I feel like I can finally enjoy mixing and life in general after watching this video 😂 thanks!

I think many aspiring mixers get into this side of audio because of how cerebral it can be. And while there are technicalities in mixing, it’s good to remember that it’s nothing precious and to approach the mix pragmatically vs theoretically

Hey Jordan, on my current journey in the world of recording I finally ran across a video that just makes since. It’s a million videos about how vital gain staging will make your mixes sound more professional. But after hearing some of your finished products I became more convinced that the gain staging rhetoric bs must be mythical after all. Actually I’ve been mixing this way since I got into the game and everyone thought I was doing this major gain staging thing. All I was really doing was the same method you’re doing in this video and the mixes turned out quite exciting. I’m not recording rock or metal but that doesn’t mean you can’t apply your teachings to other genres. Thanks for all you do for the recording community. Keep up the great work Jordan. As the late great movie critics Siskel and Ebert would say two thumbs up!!!!!

Gain staging ITB actually does improve mix quality when going through plugins. I have tested this thoroughly and is especially true for eqing. If you are doing drastic boosts with EQ for creative sound design purposes, you get a much cleaner result if the incoming signal is quiet. My mixes sound more full when utilizing gain staging during the signal chain. If a signal is too hot and causing inharmonic distortion within the plugin, the sum of all the distortion will be great when the full mix hits the limiter to bring the volume back up. I use a lot of Acustica Audio plugins and I can definitely say that there is a big difference in clarity and fullness of my mixes when I use gain staging mixing techniques especially going into these plugins. I believe it is also genre dependent too. Do some experiments yourself and see if it A: improves your mix. B: improves your workflow

When the meter is going from green and just pushing into the yellow you're set. Exactly how I've always always recorded and mixed. Great vid.

This just took away so much underlying stress in regards to leveling and gain staging you're the best J, truly, thank you for this (years of stress gone). Keeping being you, you're appreciated out here :)

At last! A voice of reason! My background is from mixing with tape when it was all about signal to noise and getting the most out of gear with instabilities. I've been working with DAWs in the way that you describe in the video for many years but have recently doubted myself thanks to all of the gain staging videos out there. I can now go back to mixing with confidence.

I think the point that people are trying to make with the emphasis on gain staging, is that for people who are recording and mixing their own music. And if you have proper gain staging from the beginning it just streamlines the process, and save you a lot of time and headaches...

This is why your channel is so educating without all the can't do this don't do that bullshit. quiet as kept this is exactly the way I've been going about. I was getting so much push back that my music would suffer if I wasn't doing this exact scientific method that's all over the KZfaqrs channels. I thought engineering was a unique individual creating their own sound. Hardcore you're spitting the true gospel keep up the great work and thanks for all you do for the recording fam. I've been a scriber since I ran into this specific video. anyone searching for any other video dealing with gain staging just STOP IT!! this guy can't put it any simpler. Gain staging isn't a big deal afterwards.

This is so timely for me. I am diving in deeper in my transition from anolog mixing mindset to Daw mindset. This resonates well with me. Thanks for the clarity and transparency!

you are a doctor, curing my mixing diseases thank you bro, i love your 'make it simple' way of mixing

Great to hear, that somebody has a different approach to this topic as most guys on YT. I agree on the recording part and your point on fader resolution is also a great opinion... but I realy disagree on the part that GS doesen't make any differents between a "amatuer" and a "pro" mix and is not that important. Not saying that you have to gain all your tracks to -18dBVU or somthing is the key.. but allmost every time I've worked with "hobby-producers" mixing their own stuff, the problem was no understanding of GS. The "just turn down the masterfader" approach often leads to a - turn everything on channels up, turn the master down and slap a limiter on thing. (Protools is a special thing there; Most other DAWs got prefader inserts on the masterfader!) Example: most software synths put out a level near 0dBFS so one cant hear the bass and drums anymore - turn everything up past 0, masterfader down - but then it has to be louder to bounce it - limiter on... and the result is a wobbly bass mess. I think it's your experience with GS (and floatingpoint calculation.. not everybody knows how to abuse it in a positive way) wherefore you don't need to think about it and get hot levels sounding right.. and tbh you said that you know the level just hitting the yellow is how you want it - that's the essence of every "pros" GS approach.. -> Gaining all tracks (or Group Inputs like eg Joey Sturgis) to a more or less fixed level with a sort of input gain, so your 2Bus isn't exploding and buscompression/limiting doesn't turn out into a basketball like sound. ..so I don't think you're busting any myths there.. Summarized I like your approach on this topic because it is mostly a convenience thing how you like your levels and faders with floatpoint DAWs nowadays and you're not telling that it's a must to gain to a strict level X/Y! But I find it necessary to understand what GS is about and not just leave it as nonsense. Then you can make your own thing out of it and thats the key, in my opinion.

☛ Grab your FREE mixing cheatsheet and get on my list for the best audio training on the web: www.mixcheatsheet.com

I've been playing guitar and bass for more than three decades, with planty of live performance and professional studio time, but I'm new to home recording, so i needed this. Thanks!

Thank you for this, been stressing over gain staging like I somehow missed the essence of mixing and mastering. I've been rapidly progressing in my skills so I guess I've got an ear for it!

All good info on gain staging. Only issue with using the 'all' selection to pull down the faders is this will effect the level going to sub groups and your mix buss. Therefore your compression/saturation/effects won't have the same relationship when you pull down the faders.

This is the most relavant, honest truth about Gain staging. What everyone else says doesn't not make sense. I'm subscribing and following you now! Good stuff!!👍🏽

I wish I would have heard this before recording my band's EP. ugh...

Thanks for finally setting everything straight. I have never believed all that gain staging talk when I mixed.

You've probably saved me hours of wasting time fussing about hard rules with numbers. I intuitively knew this but it helps to hear it from others like you. Thanks Jordan!

I like this method of not going into a major overwhelm about keeping the level perfect in the recording stage. The information knowing the DAW has plenty of headroom is definitely good to know and keeps my focus on playing the arrangement.

I feel like shooting for -12 db. on the input has helped me get better mixes easier. I'm a complete beginner but when I started doing that I got much better results. But thanks for the knowledge brother!

Thanks for simplifying and emphasizing the essence))) It takes me a lot of time trying to mix one song, but now I wanna try to mix a song within a day, maybe within a few days

Even after 4 years this video is still helping people like me. As I'm trying hard to focus only on Music composing not on Sound Engineering, gain staging is always like a headache for me. It takes time but well this is more about focus. This video made it so easy to me. Thank you for this. Lots of love from India

100% with you. When I'm setting my inputs, I just increase them until it sounds good and that's usually a good bit before clipping. If you start off reasonably, there's no reason not to just track things the way you want to hear them. Say you're laying down drums while everyone else is essentially laying down scratch tracks. When it comes time to track everything else, if you recorded the drums hot because that was the sweet spot on the pres, all you have to do is simply turn them down. What a concept. I definitely worried way too much about it for a couple years and am pretty sure it stunted my growth.

4:34 take the hint from the programmers! 0VU = (+4dBu or -10dBv) = 1kHz Sine wav @ ref voltage = -18dBFS = 85dbSPL(A) @ 1m unless you have a high end ADC which specificly declares a higher maximum input voltage and you can set the calibration voltage to -20dBFS or some other standardized reference level. The correct way to think about gain structure is that all devices in your signal path should clip at the same time. To maximize the S/N ratio, the system designer should choose equipment which supports the same maximum input and output level with similar nominal operating level AND headroom. For example, a "Pro" preamp often has a max output level of +26dBu and outputs a balanced signal at +4dBu. If one drives the input of a converter which also has a maximum input level of +26dBu with a nominal operating level of +4dBu over a balanced line, the correct equipment has been selected. If the ADC only handles a max input level of +18dBu the additional output range of the preamp has to be attenuated and this compromises the dynamic range of the system. Now consider an ADC which supports a max input level of +26dBu with a nominal level of +4dBu. The nominal level is far below the maximum range which allows a much more precise level of measurement over the voltages than can be achieved when operating closer to the max limits. The same is true with a converter which accepts a max input level of +18dBu and this (and because of number of additional design improvements) is one large reason why more expensive converters typically sound better than cheap converters and its also exactly the same reason DAW engineers should record with more headroom, especially on cheaper digital gear. Anyone using a 24 bit converter has zero reason to record with less headroom than the manufacturer anticipated. Only people recording directly to 16bit mediums should even consider the effects of quantization distortion (when low voltages are inaccurately sampled due to a lack of resolution in the digtal scale). The best thing a novice engineer can get out of this is (in extremely general terms) that an audio system designer should always choose equipment with the same operating capabilities throughout the entire system and that the weakest link defines the system's capabilities.

It's actually a good practice to understand and employ that will allow you to achieve consistency across all of your mixes. One huge challenge that causes people to stumble while learning to mix is having their monitors' loudness too low. Granted, we should be checking at different levels and (if you have them) sets of monitors, but the nominal level is ordinarily set too low at the outset. So, you punch-up a mix and before you know it you're in the red all over the place.

It's so funny that the moment I came to write the comment about analog modelled plugins, you started talking about it I'm still a nerd about making sure signals are at -18 dbFS when the fader's at unity gain before doing any processing. Ended up making it a habit & I just haven't stopped

For me personally I feel like my mix is improved at least 25 to 40% when I really started focus on gain staging.

I was actually starting to worry about this recently. Haven't paid attention to this so far, only made sure the input doesn't clip, but so many videos came out on this topic recently...Great video again!

Wow! You just freed me! You said everything that I learned through experience. Thought I'm alone on thinking this way.

When i learnt about gain staging,,it definitely made my mixes sound tighter,,not a hard concept to grasp really.

I personally love having knowledge about gain staging, because it helps me build my sound (as a guitarist or bassist, drummer or vocalist). It helps me understand not to clip anything in my analogue chain. However, I am pretty chilled if I am in the box and a red light comes on, especially later in my mix. At the beginning I might try to keep things clean, but later, I want it to sound good. I believe the knowledge of gain staging is great, but I don't allow it to cripple me in my decision making (which seems to be the fear addressed in this video?). Love it, thanks for all the reminders that it is about MUSIC at the end of the day!

Dude, this totally subsided my inherent second guessing and mixing anxiety in regards to digital. Having started in analog many many moons ago, and also recently transitioning DAWs? I always let my analog instincts screw with my workflow, and end up chasing faders and clip meters obsessively. Definitely going to look into that mix bus trim plugin. Thanks man! Just smashed the subscribe and rang the bell! Cheers!

Got this video recommended to me again, and I’m not mad. Ever since this video I stopped stressing about gain staging😂

Excelente Jordan! Muchas Gracias por tus aportes y la transmisión clara de los conocimientos! y por el libro también! Saludos desde Argentina

I think the issue of gain staging for me is just ensuring a proper balance of signal from stems to final master fader. The addition of tracks and processing often increase gain, which requires a constant rebalancing during the mixing phase. You can hear the difference between how a plugin reacts to too hot of a signal, which is always less pleasing than an analog piece. A collective of "too hot signal" plugins can change the tone of a mix, and can affect everything down the chain. So its a constant checking, and rechecking through the processing chain. Its not complicated - its just something to be aware of.

What a breath of fresh air. You've confirmed myths I've expected for years on several vids. Really appreciated as a rock guy. Subscribed

That's why I think every plugin should have an input knob with an indicator that tells the user if the input level is okay or too low or high, no matter what level the plugin expects. And usually I'll just make sure that the level doesn't change much when I bypass a plugin in order to not have to adjust input gain further down the line (assuming that plugins in general deal well with an RMS level of -18dfFS).

The most encouraging video for the beginners. Love you

I’ve been doing home recording for 20 years. Never started hearing about gain staging until now, after finally upgrading my gear and DAW. I know my old cool edit pro wasn’t the easiest to use but I never had issue with headroom or noisy signals. Still had decent mixed despite my software limitations for hating, reverb, lack of vst plugins, etc. Glad I’ve found your channel. Just watching a few vids of yours and they’ve made me reassured that I don’t need to follow all or a lot of the things I’m hearing in other trends. E.g. loved your low end video. I felt like I was doing something wrong by not always separating frequencies. And now worried I wasn’t doing what I should to stage gate. I’ll take that kinda advice with a grain of salt!

it’s just for tracking and final mix. your mic, board/interface, cables, etc have analog noise and interferences. high input without messing with the spl of the mic, no clipping, and you’re golden. in the daw doesn’t matter at all. track, bus, master. can be wherever without clips.

Thank U and yes, back in the day when we used to record with analog stuff U recorded fairly hot to achieve the best signal to noise ratio. S/N. AND U looked at your equipment to look at things like S/N, THD, speaker efficiency, dynamic range, SPL, crosstalk, distortion, and your speaker "curve" and microphone "curve." What's interesting now is these things, which used to be regularly published and featured with the equipment can be more difficult to figure out. With digital it is less of a concern as far as "noise" is an issue but these other things can be a factor especially things like speaker efficiency, the curve, and the mics. I still use analog stuff sometimes so it is good to have this background. Moreover, it would help "newbies" to understand what these things are.

Gain staging isn't quality as far as I've ever heard of. It's more for workflow and the chance to speed the mix up at the end of the process and therefore maybe making more money. Your general message is spot on, blown way out of proportion. I prefer your way, set your inputs correctly before you track your finals. At the same time, I still use gain staging if I see a Track that looks like it's not setting around relatively the same level. If they're all close or somewhat similar, I don't even bother. Great video. I think this is the 3rd video I've seen from you now. Your putting some great advice out there.

Thank you for this great video! With my first CD, five years ago, I didn’t even know about the process of “gain staging”, and just mixed the tracks to what sounded right to my ears, and kept the signals out of the red. When I got the album mastered, I felt happy when the engineer told me that my mixes sounded correct.

Dude this was refreshing and freeing to hear you say all this

Great video, Jordan, thank you for dropping wisdom on this mystical topic, dead on! Although I'd have to kinda disagree with you (at 3:02 minutes) that there's no signal to noise ratio to worry about in the digital domain, because we still have to record in analog before converting to digital, and noise floor exists there. Yes of course, turning up a digital fader or boosting clip gain won't introduce any noise from the DAW itself, but noisy preamps, tubes, and other recording equipment still exists on the front end. I see this a lot when I get a track that has been recorded too quietly and when I boost the clip gain, I get a ton of noise floor along with it. This just happened to me on a track I got of a home recording and the acoustic guitar got really quiet on a finger picking down-chorus, and when I brought up the gain to a reasonable level, I got a ton of noise-hiss along with it. I still think recording a healthy signal on the way in is important for this reason, and not just record as loud or quiet as you want without clipping. There is still a possible noise floor depending on your gear and tracking environment, and you can't just always crank up the fader in pro tools if it was recorded too quiet. Maybe I just get shittier recordings more often than you do, but I definitely run into noise floor issues from time to time.

Bless you for this topic. I'm so tired of old folks babbling about gain staging.

Great video! I must admit, I get finicky about gain staging but it’s mainly a workflow thing. Knowing that everything is roughly at the same level makes it easier to gauge when I’m balancing faders etc., but I don’t think it makes a huge difference to sound as such.

Love your whole philosophy on all of this. Helped me so much to just learn what sounds good without worrying that I’m breaking any of these “rules” you hear thrown around all the time.

Holy crap!!! I just found your video! I have been one of those people getting confused about gain staging because how other channels pound it in your head but never clearly showing you what they mean. I feel better now that I dont have to really worry about it so much! Thank You!!

Hi Jordan, your content is AMAZING! one of the best youtube channels out there. Keep up the great work you're doing. Thanks for all the knowledge and kindness.

I bought the book instead! I find your insight and advice so valuable - especially after studying this stuff at masters level. This is more useful and effective! I’ve told a friend of mine who’s also a budding producer, artist and music reviewer about this video and shared the channel with him!

I agree with everything you said, except about tolerating red lights - I know we are working with 32 and 64 bit floating points, but that's still sloppy practice ..... that being said, good tutorial!!!

Very, very eye (ear?) opening. The ears have to decide. Great! Thank YoU!

Time for some coffee at 4:23 :D Thank you Jordan, good & useful information as always!

Just to clarify… turning down all your faders can definitely change your mix if you are going through subgroups and those subgroups see less input signal to a compressor for example. What i tend to do is have all my groups on a vca and all my other chans that go directly to master output (if there are any) on another vca, turn those two down at the same time for total pre-master volume control. Thanks for the refreshing non-hysterical video :)

I feel compelled to comment and thank you as you've allowed me to stop stressing about what "most" youtubers out there are saying you should be doing if you want the best mix ever and allowed me to take it with a grain of salt and just do what sounds good to me. I still reference some of my favorite mixes but I allow myself to detach from that and just mix with my own ears.

You just saved me from so much worrying you can't possibly imagine. Got your book, I'll get to it today, thanks for helping us out with your knowledge.

Knowing the theory of gain staging in the analogue days, I always asked myself if it still applied in digital recording? At last you have answered my question. Thank you. I love the way you delivered your video, simply and clearly. Finally, someone who knows that we're not all professional sound engineers!

This was so helpful I was constantly thinking my stuff was distorted behind the scenes between plugins.

About having your faders at zero. The the 7”s engineers got there balance from mic positioning. They were ratchet by dudes who recorded this way since the advent if the L P in the 50s. By the 90s when working on the G 4000 series inwards ( E could update their firmware to achieve the following too ) we could zero / null our faders without changing tbd mix level. Something I did often. This was a very helpful in several situations; especially’ fader creep.’ Great Video. Thanks

Thank you for breaking that down :)

been mixing an ep for 3 months and its due b4 Dec 1st and i still have work to do. I was loosing perspective (euphemism for my will to live lol) before watching this video and the one about not scooping too much in the low mids. thanks for your no bs approach! here we go again 😅

Thank-you for the mixing cheatsheet! I spend so much time learning the mind-numbing complexities of my DAW, shortcuts are ALWAYS Welcome!

I do appreciate your take on gain staging in a digital setting. However gain staging in such a way to leave yourself plenty of headroom is still beneficial for someone using a DAW. For one, the mastering process can still benefit from having the extra space to work with, no matter what platform is used to do it. But even more than that, it's not a guarantee that everyone who uses these DAWs will ALWAYS be using DAWs, and getting into proper practice of leaving headroom just means that you won't have to relearn how to mix once you're faced with an analog setup. I learned recording and production engineering in a professional studio, using consoles like the SSL and the Neve. I also learned how to use Pro Tools in this same school, and professional engineers explained that although in a digital workspace there is far less worry about clipping, not every track being made will be fully mixed "in the box". It's just smart to know what proper gain staging is and utilize it every time you mix. I do agree that there's no "golden ratio" for gain staging, such as your average level being at -18dB. The only thing I make sure of is that before the signal hits the master track, I'm peaking around -6dB, giving me enough headroom for the mastering part of the process. This can be done a number of ways, but I do tend to keep my faders near unity gain (0dB) and gain stage through my channel inputs (using FL Studio). However, you could have everything come in hot and simply turn them all down by their faders, or on a buss. Really it's up to you as long as you leave that headroom on the master. Nothing wrong with your technique, and for people who aren't as into the engineering side of audio production as myself, it's better to avoid the headache most times. But there are reasons why people make so much fuss over gain staging. Even you mention that you eyeball your gain staging because of years and years of experience, which these folks may not have.

I just breathed a GIANT sigh of relief! Feel like I just had the weight of the world lifted off me 😂Cheers to you J-Ballz 🍻

In your explanation of "back in the day", it's not true that faders would be at zero when recording, unless the signal had to go through the fader - as in when the signal was being fed to a group before going to the recorder. In the 4 consoles I worked on between 1977 to 1985, any single channel that was going to a single track only went through the input preamp and then perhaps through the equalizer, which had its own amplifier to make up the gain lost if the eq was passive. The signal was controlled for, as you suggested, the maximum signal to achieve the desired sound and not include unwanted noise. Sometimes a gate would be inserted before the signal went to the track. The fader, which is only a passive device and hence "unity" effectively took its existence out of the circuit, only affected what I listened to in the control room, after the tape recorder. Panning and reverb/effects sends followed the fader in individual channels, as did the master buss. Some consoles did not work this way, wherein the fader did affect the signal to the tape recorder, but they weren't very desirable, at least not in the studios I worked in. The most important thing about gain staging in today's hybrid recording environment, imnsho, is to understand it enough to know in what circumstances it's important and the effect of it on achieving the sound one wants. In a single piece of very popular gear, the tube guitar amp like a Fender VibroChamp, gain staging plays a part - or, understanding it allows one to get more control of what goes through it. Knowing where the volume control is in the circuit plays a big part in getting the most out of that very simple circuit. The volume pot follows the first gain stage, meaning it has no control over what is coming in at the input jack. That first gain stage is set, and one can only affect its behaviour by increasing or decreasing the signal being fed to the input of the amp- effectively, the closer one can control how close that first stage can get to the point of breakup, allows the player a much fuller playing experience. The gain of the output tube is also fixed in that amp, meaning only the voltage of the signal going through it could be adjusted, by the single volume control and the tone controls. If you were to work in a studio with an analogue console you weren't familiar with, the block diagram for that mixer becomes very important. With that, you can see where the gain stage are and make more informed, predictable use of that mixer. As for emulation plugins and the small type where the maker mentions what level to apply to its input as a starting point, ignoring that means one is not really interested in emulating the original, analogue behaviour - which is subjectively is fine, but the result would probably not be as accurate as the money spent on the plugin represented.

This was the best gain staging video Ive watched yet.

I gotta thank you for this video. I've been using PT since day dot and absolutely everything you said and your workflow I completely relate to. People need to trust theirs ears more than anything. Thanks again!!!

Makes sense to me - good clear explanation and takes away the worry. Well done and thanks.

Thank you so much for putting this video out. I’ve been so sick of hearing all this -18db BS.

With regards to unity on the faders. the gain reduction is exponential as you go down the fader (in Ableton for example) it acts in a way as a limiter and you can squash/lose dynamics by having all faders pulled down hard. By gain staging in channel and keeping them closer to zero there's much less dynamic loss

You made a very good summary on all this gain staging stuff, though it seems guitars and bass recordings are still affected by it to some extend (virtual pedals, amps and cab loaders are very picky with it sometimes). Btw, that example you showed in Pro Tools: It depends on the DAW, some may have the fader before the summing and some others after, some DAWs even have the summing happens before any plugins on the channel. I'm gonna resharethis video, I hope you don't mind ;)

I breathed deeply after watching you Always thinking about gain staging gain staging I knew what you taught but was thinking it isn’t correct

Ya I know right I've even seen some of my favorite artists mix and they don't gain stage at all not even a little bit and their mixes sound amazing

Loved this video! Especially after a lot of people on another certain group doing the whole "unity gain" thing like it was a religion after seeing one guy do it. I legit had no idea why it was done in the analogue world till now though. I see so many digital gain staging tutorials online and found it super weird that it was a huge focus with today's DAWs having the amount of headroom that they do. A sidenote for any beginners, if you turn down all faders you might have to alter your buss compressor settings if you have a compressor on a buss with a bunch of guitar tracks, vocals, etc. I'm sure it's obvious to most people, but some newbs may not realize that straight away. The earlier tip regarding using a trim plugin on the buss/channel you want to turn down would be a solid idea in this case :D Anywho, loved this video. Love the channel!

Man! That's the best video ever! Thank you!!

This video has some valid points, and I'm not here to dispute any of them. I would just say that it depends on your workflow. I've gotten used to the -18db gain staging rule, but it works for me and keeps everything generally uniform while leaving headroom in the group tracks. I've just incorporated it into my workflow and it works for me so far. But there isn't anything that says I HAVE to. It's all about what works for you.

Well said!! I sent a track to my old engineer and he stated that my vocals were too loud! But it sounded good to me and many others. I tend to let others opinions mess with my head which I shouldn’t. If it sounds dope it sounds dope. But this info that you just gave me made me level up! Can’t wait to try this out.

Watching this confirmed what I was doing was correct, because I was told , Gio you have to gain stage and set your levels before even starting to record each track. Then I started doing this and realized to go with what feels right and what my eyes and ears are showing me. As I added Plug ins like compression, eq, or Reverb, I could clearly see how Hot it made the track I was working on and I simply adjusted as I went thru each plug in, but in the back of my mind I had that thought if I was doing this in front of the people that told me to Gain stage before I even record will they think I was doing it wrong but the more I saw that my mixes were coming out strong and I still left good enough space for the Master I knew to trust my Instincts. Thank you for making this video that confirmed that I made the right decision.

The best and simple way to tell what gain staging really is. Thanks man.

Thank you for this video. I am way down the rabbit hole and you helped pull me out! Now maybe I can finish my album! Sincerely;y... thanks 🙏

Who actually says that setting your tracks to a specific level (e.g. -18db) is going to “fix” your mixes? I’ve listened to many people talk about gain staging and never heard this. Feel like this is a straw man argument. Some good points in this video though. Thanks!

You are clearing my confusion. Great vid bro

I've been taught that keeping the fader as close to unity as possible in a DAW is because of resolution.... nothing to do with noise or the analog world.

This guy knows what he's doing. So much truth to all of this. Hate the myths about gain staging or using the eq as little as possible. As long as it sounds good, you shouldn't be worried.

PHWewww!! Many thanks for the post. This voice of reason has finally stopped me running around in circles and chasing my tail up my own ass.

This is 2023 and we can finally stop overthinking gain staging. When I start to mix, I pull all my faders down and start building everything from scratch starting with the vocals and kick drum and snare. Once these three sound good and balanced, I bring in everything else proportionally. At the end, there is always enough headroom for mixing and mastering.

Bru the Ctlr Trick changed my Life thanks

If you use outboard gear of any kind you still need to mind your levels just as much as when using analog emulation plugins. If you use multiple ones in chain its still important to mind your levels. They do sound different at various levels. Example is the API2500 sounds different if you boost the volume inside the plugin then annuate it with another utility, than if you have the lower volume out of the plugin. Which makes sense since it was modeled after an actual unit which behaves the very same way. You can try this yourself. A digital gain plugin does not (and should not) work the same as an analog modeled volume trim/gain. Just use your ears and you'll notice how different they are. If you're close to digital clipping chances are you waaay overdrive your analog modeled plugins, way above the level which they actually work well at. Real tape machines can start distorting at 0VU to 6VU depending on the brand and machine. Now any tape plugin worth its salt should follow the same standard, see J37 or Slate Tape, they all do this too.

Thank you 🙏🏼 I will try it right now!! Gracias Amigo! 👊🏼

Never actually cared too much about levels in the digital domain. But still learned something 😊 Thank you for the great video!

Thanks for this video. In fact (as an amateur) I mix at a very low level because getting volume doesn't seem to be a problem. And mixing at low gain is something like a safety net for me.

Right on. It’s refreshing to see someone break away from the typical rules that are followed. Even so, while you’re not aiming for specific number, you are still using a visual reference by scanning and adjusting all the waveforms to a certain general size. This seems to be the same level of difficulty as, say, getting your loudest element (say snare) to peak at -8 and then mixing everything else around it by ear. I guess my point is that using the common number method vs. your visual methods seem to be about the same level of difficulty, in my opinion. I’m sure both work well.

Hello, I am watching your tutorials very often. Thank you for all your professional and clear guidance. I really appreciate it. What I'd like to ask about is something that I haven't seen in earlier episodes. Could you please make one guiding on mixing choir? Basically it seems to me like interesting topic and not obvious. Let's say 6 lead vocals both female and male, and 6 groups of tracks with kids voices. Each kids vocal group counts about 5 to 6 individual vocals recorded in the same time on 1 mic-this is why 6 group tracks. 3 guitars mainly acoustic, Flute, violin, cajon, bassoon and some hi hats as addition to percussion sounds. Sounds interesting for an episode topic? I hope it does. Thanks in advance

Haha after watching loads of videos about gain staging following years of doing it ‘my way’ which was essentially the way this video describes! I would drop the input level using a limiter or Ozone on the master bus (on the way in) setting output to 0.1 and it was always perfect! Thank you so much for the freedom to believe my common sense worked - even as a semi-pro. Vindicated at last. Thanks man!🍻

to be frank there is an advantage to not recording instruments too quiety: besides the fact that the ADC of your soundcard will still introduce some noise you will also slightly decrease the dynamic range by recording at a lower volume. If you record in 32 bit it probably will be fine but generally the more "area" between -1 an 1 in the digital waveform you cover the more different points will be available to you. If you just record between -0.1 and 0.1, you will just naturally just have a tenth of the dynamic range, even if you normalize it later. The effect is, technically, close to that of a bit reduction plugin. I'd suggest recording at a medium level where you don't run the danger of clipping but still use a good chunk of the avaiable space of the signal.

I did try this gain-staging.The -18dB one.I quite liked it. And now I don't mind where I peak so much. It's worth trying so you get your own experience and take it from there.

Thanks man Im a begginer and your video was suggested to me by a friend, you communicate clearly..! Thank yoU!