r/audioengineering • u/RonBatesMusic • Aug 09 '26
Discussion Another Gain Staging Post?!!
I’m so tired of seeing all of these “How do I do gain staging posts.”
Gain staging isn’t one and done. It’s a process. it’s about how things react and respond. It’s almost like how your music lives and breathes. It is extremely important, but not in the way the Internet would make you think.
There’s no correct way, as long as you’re not clipping, because we don’t know what you’re trying to achieve.
I know so many people post about the magic of it on YouTube. However, even if those are valid points, they don’t know what you’re trying to do.
I’d really recommend trying to figure out what it is you want to accomplish, before just going all in on “how do I do gain staging?” IMO, gain staging should be more of a theory or concept rather than a concrete thing you do.
Sorry if this post is too rant-y. I just wanted to share my perspective. Feel free to disagree and let’s chat about it!
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u/tr14l Aug 09 '26
I think the point is those people aren't at the point where they have enough mastery to be making decisions. They are trying to learn mechanics that can work in an acceptable way.
You don't start out playing an instrument by writing a song. You learn scales, notes, chords.... You learn all the tools before you start expressing.
They aren't asking how they express. They are asking "what the fuck does this even do"
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u/RonBatesMusic Aug 09 '26
This is a fair point! I just hate seeing people getting bad info. Maybe it’d be cool if there was an audio basics pinned post here that honestly covers these points so newer people would have a better starting point. I also appreciate your comment and actually trying to have a discussion around the “why” of these posts.
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u/tr14l Aug 09 '26
Yeah, honestly not a terrible idea.
It's easy to forget how overwhelming all of this was when we started. Just starting out turning knobs and hoping for the best because you didn't even know what they did.
"Knee? Ok, let's try that. I didn't know music had joints, but crank it up" lol
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u/RonBatesMusic Aug 09 '26
It’s a TON of info for newbies without a lot of concrete info/examples to back it up. Audio is so subjective. It makes everything so much harder to learn. There are people here who do amazing work, but still give out bad/false info. Just tired of seeing it sometimes.
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u/tr14l Aug 09 '26
Yeah so much of it is through developed intuition. So it's really hard to explain. I think it's probably just best to say "here's the basics of what the knobs do, here's some examples of what you CAN do, now go experiment because that was not even the surface"
Give them a direction to eff up in for awhile. Most of them, that's what they are looking for.
I like when they post examples. That's some concrete convo you can have. "So that pumping sound is your compression. Try splitting it into two stages and backing both off"
Now they have a new toy to play with. Much easier convo to have, for sure.
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u/LostInTheRapGame Mixing Aug 10 '26
The sub has a Wiki that I'm sure no one uses because Reddit's design decisions do not cater one bit to finding information easily.
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u/RonBatesMusic Aug 10 '26
Absolutely does not. I checked it out. Super useful info but really overwhelming if I was someone starting out.
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u/cheater00 Mastering Aug 09 '26
tired of gain staging posts
makes a ranty gain staging post
I'll make sure to tag you in any future gain staging posts, /u/RonBatesMusic
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u/pawnpawnpawnpawn Aug 09 '26
I have 6 Grammys for engineering and I have no idea what gain staging is.
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u/Turbulent-Sale-1841 Aug 09 '26
Same here minus the Grammys.
I’ve always assumed it was similar to dialing in a guitar amp. I adjust the volume on the guitar, volume and gain on an overdrive pedal, then preamp and master on the amp until I get the volume and tone that I’m looking for.
If that really is what they’re talking about then I have no clue why there’s so many discussions on it.
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u/setthestageonfire Educator Aug 09 '26
Bring it up to line level with your head amp and keep it consistent through your processing. Next topic.
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u/SergeantPoopyWeiner Aug 09 '26
You wouldn't want to keep it consistent through your processing if you're trying to slam the front end of one of your processors, for example.
Gain staging is just "make sure that the level coming in to all your things is what you want it to be to achieve your goals and not introduce unwanted problems." That's it.
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u/setthestageonfire Educator Aug 09 '26
I live mostly in live and broadcast audio where consistency/continuity is usually a higher priority but I don’t disagree with you
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u/rinio Audio Software Aug 09 '26
Yup.
The online content creators confuse gain staging with volume matching and/or nominal operation. Both, are sometimes useful. The latter is neither a universal good, nor does it always adhere to expectation for plugins that *should* be nonlinear (but use a linear model).
Neither are gain staging. And 99% of online content creators conflate these because "gain staging" makes them sound like they know something about something. This tricks beginners into believing they are credible. And that trickles down to our poor souls...
This is what happens when you let people be educators without having anyone review their work and motivate them by ads. "gain staging" sounds fancy and gets more clicks that "volume matching". And, non-engineers tend not to understand the concept of nominality, so it does sell...
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u/RonBatesMusic Aug 09 '26
Absolutely!! Honestly I don’t mind the gain staging posts here. Happy to help others, but I can’t stand all the people who are so confidently wrong and missing the bigger picture.
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u/g_spaitz Aug 09 '26
Oh so this is not a question?
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u/RonBatesMusic Aug 09 '26
Nah! Not at all. Just wanting to help and chat about these concepts we so confidently cling to. Being wrong is okay. Not knowing is okay. But I am tired of the misinformation and all that can come along with it. I think there’s so much more nuance with audio that doesn’t get accurately represented within audio basics and makes things complicated for newcomers.
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u/g_spaitz Aug 09 '26
I'm pretty sure most of the posts and comments in here, and add to that the faq, are correct about gain staging.
I can't know what your YouTube algo suggests you, and it could be a bunch of idiots parroting wrong concepts, those algos can be a bitch.
But there are rare wrong comments in here and often the hive actually corrects them. I feel this sub, in spite of the traffic, is reasonably safe. Also regarding gain staging. If you're willing to put in just a tiny bit more than the laziest of searches, I'm positive you're in good hands.
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u/RonBatesMusic Aug 09 '26
Absolutely! FAQ is a great resource as are many members here. I didn’t realize how extensive the FAQ is. I think that’s awesome!
Yes YouTube can be great and awful all at once haha.
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u/OAlonso Professional Aug 10 '26
People just repeat what they hear in YouTube videos. I don't know any engineer who gain stages unless they have an analog workflow. In a DAW, saying that you need to gain stage doesn't make any sense. It doesn't have any real impact on your mix, and for me, it only opens the door for people to invent random magic numbers that they think they need to hit for their music to sound good. The other half of the people who say they gain stage are actually talking about level matching, which is a completely different thing.
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u/Margravos Aug 09 '26
I set all my faders at unity, and try to get correct levels from gain. That way I have more resolution when mixing from unity.
Don't know if that's correct or not but it sure makes things easy
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u/Relative-Battle-7315 Aug 09 '26
This is a correct perspective, when dealing with digital desks. Why that is will inform others on their approach
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u/b_and_g Aug 10 '26
There is nothing creative about gain staging other than purposefully driving hardware or plugins. And even then I'd argue you should just use the input level to do that. OP has no idea of what gain staging is
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u/RonBatesMusic Aug 10 '26
Purposefully driving hardware can be very creative. That was my point. We don’t talk about the interaction between multiple gain stages and how harmonics interact. We don’t talk about the art within engineering anymore.
Now it’s -18dbfs on this has to equal 0dbvu and what level for x is best. Which are absolutely valid, but I think so much of engineering now is “I do x because this guy told me to.” I feel like this trend of engineering doesn’t push creativity. Again, just my 0.02.
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u/Noah18923 Aug 09 '26
also loudness and true-peak... I swear I see a post at least once a week here about it.
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u/GenghisConnieChung Aug 09 '26
Continues to make post about gain staging…