Gain Staging Questions

[thatmeekskid]

I've been producing for a little while and i'm always having problems with my mixes. Now when I looked into gain staging prevously, what I learned was that you want to have everything set to around -10 db so you don't use all your headroom. I took that that mean that I should set the faders on everything track/channel to -10 as the loudest point and then mix form there without ever having a fader go above -10. Then once u have done that and you have arranged your song; you mix so that nothing peaks above -3 to -6 db. So that you can master whether by mastering engineer or if you want to do the mastering yourself. However doing this I found i still have problems with my mix downs.

So my question are, am I wrong to set the faders on each the track to -10?

Should I instead leave the faders at 0 and then just make sure the instruments and plugins within a track itself don't go over -10, and the then use the faders on the each track to then mix to between -3 to -6 for mastering.

( I trying out both ways at the moment, but I still wanted to here what others have to say on the subject)

 

[Zacobe]

Youre kind of on the right track, but its clear you don't know why you're doing these things.

First, what are the "problems" you're having with your mix? Its hard to help without knowing what your goal is.

Second, there is no magic number that you set your faders to.. The -10 was a guideline to start from so by the time you process all your tracks you're not clipping the master track.

What another technique is, try setting the instrument that will peak the highest (usually the kick) to -18 or -15 as a peak baseline, then mix the rest of the song around that. The purpose of that is, if the highest peak is only -15 or so, then there's a good chance you'll have a reasonable amount of headroom left after the rest of the instruments are brought in.

And yes, it is a good idea (actually critical) that you make sure the signal coming in from your vst is not too high.. So you can try first to set the vst that is creating the kick to that -15 or -18 starting point, then just mix the the rest of the instruments to fit but do it from the vst.. This is to make sure you don't clip the vst before it even hits the faders. Remember, if you're clipping your vst before it hits the fader, durning down the fader in the daw isn't going to change the fact that its clipping.. You will just be turning down the level of an already clipped signal. This practice also goes for the plugins you add after the vst. First, make sure you aren't clipping coming out of the vst, second, make sure after you add processing you're not clipping coming out of the plugin. The fader controls the signal AFTER you have done all your processing so it will not save you later.

That all may seem confusing, but you have to learn it. Give it a try and just keep reading tutorials online.

 

[Zacobe]

Just to add, once you set the base levels from your vst, it doesn't mean you can't move the daw faders after that, its just a starting point. And yes you should set all your daw faders to zero if you're going sett the base levels from the vst.

Lastly, when I say to set the base level of the kick to peak at -15, I mean that's what the meter on the daw track should read, so adjust the output level of your vst until your daw track meter peaks at that level. Same for when you're setting the rest of your base levels from the vst.