gain staging

connor413

New member
i've been doing some research into gain staging but still feel unclear about it. from what i understand, it's the process of keeping a consistent signal throughout the entire chain - from mic to mixer to daw, through effects and everything, right?

so if i'm recording acoustic drums, i'd set the faders of those mic inputs on the mixer to 0 db and adjust the gain pots to achieve a hot signal without clipping, with -12db being the standard. is that about right?

would i use the same settings for a mic'd guitar cab? vocals?

and if i'm recording something that's pretty stable, like a distorted rhythm track, would it be a bad idea to shoot a little higher than -12?
 
i've been doing some research into gain staging but still feel unclear about it. from what i understand, it's the process of keeping a consistent signal throughout the entire chain - from mic to mixer to daw, through effects and everything, right?

so if i'm recording acoustic drums, i'd set the faders of those mic inputs on the mixer to 0 db and adjust the gain pots to achieve a hot signal without clipping, with -12db being the standard. is that about right?

would i use the same settings for a mic'd guitar cab? vocals?

and if i'm recording something that's pretty stable, like a distorted rhythm track, would it be a bad idea to shoot a little higher than -12?

OK lets start out by asking what kind of board you have
 
at it's most basic idea... first realize that any piece has some noise deep in the signal refered to as the noise floor... also there's a oint at which it starts to clip which is determined largely by the power rails of the device... so what we need to do is keep the signal in the center of those 2 extremes refered to the SOA (safe operating area).... in practice it can mean doing things like running the output of one device hotter in order to stay away from it's noise floor... only to pad it down at the next device so as to keep from clipping it.... make sense???
 
at it's most basic idea... first realize that any piece has some noise deep in the signal refered to as the noise floor... also there's a oint at which it starts to clip which is determined largely by the power rails of the device... so what we need to do is keep the signal in the center of those 2 extremes refered to the SOA (safe operating area).... in practice it can mean doing things like running the output of one device hotter in order to stay away from it's noise floor... only to pad it down at the next device so as to keep from clipping it.... make sense???

yeah, definitely, thanks. i understand this part, but the process of going about this is what confuses me i guess.

first off, here's what my chain looks like:

mics > behringer xenyx 1204 mixer > delta 44 > daw

from what i understand, most sources have said to level out the faders on my mixer at or around 0db (this is unity, right?) and then accommodate the signal with the gain pot, for mic preamps at least. is that about right or am i completely off base with this?

so with all that in mind, i'd want to have the signal coming out of the mixer at the best level for the delta. but i'm not sure what that level is. the delta is switchable between +4dBu, -10dBV and consumer. if the only thing i'm going to be running into the delta is the xenyx, is this something that would be a constant or would i have to switch it depending on what i'm recording at the time?

delta manual (specs on page 3, line level info on page 21):
http://www.m-audio.com/images/global/manuals/Delta44_Manual.pdf

thanks for the help guys - i definitely found the independentrecording.net article the most straightforward and thoroughly explained one out of the bunch
 
thanks for the help guys - i definitely found the independentrecording.net article the most straightforward and thoroughly explained one out of the bunch

You did?

in one of the home recording links there's one of the most simple straight forward explanations - keep your signal at +4DbU or -10DbV (depending on what your gear is rated). That means line level.

See, a microphone has a low level output which is why it needs a preamp. A preamp takes that low level (LowZ) and adds gain until it's line level (HiZ) and the simplest way to gain stage is to keep your signal at exactly line level the best you can through out your whole signal chain.

Let's assume your using all +4DbU equipment. so for instance, if your running your preamp into an outboard fx processor you want your preamp's output to be at +4Dbu which will go into your Fx processors +4DbU input. Now you wanna do your best to keep the signal at +4 while it's running through your processor and you want it to come back out at +4.

Now take that example and apply it to the gear that you have. Just try to keep your signal at your equipment's rated level throughout your entire outboard chain.
 
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