Balancing Four Gain Settings

K

Kye Zaeta

New member
Hello All! This is my first post here so sorry if it's already been answered or in the wrong section.

I have a Blue Yeti Pro, a Focusrite Scarlett 2i4, and a dbx 286s. I have it connected: Yeti (XLR)--> dbx (Line)--> Scarlett (USB)--> PC My question is, how do I balance the gains on all of them?

Anything I'm not sure about I usually just keep in the middle. But with the Yeti, it's just too loud. I keep the mic gain at around 25%.

https://i.imgur.com/tS8VlHi.jpg

If I had it at 50% I'd have to set the line gain on the dbx very very low (not sure if that's a bad thing or not, but I'll assume it is until told otherwise).

Next is the line gain on the dbx. This one I actually know a little about. The level should generally be below zero or at zero when speaking very loudly. This one I'm pretty confident with.

https://i.imgur.com/2GDkkvc.jpg

However, if I need to adjust my microphone gain, I would also need to readjust the line gain as well.

Then there's the output gain. I really don't have a clue with this one.

https://imgur.com/V4w3ogy,tS8VlHi,2GDkkvc#0

All I know is that the signal shouldn't clip. So I set it just below the point where the clip light flickers.

Lastly there's the Scarlett gain. Now I know that I basically have a secondary unneeded pre amp, but I need a medium for the audio to get to my PC via usb.

https://i.imgur.com/xOnzb6t.jpg

Obviously this should be set so that the audio doesn't distort while recording in-application, so this one isn't such a worry either. But this one is also dependent on the settings of the other gains.

The two main ones I'm confused about are the mic and dbx output gain.

Any help would be appreciated!
 
In most cases....you set the gain starting at the source and then adjust downstream gear as needed.

Get the level of the source set...then adjust the gain of the mic so you are not overloading the mic...then adjust the gain of the pre so it's doing what you want (sometimes you may want more, sometimes less)...then set the gain of the next item (and/or the output of the pre)....etc.

I most cases...once out of the pre, you'll want to establish and maintain the signal level....though sometimes if you are going to drive a comp, you may again want more or less than nominal.
 
Assuming that you're just looking for the cleanest signal with the best S/N ratio and not deliberately shooting for distortion along the way, it kind of depends on where the noise is in that system. I know that's not a super satisfactory answer, but you really kind of need to get to know your gear.

It usually works that you want to get all the gain you'll need to get through the chain as early as possible. In this case I would start by putting everything at unity - that's 0 on all those dials. Then turn the mic gain up until it's not clipping anywhere along the line and leaves a bit of headroom in the DAW. That really is your best bet for clean and quiet, and it would be the "right way to do it" in a quick setup where you didn't have time to try different things.

It is at least possible that the gain element of the microphone adds more noise as it's turned up than the dbx might, so it's worth trying to turn the mic down a bit and make up the difference at that point. Listen/test and see which gives you the least amount of noise.

Most of the time the output gain is too late in the chain to be quieter than the input gain, but I suppose it's worth a shot - turn the mic down, input at unity, and turn up the output.. It's also unlikely that you'll get best results turning stuff down earlier and cranking up the interface, but again it can't hurt much to try.

Like I (and mironinja up there) said, though, we usually try to get all of our gain up front and then just let it go at unity the rest of the way. Always try to avoid situations where you're attenuating at one stage only to add gain later. But every system is different, so you might need to fiddle with it to get the absolute best possible results.
 
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