Gain Staging for a Better Mix | Simplified & In Depth

In this tutorial we take an in-depth look at how gain staging can improve your mixes.
Free Gain Control Plugins
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[@quantaaudio]

Check out my new 6+ hour downloadable course for Studio One 5.5, here!: quantaaudio.com/store For information on one-on-one web training, check out my site, here: quantaaudio.com/webtraining

[@vitmedia]

In the Studio One world we're very lucky to have such a wide range of excellent tutorials from skilled presenters. I think yours rank among the very best. Always detailed enough to be very useful, but never overly long, and you never come across as being smug or superior, unlike some! Thanks for your efforts - they're very much appreciated.

[@quantaaudio]

Thanks for supporting the channel, vitmedia. Glad you find the tuts useful. Best.

[@antmanmusic]

This is soooooo important!!! You have taught me something after almost 20 years of mixing!! Thanks

[@loubot3332]

Quanta - big thanks for all your useful tuts and especially the way you cover Studio One. Your direct digestible approach to teaching is so refreshing. Well done and thanks!

[@markmason450]

Excellent video.. i have been recording for years.. mostly in the analog realm, I just installed Studio One Pro and I'm crash leaning the DAW world.. this was a tremendous help in mixing and understanding gain staging!

[@trebo12]

Great instruction as usual, Brandon! Thanks! Very much needed in my Studio!

[@johnthelad]

Really excellent tutorial. Learned so much from this. Was able to fully understand what you were demonstrating. Thank you.

[@meekstrosityproductions6880]

Great tutorial. Well understood. With the compression, I understood you were doing it as an example. Not sure why some people are always want to be so technical on an example. You clearly said "Let's just say". You're helping and that's all that matters to people like me who need and want to understand. Great Job!

[@BenjaminGib]

Thank you for your awesome Studio Tutorials! Out of all the different channels I have watched on Studio One, your’s are the best, including Presonus!

[@akbarb23]

Thank you!!! this is what i'm looking for, a great explanation from this tutorial

[@SA_SwangnArk_KlumzyG]

So dope!!!! Thanks bro!!!! Step by step tutorials are 🔥🔥🔥🔥💯💯!!!

[@kayakbandits9894]

Thx for the vid. I’ve been recording for more years than I’d like to admit and only here recently have I gotten serious about it and this is all new to me. Can’t wait to hear my mixes once I learn all this tech stuff. I’ve em been faking it since the early 90s. So thx

[@marbingarcia3413]

This video is the best video I've seen about ''gain staging'', I'd love to translate it into spanish so it can be accessible to more people. I am a native Spanish speaker. Anyway, THANKS A LOT!!!

[@raymondspagnuolo8222]

Very helpful! Thank you for posting!!!

[@Capt-Cran]

Really good video ... I"m so challenged by gain staging ... this was very helpful in understanding better ... thank you very much!! - I just saw your notes below ... I am hoping booking a couple of hours with you soon for a one on one ... will be in touch ...

[@PRINXBEATZ]

i like the way you talk its straight forward , GOOD

[@markhofland1898]

Great video about gain staging. I just tried it on an old mix, just started all over again, just as you described. Much better approach!

[@quantaaudio]

Glad it was helpful. Thanks for watching and leaving a comment.

[@rohitguru407]

Thank you for making these in-depth tutorials for free. A request to you plz don't STOP posting such videos .

[@quantaaudio]

Thanks, I'll try. With the time-investment involved, verses YT revenue, I'm not sure if they're sustainable, though...

[@RonGallagher]

Beautiful. Enlightened.

[@mo_omarr]

Great explanation, thank you

wow it helped a lot! thank you. I've never seen a lesson like this :)

[@RingRoadSessions]

Fantastic vid. Thanks

[@carlosclaptrix]

Thanks for these really nice to listen to explanations.

[@quantaaudio]

You're welcome. Glad you found the video useful and thanks for taking a moment to leave a comment.

[@exitthelemming145]

Excellent video that tackles what is for many, a contentious subject that has perhaps been blown out of all proportion by many in the online audio community (but NOT by Quanta). For 'in the box' productions i.e. with no external hardware and with no noise floor to worry about as we are entirely in the digital realm, I really don't think that even the VST manufacturers believe their plug ins only perform optimally with a -18 db level signal as if they sounded demonstrably inferior at any other input levels they wouldn't be able to sell any. What is undeniably true however, is that if you turn down a DAW fader on a track/buss which is feeding effects, the resulting character/colour of the audio output will likely change (depending on the type of effect) so it would be imperative to adjust the levels accordingly. Avoid clipping on both the way in and the way out, allow for plenty headroom and the rest is in-between your ears all said and done.

[@nterseraphim]

thank you for your useful information:)

[@MrTADEUSARIUS]

Very good and thank you!What about doing and a second part video with the processing with and after putting the plugins?Thank you again!

[@lebrr3807]

Hey. It's immensely important! Thanks!!!

[@quantaaudio]

Thanks for watching!

[@Dellx]

Thanks for this

[@vcodev108]

you are awesome, I love you teaching, can you please make tutorial on mixing and mastering using only stock plugins

[@veciimusic]

Awesome tutorial. After having watched many bs videos of this topic, first time ever I've been able to grasp the logic of gain staging. Gracias!

[@quantaaudio]

My hope was to make this confusing topic a bit clearer and more straight-forward, so I'm glad you found it helpful. Thanks for watching.

[@BryanEllis]

Thank you!

[@roelgarcia]

Thank you so much !!

[@quantaaudio]

You're very welcome, Roel.

[@rama567]

nice and nice and nice and SUUUUPER !!

[@RiffMusic1970]

Thanks for the video. Great info. It would help if you zoomed in on what you’re talking about. Can’t really read the meters or the clip numbers.

[@saekonemusic]

Awesome

[@jackiejames8575]

brilliant, I will return to this again when my song is ready for it

[@stu4116]

Studio one has a very good level meter, which can be set the full height of your screen if needed to get very accurate readings. Also if you're using a good size screen, simply drag the meters up (make them large, so the scale is bigger) to achieve a good accurate meter reading. Doing this on my screen gives me a whopping 2 inches (50 mm) between 0db and -18db so no room for error really. There's no need to use any other meters VU etc. it's all in Studio One. Studio One makes gain staging very simple and quick. It's like anything else though, if you know how it's easy, but if you're just starting out it all seems very complicated. Love your tutorials, but this method makes gain staging in Studio One seem more complicated than need be.

[@jackiejames8575]

thankyou x

[@asimnicholsmusic]

I’m redoing my whole mix…thanks lol

[@Priest88]

Hey quanta, great tutorials! They've been helping me so much I'm highly considering the one on one training. Quick ? I've been using studio one every since version 3 and I noticed that I'm having serious quantizing issues with Studio one 5. I've tried all of the commands within the quantizing settings menus. I mainly produce hip -hop, r&b, pop.....any tips would be greatly appreciated.

[@quantaaudio]

Sorry to hear you are having issues with quantization. It'd be difficult to say what could be causing the issue without seeing exactly how you are working and have your songs set up. I have not experienced any changes/issues with quantization while using S1 5, personally.

[@justinbraveheart26]

Thanks for your explanation. Still there's something what confuses me and that's the following. You never talked about your master volume setting while doing this. I noticed you are between -9 and -12db. Is this something specific ? Why not let it on 0db ? And what about using a vu meter on the masterbus with -18db ? Ty

[@GILLISH]

question so i a track fader it reads 0 sometimes go over but on my vu meter its nice right at 0 should i turn the gain control down to put it -6 or leave it because it reads 0 on the vu meter

[@Zickcermacity]

Y'know, after watching all these admittedly fine segments on gain staging, I've come to wonder if there really ever was a digital era(post-1990) "loudness war", or simply a misunderstanding of how to gain stage/trim all the tracks coming into the DAW. Hmmm. My theory is that even veteran engineers, transitioning over from the analog way of tracking, along with younger engineers coming up in a purely digital workspace, simply had to overcome a steep learning curve with regards to just how much pre-fade signal they should have coming into their DAW, and thus overloading their master mix buss.

[@wolfieodimm9151]

is there a way to set input gain fixed for channels.. like say -6db.... or you have to do it manually every time you add a new track...

[@quantaaudio]

The only way to do this would be to create a template with those settings, as far as I am aware. Or, you could create a -6dB preset within the Mixtool, but then you'd need to add this device to all of your channels (which of course could be done all at once if every channel is selected). The only issue with this is, if you have recordings that have a wide range of levels, you'd still need to adjust the gain for some of them, most likely.

[@sekritskworl-sekrit_studios]

Trying to follow along today... WHERE IS the "VU Meter" located? It's not showing up.

[@quantaaudio]

You may need to download it from your Presonus account. If you're not a S1 user, there is a link to a free VU meter in the description of this video.

[@aishine8184]

Yesssssssssss

[@greekplayback]

Hey , what do you mean when you say "all over the place" can you please explain ?

[@quantaaudio]

I mean when the audio level for a particular instrument/recording is fluctuating across a huge dynamic range. For instance, in this video, the stringed instrument was fluctuating between -20 and +5 dB VU, which would make it very difficult to mix if it remained that way.

[@greekplayback]

Thanks , can you add link for buying the vu meeter ?

[@quantaaudio]

There are links for free VU meters in the video description.

[@sekritskworl-sekrit_studios]

+1 Subscribe will set alerts when I get to desktop. Great work!!?

[@RogerHicksNEXTLEVEL]

I gain stage @ -12 DB for all track

[@tri-unetrl3966]

Why not -18 dbfs?

[@ms6465]

With all due respect, what you are doing on that String channel at 17:50 is ridiculous... there's a reason why the musician played the instrument that way and you are killing all the dynamics in a a very unmusical way. To do this you better use a compressor with the right settings and adjust the rest of the mix to leave room for that instrument with its proper dynamics. As a mixing engineer you must keep the dynamics somehow, at least as little to make it sound musical, otherwise your only pursue here is to make a track flat and louder without seeking for a musical result and that is not only unnecessary, but unpleasant to listen.

[@quantaaudio]

This is a 20-minute video on gain staging, not a master class on detailed mixing techniques. Also, this is a traditional ethnic instrument, so, if it were being played along with other similar instruments, it's huge dynamic range would probably work well. But, when it's being placed over an electronic, hip hop-style beat - those HUGE dynamic fluctuations just ain't gonna work! Look at the VU meter before I trimmed it, and listen to it.

[@ms6465]

​@@quantaaudio I apologize for using the term "ridiculous", it wasn't my intention to be rude. As for your reply on the dynamics, I think your proposed solution is unmusical. Compressors and EQs are the right tools for that kind of problems, you can easily preserve the dynamics without affecting the overall volume and pressure. Other than that, I think your other suggestions are valuable and on point. Thanks.