.1kHz USB recorder built into the piano to capture the digital piano and her vocal. I kept the mic noise down by running the dynamic Shure SM58 through a mixer first and then to the .25 inch mic input of the piano. We added a little EQ and gain at the mixer and a little more in the piano software control. Still low level, but went ahead and recorded for a test. Placed the 2track finished song in Logic and added one standard compressor with limiter and adjustable input and output. Balanced the in and out after setting compression attack/release/threshold and ratio.... and ended up with a very good recording. It should not have been this good, but the compressor in Logic was 20 years ahead of tech from my Sonar and it was so transparent that I could not believe the quality. It was incredible! This changed how I am going to record for myself. I will be using very little gain staging on weak synth signals and mastering in Logic from now on. A high-quality compressor changed my life forever! I was always told that the equipment is not near as important as the skill of audio engineering, but they were wrong. Yes, my friend benefitted from my audio engineering skills, setting up the gain staging, EQ, and compressor, but without that Logic compressor, it would never have sounded that good. A cheap standard stage microphone run through a cheap digital piano with mic input and WOW. (been audio engineering my own music for 35 years, been all through reel to reel, MIDI multi-track, 4 track cassette, Roland VS880 recorder, computer DAWs and now on a Zoom SD 24 track recorder).

It’s really a good idea to gain stage while using pre fader metering in Logic, not post fader as you are using here. This way you know exactly what the signal is prior to hitting any plugins

Literally just sent a message to you about this haha you’re welcome for the content idea 😂

There are 3 take-always from this video none of which I would consider a need for gain-staging: 1. Some pre-amps and plugins add distortion/color at certain input levels, make sure if you are getting this effect it is intentional and adjust to taste. 2. Avoid clipping when recording and exporting. Levels just need to be sufficiently above the noise floor for recording unless you are going for 1 with hardware. 3. If setting levels a certain way helps your workflow, you do you.

Important but people tend to overthink about it

My opinion is that it does matter but that people get way too specific about how to gain stage. The important thing for me is not to start with levels too hot when I'm bringing tracks in. Whether I hit -25 or -12 with a particular instrument doesn't matter. But if I bring in the kick drum peaking at -3, then suddenly I'm adjusting all my balances to that. So then I end up with a track where everything is slammed right up against 0dB and it makes doing further adjustments harder than they need to be. I personally mix into a limiter, so clipping isn't a problem. But if I'm already getting 2-3dB of gain reduction from the limiter and I haven't brought in all the instruments, that's an issue. Obviously you can bring everything back down, but if you've already set up a bunch of sends and parallel processing that can mess with how much level you're feeding into those. Or if you've already got automation on the tracks, you might need to bring all of that down too. Secondly, some plugins don't care what level you hit them at. Some sound better when overloaded. But some do have a sweet spot. So it's important to know how your plugins work and feed the right level into them. Lastly, if you keep adding plugins to a track without level matching, you run the risk of being fooled by the increase in volume. Louder sounds better. So you think you've improved the track, and you come back the next day and it sounds like shit. You turn off the plugins and it sounds way better. A bit of gain staging in the form of level matching can help you avoid that. Sorry for the longwinded reply. The point is that there are good workflow and practical reasons to gain stage. But if you bring in a vocal and it sounds good in the track but it's peaking at -5dB, it doesn't mean you now need to turn everything down so it peaks at -18. That's ridiculous and a waste of time.

I probably would have lowered the gain on that Tambo so that the fader sat closer to zero and easier to get the right level but the rest, no problem. Totally agree.

Whats amusing about the gain staging debate is how many people prioritise this over more important things like getting the arrangement of a song right, or drum tuning, or guitar intonation, etc. Theres bigger fish to fry before you need to obsess whether your hitting convertets at minus 12 or minus 18db.

with mixing i got so tired of not being able to see the waveforms that well in the arrange view with a handful of tracks at once, so i just started raising the clip gain on all my tracks until the peaks was getting close to the 0db threshold of the audio file and back it off a bit and realized that gain staging isn't really that important when it comes to mixing. theres always ways to back off hot levels but in general i found that louder really was better and my plugins responded the way i wanted with hotter signals coming in. ill have several tracks going into the red but with proper limiting and dynamic structure at all stages in the mix, ive never looked back

Same workflow ❤‍🔥❤‍🔥

what’s confusing as hell is how faders via tracks or mix bus may show in the red but i’m not hearing clipping. so, i check metering plug-ins - they seem more reliable than the channels fader. but the two are not the same in showing levels actually. any insight on this what the most reliable way to check for clipping / +3 dB is? thank you!

I think Gain Staging is the word that everybody use and not all understand. Setting Gain right at the beginning! Starts at the Pres and the Converters. If you go to high in your converters you get some wanted or unwanted distortion. So start Your recording with the right levels. In my workflow i use the clip gain and set them right for me so i have all the length of my faders.

Yes it does! Bring it on!

So I shouldn’t be doing gain automation when I’m metering comp takes? Bass for example, I’m not a great bass player, so it takes a handful of takes to get through a song 4 to 8 notes at a time. I don’t change the input settings, but there’s performance variation where one take will be around -7 dB VU and the next one comes in at 9.3. Wave forms look fine, but would you let that kind of range slide and put a compressor on with no gain processing? There also seems to be some kind of compromise dance around getting a “healthy” wave form and metering at a safe level. Tips there also?

What is the difference between trimming down the gain on the mix bus and having a channel strip first on the mix bus and pull the fader down on the strip?

I think gain staging is important (in the digital realm in this instance) when it comes to headroom and noise floor. Because everything is 'loud' these days gain staging has become less important. Also too, using plugins to gain stage or attenuate makes it less of a practical application and maybe has lost it's appeal. Dynamics are great imo.

Can we use the Gain (in stock on Logic) instead of Trim (Slate digital) to put down the level on Mix Bus Sir?

I've been working with audio gear for over 40 years and never once thought about gain staging. I mean, the process you describe never had a name (AFAIK), it was always just part of what you did when preparing a session. I suppose now that it has a name it can become an art or craft all of its own, but if you don't know how to set levels appropriately what are you even doing trying to make multichannel music?

Most people that talk about gain staging don’t even truly understand it anyway… they just like to throw the term around.. just like “workflow”.. Home-staging is where it’s at ;)

Unless you're using analog gear or analog emulating plugins, it isn't necessary at all.

Your video(s) sounds like you have your preamp cranked. They sound over driven. It would probably sound good if you were tracking a vocalist , but for VOs doesn't really work.

Is it me, or did gain staging become a kinda buzzword? I agree, it comes down to good project management.

Of course it matters...Try an analogue mixer and see. In digital it doesn t matter much, especially with 32 bits, but digital is TOTAL SHIT. In digital many plugins sound better with -18dB, so it matters still.