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#1
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Gain Staging??
It's come to my attention for quite a while now that I'm not to good at gain staging
I've put this in the getting started section coz all the posts might help others as well as me When I track I have the metering set to pre fader. I always try my hardest to have the level just touching the yellow on the loudest parts (-6) and have the input monitoring selected (as I'm on HD) so I can monitor the signal coming in. When I add a plugin say for example waves CLA 2A the input level increases on the fader meter. I then check the input on the plugin is just hitting -6 which is the same as the signal coming in when the plug is inactive. If this is correct and the fader meter shows an increase in signal I turn down the output on the CLA 2A making the fader level meter the same for both when the plugin is active and inactive. Now if I add another plugin I want the input to be -6 on the plugin meter and weather the plugin is active or inactive the fader meter should still be hitting -6 as well, have I got this right??? Hope I've made sense and I'm doing things right if not please advise and shed some light on what I can do to improve this
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Raoul Crane
www.blaze-studios.co.uk PT 10.3.10 HD Accel 6, Mac Pro 5.1 12 Core 3.46hz Dual Boot Lion 10.7.5 and Maverick 10.9.5 32GB Ram Magma PE6R4i Chassis |
#2
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Re: Gain Staging??
I'm fairly new to mixing music, so maybe I'm doing it all wrong, but I'm not that delicate about hitting a specific peak.
I try to keep track levels within reason, and make sure plugins are hit with healthy levels on their input. But I'm not going all scientific about it. IMHO you hurt the creative process of mixing by being that accurate, and I do not see any benefits to it. I'll happily stand corrected by the more experienced music-mixers, though.
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iMac Pro - MacOS 10.14.6 --- - Pro Tools U HDN 2019.6 - Avid HD Omni + HD I/O 8x8x8 - C|24 | S3 | Dock |
#3
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Re: Gain Staging??
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Raoul Crane
www.blaze-studios.co.uk PT 10.3.10 HD Accel 6, Mac Pro 5.1 12 Core 3.46hz Dual Boot Lion 10.7.5 and Maverick 10.9.5 32GB Ram Magma PE6R4i Chassis |
#4
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Re: Gain Staging??
Hey there,
I don't want to make it seem like it isn't important, but don't be to scientific with the gain staging. What does help is... Consider the yellow meter in PT red. (Yellow is the new red) There was a time when we had to have pretty healthy levels hitting tape decks and such to push the noise floor down and saturate the signal, but that time is over. Even at a pretty low level, your tracks are pretty high resolution. It's a good habit to get into in a daw to keep the levels a little more sane. There is no benefit to hitting things hard. (For the most part) Turn your monitor volume up. If you see any of your plugins hit red, rethink your levels. One of the first things I do when I sit down with someone who is learning is, Make a group out of all of the audio tracks and turn them down 5-10db. People tend to start out too hot. Good topic though. about 70% of everything we get is way too hot for no reason.
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bookerv12 |
#5
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Re: Gain Staging??
This is worth a read, since I believe you're investing too much worry into this.... Gain staging in the box is a lot more forgiving, since you (usually) don't have to worry about signal loss and added noise.
Long story short, there's a lot more headroom in Pro Tools than what it looks like. And you can track a lot quieter than -6dB, and not suffer from the same issues that tape would have if tracked at a low level. http://www.rcc.ryerson.ca/media/TECH...8-bitMixer.pdf |
#6
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Re: Gain Staging??
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In the template I use I turned all tracks down 9dB, so no matter what I can't start too hot.
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iMac Pro - MacOS 10.14.6 --- - Pro Tools U HDN 2019.6 - Avid HD Omni + HD I/O 8x8x8 - C|24 | S3 | Dock |
#7
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Re: Gain Staging??
http://www.musictech.net/2013/02/pro...-gain-staging/
http://www.harmonycentral.com/t5/Rec.../ba-p/34646453 http://therecordingrevolution.com/tag/gain-staging/
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Too much blood in my drugstream Motherboard: Gigabyte Z690 AERO D CPU: Intel Alder Lake Core i9-12900K CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15S RAM: Corsair Vengeance DDR5 64GB (2x 32gb 5200MHz) Drives: 2 x Samsung 980 Pro 2TB NVME PCIE 4.0 M.2 SSD (Record & Samples) 1 x Samsung 980 Pro 1TB NVME PCIE 4.0 M.2 SSD (OS Win 11 Pro) GPU:Gigabyte GeForce RTX 3060 12GB GDDR6 PCIE 4 PSU: Corsair HX Series HX850 Platinim CASE: Fractal Define XL R2 PT 11HD (v11.3.2) Omni s/pdif <> AxeFxIII HD 96I/O |
#8
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Re: Gain Staging??
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A little math for you guys; few facts: - 24 bit audio file in theory has 144dB dynamics - best AD converters are in the ballpark of 120dB dynamics => therefore you have all the resolution in -24dBFS Now that "yellow is the new red" is a really good rule of thumb. That hits the sweet spot and is kind of the old and still very useful 0VU level. And you don't necessarily have to aim for that "new red", staying below is perfectly fine. And your monitor controller does have a volume knob, doesn't it?
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Janne What we do in life, echoes in eternity. |
#9
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Re: Gain Staging??
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#10
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Re: Gain Staging??
I think the point here is recording levels and in that regard peak levels is what I consider appropriate. Mixing and mastering is a whole another story. Proper gain staging is especially important when you record, because there is no way undoing mistakes, except that you can always record again.
But yes, don't just look at the numbers. You need to know what the numbers mean. My last post assumed we're talking about peak meters and dBFS.
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Janne What we do in life, echoes in eternity. |
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