I have been using the -18 db rms a while back and the vocals are night and day. the noise floor is low, no strange cable or PC hum. The levels are easy to work with. Thanks for sharing this back in 2017.
This is definitely one of the more beneficial audio videos out there. Calibration is hardly ever mentioned when talking about creating a good mix. Forget putting a Limiter (Or anything for that matter) in your master chain! This will allow you to have all the head room you need.
You gave the most important secret away Graham! I know how important is the diffrence between dbfs and rms or lufs in digital domain which I learned 2 year ago and my mixes sounded night and day after that especially when I learned how to sit low-end well which made all the diffrence!.Everyone should giveaway $1 to Graham for this tip! Most valuable tip ever! You rock man you are really robin hood of youtube audio world
@@AceDeclan on the pre-plugin input, just remember the difference of 18 dB. but some other tutorial says you should switch from RMS/VU to LUFS for final metering because "this is better post-plugin". I'm not sure who said that, maybe Rob, maybe Dylan, because I watched around 200 of those videos and memories start to blur... but I also haven't seen any material going into details about why LUFS would be superior for post-plugin work, so maybe a video explaining that would be needed
i know im randomly asking but does anyone know of a method to get back into an instagram account?? I stupidly forgot my password. I would appreciate any tips you can give me.
@Tucker Ezekiel I really appreciate your reply. I got to the site through google and im trying it out atm. I see it takes a while so I will get back to you later with my results.
For those interested, the song is "Sinking like a Stone" by Jameson Elder. Because it sounded cool and I had to look for it. :) (Although I feel like Graham's version sounds a little nicer than the official one I found on RU-vid.)
Thank you for this! So helpful. Every time I start a self-recording project I forget everything and need it re-explained to me in detail like a sweet little dumdum.
This is the only video that explains properly and thanks to pro tools displaying peak and RMS signals finally gives the full picture. Bravo! So many other videos not clear and confusing
Graham, again, you nail it. All your knowledge is priceless but the best, it's your approach: Don't keep to your self, share to the world. Thank you. Keep doing your work. You're amazing.
I knew clipping was a huge "NO-NO", but I never brought a single track down to an average of -18db. I'm going to try this on my next track for sure. Thanks, Graham.
Graham- Thank you sooooo much for this video. This was a light bulb moment. Thank you for explaining verbally and visually 0 db on a VU meter and 0 dB on the track level. I’m just starting out and I just couldn’t understand this concept. Of course I’m just using GarageBand right now so I don’t have the faders and meters with dB numbers so I think that was part of it. Thanks again. Learning so much from your videos.
Thanks very much. This helps me a lot for leveling my audio/plugins for my gigs. (tomorrow performing at the North Sea Jazz Festival so it has to be spot on!!!) Appreciate it tremendously!
Good topic. I put a VU meter on every plugin to clip gain to -18 dbu, during my mix prep. It would be cool for plugins to have VU meters 1st in the signal flow as a standard. That and a mix/blend knob. Maybe one day.
@@kagi2807 i understood from the video that the use of the VU meter was before any plugins, or if you have already inserted a plug in click it off then adjust the in coming volume, am i right or not?
Stephen Fell yes, you can put a vu meter on the end of the FX chain or master. but be sure that the plugins are off first. and if you put on the master, also be sure the faders are at 0db. badically, anything which acts before the vu meter does can change the value you see. i prefer to put vu meters before the plugin for simplicity but if you're using a poor computer, the other method is better.
That's absolutely make sense, I was wondering for long time, how to get that dynamic sound and this trick with VU meter before plugs -18 just works great..! Thanks for the knowledge, keep up with the great job!
Thats my favorite vu meter plug in, a few years ago you did a video using it, i bought it and have used it evet since, thankx graham. You da' Man ! 🎵🎸🔊🙏
Hi, (sorry for this question), but do you mean that you first set your gain (in my case, in Utility, in Ableton) to -18db, and then secondly you adjust volume slider until the peaks are at -18db, and then adjust vu meter, set at -18db, until the needle hits 0? I guess my real question is, do we start at 0db with the gain, or at -18db and go from there? Please respond...I'm very confused about that. Thanks. Chris in Montreal, Canada.
@@flungjung Generally you want the gain of your recorded tracks to be at -18, or in that ballpark. Your volume faders can be at 0db more or less. Basically agreeing with Graham's teaching on this video. Just continue to study proper gain staging for digital recordings, and it will start to make sense. Hope this helps.
Yay! That's (finally) the exact information I was looking for and exactly how I've done it to my project, yesterday and today. I start with turning the gain to -18db, and then go from there. Correct? And yes, I do take the time to do video research and I will continue to 'cause it does pay off. I sincerely appreciate your quick response. Chris.
The "sweet spot for plugins" totally depends on the particular plugin. Some plugins are designed to be hit with -18. Some perform more properly with other target levels.
VERY clear! Thank you! I feel like such a noob just learning this stuff now, but you pointed it out early, so many of us were simply taught wrong! Recording, FOH, even just playing music, basically EVERYTHING I've ever done sound-wise teaches the same analogue-based signal-to-noise-ratio philosophy!... Hm, a VU meter plugin is in my near future, I think :P lol Thanks again!
The plugin lets you type in the track name for example, so that if you have multiple vu meters open, you know which one shows what. Wonderful little plugin, and dirt cheap (holds for all Klanghelm stuff btw -- no brainer purchases). The inclusion of a trimmer pot saves having to use a separate gain plugin, calibration makes it usable in different scenarios, comes with different skins... Very versatile for a simple vu meter.
I use trim in as the very first plugin in the chain, if i am the recording eng, I adjust the level to that. The main message here, is to use lower volume, and having headroom.
Hi, nu outdoor, when i put vu meter in my fx bin it hardly touch 0 db, so i turn up the gain knob ( using cakewalk sonar ) and then adjust the fader .Is that right ? Or i am doing wrong ? Thanks
two days of looking for at vids that adds up to reality on vu at last, your my 1st person ive ever give a thumbs up to mate ! this vid dispelled all the conflicting information 100% and put sht straight, do you have a full tutorial on how you mix from midi to the end . from bounce down to actual mixing? id like to see you work
Let's say I set up the gain knob on my audio interface so that my electric guitar's DI signal lands on -18db, then I put it through some amp simulation and the track's output sits at -10db. Is my goal to: - Turn down the gain knob on my audio interface and record again so after the effects, the track stays at -18? - Turn the gain down on the waveform inside my DAW so after the effects, the track stays at -18? - Reduce the track's output volume down to -18?
This is a good question, I was thinking the exact same thing. Not an expert, but after watching the video, I would interpret it like this. 1. Do the gain staging of your direct input normally, that is, adjust your preamp gain until the peak indicator on your interface or mixer flashes occasionally. 2. You should now see a level of maybe -6db to -12db in your DAW with the fader set to 0. 3. Adjust the level of the DI waveform to -18db or -16db, ready for sending into your virtual amplifier. (Edit: apparently this results in a very low volume, instead use a VU meter plugin and aim for around 0db) 4. Now use the fader normally and adjust the track volume to whatever you think suits the mix best.
Adjusting the gain back to -18db, after a plugin has altered the waveform, is good because it sets you up for any 'next plugins' you might add. If the 1st plugin doesn't have an output gain that you can adjust, you can always add a separate gain plugin to bring it back to -18db before handing the signal off to the next plugin.
I had to calibrate like this when I was experimenting with "Brauer-izing" In the box (which would be a great tutorial video btw may I recommend) and I did notice the tracks sounding much better. I attributed that to the "Braurer-izing" but now I think it was really the calibration all along.
Hi Graham ! and Thank you for this Superb text on "Gain Staging" ! 👌🏿 Tell me, why don't you adjust the "Gain" with the "Trim" of the "VUMT" plugin but rather directly on the audio waveform !? is it not the same ? 🤔🤔 Thank you and again BRAVO for this Excellent work of explanations. Thank you. 🙏🏾
There are some styles of music that actually rely on saturation, hence you often have to push a quite hot signal into the plugin (unless it has it's own input and output gain stage)
Some of what you are saying is incorrect. For example, @8:32 you talk about how you can use the fader to choose a good level for the plugin. That's simply not the case since plugin inserts are pre-fader (the plugin inserts are not affected by the fader level). You can however control plugin gain between plugins. Long story short, I really love your channel and have learned a ton, but I think you need to revisit the subject of prefader/postfader more because I saw some inconsistencies on this subject in your submix/submaster video as well (which someone pointed out).
Thanks for the great video as always, Graham, thanks. I do have a question though, what about the quiet track? How to do the gain staging on the quiet tracks, for example, shaker, .... etc?
Hey Graham! Big question here, I recently made the move from Studio One to Cubase, I've been religiously following the digital audio sweet spot rule since you released this video and I thank you for that! I do it on my tracks, and also on my buses! My problem is that while you can select a gain plugin in Studio One (like Mixtool), that changes the actual input volume which is very useful on buses since many sources of audio are going into the same channel, there is no way to do that in Cubase! I do my gain staging, I set up my tracks around -16db RMS, I group them to different buses, which are obviously (like for my Drum Bus) hitting higher than -16RMS, but there is no way to actually lower the input volume of that bus so it's inevitably hitting higher that I'd like to. I know there is a Pre-Gain available on any tracks on Cubase but it actually operates AFTER the Vu Meter of the console, I've noticed that by switching the mode of the Vu. If I lower the pre-gain, the Input gain on my buses remains the same... And I've also noticed that all the plugin chain is also hitting AFTER the Vu Meter. So I'm really confused now since I've been using this technique since a while now and I'm now very enthusiast about seing my buses hitting volumes around 0dB. Have you ever heard something about this ? Could you give me any advice ? Thank you for all the great content over the years. Bastien
As someone said below -18dbfs is ideal for a large number of plugins, however; there are a fair amount of plugins that are -14dbfs, there are a few UA, (some may even be other levels). I also know Black rooster audio modeled the actual hardware and many of the units run at -14dbfs as well. This is great advice, just making sure people look up the plugins they are using. To my knowledge most Softube and Acustica Audio run @-18 reference as well.
@@Ninja-pc3gd Yes, this can work for some plugins that have built in VU meters and allow you to see I/O gain and not simply gain reduction levels. It's not an insurmountable task, just making people aware. Some plugins such as pultec style EQs and the like do not have a VU meter on them, so knowing the internal reference level is important as the level of boost or cut will not be uniform to other models (not that they are identical anyways...).
Thank you for the video! However, many guys here in the comments including me have the same issue which gets adressed very rarely: When setting the average level to -18dbfs (0 on a -18db calibrated VU), applied to very dynamic instruments, like kick, snare, claps etc... the actual peak goes over 0dbfs very quickly! There wouldn't be a way for those type of instruments to set an average -18dbfs. In this case i always peak normalize them to max -6dbfs. Even when it is showing -20db on the VU meter and it is peaking at about -6dbfs it is the closest i can get. Is that correct? How are you doing it, Graham?
Its ok to do this in that way for Stuff like Percussion , Drums or very attacky Dynamicly Sounds .Because those Sounds don't have an Average . -10 to -6 dBFS Peak is a good Place to be for that Kind of Sounds :)
Microphones aren't digital. It's still imperative you record at a level that there's no noise, too, in that situation. So, using a daw, Noise floor is something else to talk about within digital recording, too, not for digital compnents, but for analog ones.
Still in digital world there is an advantage in recording the highest possible level before distorsion, and the reason is that a higher signal will have a better signal to error ratio after dithering.
There are a few problems with your understanding of DAW sound processing engines. Channels and buses don't clip at 0dB. Clipping only happens when the signal goes to an output device or to file. All modern DAWs use floating point values, 64bit and in practice, it's impossible to clip them. There was (is?) a version of Pro Tools that still used integer based values so they may clip. How plugins work is a case by case situation.
spoddie i hope people read your comment. and even more important, graham does! cause he has so many people following and believing him. but in this case he himself is wrong..
Indeed it's not the DAW that has a sweet spot, it's the plugins, and for those it's not guaranteed to be -18dB RMS. More people should read your comment and Graham should probably clear things up in a new video.
It's very important to point out that if you're using a compressor inserted on a channel, and using a gain plugin to trim back to -18dB, that the compressor must go IN FRONT of the gain plugin. Otherwise you''ll be pumping -18db of signal into the compressor and it won't do anything like you'd like it to.
Great vid as always. One request: could you please add links in your descriptions to the plugins you use during your demos/overviews? For one, it could give a little extra cash to you if you can get affiliate links for them. Secondly, it'd be nice for us to directly visit the page and read more about them.
Thanks Graham, you are a great guy and I love your videos, but some things you said are nothing but myths. I suppose it is just semantics, but let me add that a DAW does not care about our recording levels as long as the signal is not clipped on the converter. There is an infinite headroom in the 64bit floating point environment so this only applies to no linear plugins such as compressors and saturators, and here I believe is the semantics I mentioned earlier. To be completely clear, your advice here is great but it has nothing to do with the DAW, but with the plugins, and only some of the plugins.
So to sum it all up... make sure all of your recorded tracks in your DAW are hitting the sweet spot which is 0 dB VU/- 18 dbfs before adding any plugins right???
It seems like now that I'm using this that the compressors are requiring a whole lot more. if I'm at -18 i'm using the MGUC for example; I've got the compression up all the way and i'm getting like 2-3 DB of compression. For some things that's not enough.. I've decided to go to -12 instead but now i'm not in this "sweet spot" so i don't know. This type of calibrations is probably great when doing parallel compression or maybe "Braurerizing" and have multiple instances of compression to where it adds up. I'd like to be able to stay at -18 and still slam a compressor on drums though..? Why so much headroom for pre master? (-14dbFS (PEAK?)) A mastering engineer can simply turn the track down with no sonic implications. This seems incredible tediously especially considering that if you want to do this right, you must check the dB of every single plugin in the chain! literally. You CANNOT stare at the meters when mixing... If you are mixing with your eyes and not your ears you will get a crappy mix... I'm all for gain staging but as Graham says, do not overthink this. This "Sweetspot" is not going to make your mix sound "warmer" or better. It's just insuring that you have some headroom at the end of the day.
Hey Graham, thanks for the video! When should we use gain to boost the signal and when should we use the faders? Is the gain used to get the audio level in the general ballpark and the faders for fine-tuning?
