See this kid? He's pretty pissed off, he's tired of you producing awesome music that sounds like shit, because you don't gain stage your projects before mixing. That was harsh, I'm sorry, but look I care about this random kid that from a stock photo I pulled off of Pixabay. I mean I don't want him to be upset because your track is distorted and he can't enjoy your song for the banger it is. Do you want to make this kid happy?
Well sure I do!
Well then Fictional Reader, sitback and learn a little bit about the importance of gain staging and some simple tips to get started. If you learn some from this then say thanks or something.
Look, digital audio workstations, or DAW as we so lazily call them, give you so much flexibility and power these days. As they say "with great power comes great responsibility", you know like not making this damn kid so angry. You owe it to this freaking kid to gain stage your project, but more importantly you owe it to that awesome song you just finished recording.
Hey FUGLY?
Yeah Fictional Reader, what's up?
Why you gotta be so salty?
Hey it's not me, it's the kid, Yo! He is tired of music producers not appreciating the importance of gain staging. It's pretty simple really all you have to do is your controls in the mix to get the right levels of gain in the signal path. There's no damn need to blast the hell out of each signal, before you even start mixing, I mean for real, what were you raised in a barn or something full of screaming howler monkeys?
Hower Monkeys? Barns? What the hell are you talking about?
It was a reference to the second loudest animal in the world, barn, animal. Geez now I'm explaining jokes to you Fictional Reader. Anyway back to the importance at hand.
Today's DAWs offer enough headroom for creating a mix. This doesn't mean to go overboard with your inputs, because it will only lead to harsh overly distorted sounds, harsher than that kid calling you a dumbass, or me saying your song sounds like shit.
It's simple really, all it is really is just making sure you have a well-balanced signal-to-noise ratio while giving yourself enough headroom to make adjustments without distorting or clipping the that damn fine sounding synth you spent 3 hours searching for in all of your VST presets.
So smartass why don't you help me out and give me some tips on what I should do then, instead of just being an belittling asshole?
Well Fictional Reader, I think that's a mighty fine idea. Would you look at that! That kid is upside-down with joy over the fact that you are even considering all of this gain staging awesomeness. We are both proud of you.
Follow tips and you'll be on your way to a great sounding track everytime:
• You should maintain levels lower than you originally thought you should around -15 to -12 db is a great place to start. Don't worry worry about the volume, you just turn up your headphones or monitors to hear your mix better. Just keep levels low, once you got a good mix you will then have room to bring up the master level when mastering.
• Watch out for your master channel and the levels of your mix throughout the production.
• If the DAW comes with a clip gain property, then go for maintaining the channel volume to the point that it is completely green or touches yellow.
• When using samples don't worry so much about turning down at the sampler level instead stage it's levels in the mixer itself.
You follow these tips, look up a few tutorials on gainstaging in your preferred DAW and I promise you... That kid will be happy, and you won't feel so bad about yourself.
- dj FUGLY
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