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i think one of the worse bit of advice you can give is "let your tracks all go into the red, and pull the master fader down, its ok , its an FP engine your using" let all just forget about gain staging, effing sloppy advice plugin alliance !!!!!!
@@DaGabbaGangsta The takeaway from the "Don't clip your tracks" section is that digital clipping often sounds cold and harsh, while analog clipping can sound warm and pleasing. However, let's dive into the topic you brought up. One of the primary purposes of gain staging is to enhance the signal-to-noise ratio, keeping your audio signal louder than background noise. In the analog domain, the self-noise of equipment can quickly stack up without effective gain staging, leading to a loss of clarity. In the digital world, gain staging isn't as much of a concern. DAWs have a high dynamic range and low inherent noise floor. For example, running audio through a track with no effects applied won't introduce any discernable level of noise; this isn't necessarily the case if your were to run the same signal through the components of an analog mixing console. As a result, boosting a track with no effects applied and then attenuating the master bus to rebalance the signal will typically have no noticeable effect on the signal-to-noise ratio in your DAW. In this specific context, gain staging is not much of a concern. That said, gain staging does matter when using hardware and analog-modeled plugins. They often have an "optimal" input level at which they operate most effectively (meters engage, etc.), providing the processing results you're looking for while maintaining a healthy signal-to-noise ratio.
There are no settings to fit all, it always depends on the project. And how it is recorded in the first place. The most errors I notice are while recording, the tracks are already badly clipped. As a mix-mastering engineer, these are challenging tracks. In recording, there are not many effects needed. Just try to record as naturally as you can. So in the further chain it doesn't cause problems. Also, try to prevent phase issues. This can be achieved by change a microphone placement with big difference. Btw, very informative video.
About the hipassing, among my PA plugins there is bx_cleansweep Pro. This is rarely discussed, but it has become my most important sound shaper. What I mean, are the less popular filter shapes, especially Bessel, which yields a very rounded sound. You get rid of some disturbing and muddy low end, but it does not sound really hipassed, if I do it softly. The strict Butterworth filters are always kind of audible with a certain footprint. Especially for acoustic instruments, Bessel is a game changer. But also the elliptic filter can do miracles, eg. with a harmony vocal gang section that is muddy, or a guitar amp (or sim) that masks parts of the bass or keyboards and sounds thin immediately, when I throw a Butterworth on it. But either the Bessel or the Elliptic will do the trick, let's say in case of Elliptic choice, if the guitar player accepts that we change the characteristics of the git amp a little bit to fit into the mix.
While in general these are not bad tips, a lot of mix engineers work in both studio and live settings. Many of these tips will get you in trouble in live situations. While he is correct in the 32bit floating that goes on within most DAWS, if you continually capture your source to the point of clipping, you are either mixing with your faders down or not providing enough headroom for the mastering engineer to their processing if you choose to outsource that phase of a problem. One must also understand and recognize digital distortion in clipping vs clipping for a desired effect to your audio when working with analog preamps and gear. This video is a classic example of knowing the "rules" and when you can break them to reach a desired outcome. Those 5 tips have been around for a long time for a reason. Once you understand why people say these things, you can start to venture outside of conventional wisdom and gain more experience within your mixes.
Disagree, I can definitely hear phase issues on headphones. Though I've definitely thrown too much verb and doubling on vocals that sounded great on headphones, but didn't translate to monitors/consumer setups
