ABOUT GAIN STAGING
Gain Staging – the importance of volume in digital recording and mixing
Auto gain staging plugin for your levels TheNormalizer is a gain plugin designed to help you get proper gain staging and set each track of your mix and each bus to the level you want automatically. It’s critical to not forget that gain staging exists in our plugins too. I mentioned above that gain staging helps create headroom in your mix. It’s true that proper gain staging can be achieved by setting the recording levels right, but that’s only the 1st step to take care of. Good gain staging was an engineer’s way of navigating safely between them. It meant making sure that the gain structure between devices was set up properly. It ensured that any device in the signal path would receive an optimal signal level to its input, and output an optimal signal level to the next device in the chain. Blue Cat's Gain Suite - Simple Mono, Stereo and Mid-Side MIDI Controllable Gain Plug-ins (VST, AU, VST3, AAX) (Freeware) This plug-in suite is a series of gain utilities which let you control the volume of one or several audio tracks simultaneously, in real time. Gain staging is the one of the easiest and most crucial tasks in your home recording studio adventure. It takes only 2 seconds to implement properly and it’s so easy that many people don’t really care about it. The results of not caring about gain staging can make our lives harder during mixing, so let’s learn how to use gain staging.
If you have worked with recording and mixing in the analog realm (on tape) or using a 16 bit digital recording device you may have heard and lived by the rule ”record as loud as possible without clipping”. However, in a 24 bit digital environement the signal to noise ratio is improved to such an extend that you do not need to record that hot a signal.
On top of this most effect plugins are calibrated to function at their best with signals that are around -12 to -18 dB. If the signal you have recorded is higher than this it might cause distortion or unwanted artifacts when you run it through an effect plugin. To avoid this you should pay attention to proper gain staging: aim for a recorded signal between -12 and -18 dB.
If you have already recorded with a signal hotter than this you should turn it down. Most DAWs give you an opportunity to do that (look for a pre-gain knob) but should your DAW not have such a feature you can use the ”Free G plugin” by Sonalksis. Place it as the first plugin on the relevant channel(s) and turn the pre-gain volume down to the desired level. And yes, as the names says, “Free G” is a free VST plugin.
An easy way to measure the incoming or recorded volume level is to use a VU meter. If you are on a Windows operating system you can use the Sleepy Time DSP ”Mono Channel” and ”Stereo Channel”. Set the calibration to -18 dB. Your signal should now hit the VU meter around the 0 dB point when it is at its loudest. If you are on a Mac check out the Klanghelm ”VUMT” VU meter. It is very affordable and works in the same way.
By sticking to these basic rules for gain staging you avoid distorting your audio in unintended ways.
The Sleepy Time Mono Channel VST is a free VU meter plugin for Windows that can be used to set a correct gain staging.
Free Gain Vst Plugins
The Klanghelm VUMT VST plugin is a very affordable VU meter for Windows and Mac that comes in handy when you set your gain staging.