tubedude
New member
Ahhh... saturday night and I'm too frigging lazy to get a shower and go out and get laid. Pretty bad.
Instead, I'm doing this, and I have a headache from chsing down info and reviews all day on the Langevin Dual Mono, Sytek and Grace Design preamps.
So here goes....
Gain staging... WTF is it?
Gain what? Unity huh?
This is sort of a spin off from the last one about recording your levels hot, and to be honest, I dont remember if this was covered or not, and I'm not even going to check. So what.
Lets take an "average" signal chain.
mic --> preamp --> compressor --> EQ --> converters/tape.
This is assuming, of course, that you NEED an EQ and comp in the chain. Remember from before, minimize the signal path, get better quality recording.
Ok, our mic is feeding the preamp its signal from a loud guitar amp. Most everyone knows to adjust the gain on the preamp to play around at or very near the red, with room for dynamic content without peaking into distortionville. For a lot of unexperienced recordists, this is where things get hazy. "My gain is right, so now I'm good to go". Thats partially correct. You're good to go on that particular part of the chain. What happens now when out signal hits the compressor? Hopefully our preamp converted the signal into professional +4 operating levels and is feeding that to the compressor though a clean connection. The idea of the compressor is usually to ride louder passages and keep everything in a preey nice, smooth dynamic range. It does have other uses, but this is our usage for now.
Ok, we're tracking and the guitar player is playing some leads and the preamp meters are right where you want them. Most likely you would have the compressor maybe sucking off a db or 2 at the most at this point. Suddenly, the guitar player nails his lowest chord with a palm mute, which exagerates the bass frequencies, and bam... your preamp meters are at the highest point you want them and the compressor is suddenly chopping out 6 to 7 db. So far nothing has distorted because we're good like that, right?
You notice that the meters on the input of the compressor are no longer lining up with the meters on its output. You were at -3 on both before, suddenly the input is higher than the output. This is cause by the gain reduction done by the compressor. The idea is to try to get the output even with the input, at highest levels without distorting into the red. When they are the same, it is known as "unity gain" and is an important part of tracking. This is done with a makeup gain function on the compressors output. Why? For one, the stronger your signal is, the higher it is over the noise that is present in your chain. Less noise makes happier boyz. We'll hit on another reason shortly.
Next was the EQ. Same theory, but the EQ can do either or both of 2 things, cutting and boosting frequencies. Cutting freqs will lower the overall signal strength, as boosting will increase it. A passive EQ most will most times weaken a signal some. Again, what you want here is unity gain going to the converters or tape. Now, if you;re using converters, you'll know if you clip. Ugly shit, not a nice distortion. Keep it out of the red at all times. With tape, sometimes you can get a desirable effect by letting it hit the tape really hard. Use your ears.
Change One Change All, the balancing act...
The next thing thats important to remember is that changing the signal gain at any point in the chain will affect it at its next stages.
For instance, if you have all your levels just right, and someone bumps the mic out of place, and you find that you need to adjust the preamp gain, it most likely will affect the amount of signal hitting the compressor and whatever follows. As a rule, if you change a gain setting, including any EQ'ing or compression ratios, you have to follow up by at least doing a quick check on every meter that follows. Make sense?
Riding The Gain
Gain riding is actually putting your hand on the gain during a performace you know well, say your vocalist, and keeping the level as hot as possible and reducing it when louder passages come in, increasing when softer passages happen. This can make your job mixing easier, as well as elimimate a compressor from the chain. Its also kinda fun, too, but tricky. Takes some getting used to.
Calibrating to unity across the chain
If you set up your entire chain and everything is running at professional +4 levels, and you have no compression set in and no eq adjustments, everything flat basically, then you can get an idea of how well calibrated your system is by running 0db out of the preamp, and all meters from start to finish should show the same level, no changes. There should be no changes in gain levels until you start adding/subtracting EQ and compression, etc... this can give you an idea of how your system operates...
One thing to watch out for is different operating levels at different areas in your chain. If your preamp puts out +4 and your compressor accepts +4 and outputs the same, but your EQ accepts -10 and outputs -10, then you have to kick back up to +4 for your converters, well... you see the problem. I hope you see the problem.
Umm, I can't think of anything else right this second, and I'm sure Bruce and everyone is gonna jump in and add some good shit too.
Ask as many questions as you can til you understand it all. Once you do, its second nature.
Happy tracking.
Paul
Instead, I'm doing this, and I have a headache from chsing down info and reviews all day on the Langevin Dual Mono, Sytek and Grace Design preamps.
So here goes....
Gain staging... WTF is it?
Gain what? Unity huh?
This is sort of a spin off from the last one about recording your levels hot, and to be honest, I dont remember if this was covered or not, and I'm not even going to check. So what.
Lets take an "average" signal chain.
mic --> preamp --> compressor --> EQ --> converters/tape.
This is assuming, of course, that you NEED an EQ and comp in the chain. Remember from before, minimize the signal path, get better quality recording.
Ok, our mic is feeding the preamp its signal from a loud guitar amp. Most everyone knows to adjust the gain on the preamp to play around at or very near the red, with room for dynamic content without peaking into distortionville. For a lot of unexperienced recordists, this is where things get hazy. "My gain is right, so now I'm good to go". Thats partially correct. You're good to go on that particular part of the chain. What happens now when out signal hits the compressor? Hopefully our preamp converted the signal into professional +4 operating levels and is feeding that to the compressor though a clean connection. The idea of the compressor is usually to ride louder passages and keep everything in a preey nice, smooth dynamic range. It does have other uses, but this is our usage for now.
Ok, we're tracking and the guitar player is playing some leads and the preamp meters are right where you want them. Most likely you would have the compressor maybe sucking off a db or 2 at the most at this point. Suddenly, the guitar player nails his lowest chord with a palm mute, which exagerates the bass frequencies, and bam... your preamp meters are at the highest point you want them and the compressor is suddenly chopping out 6 to 7 db. So far nothing has distorted because we're good like that, right?
You notice that the meters on the input of the compressor are no longer lining up with the meters on its output. You were at -3 on both before, suddenly the input is higher than the output. This is cause by the gain reduction done by the compressor. The idea is to try to get the output even with the input, at highest levels without distorting into the red. When they are the same, it is known as "unity gain" and is an important part of tracking. This is done with a makeup gain function on the compressors output. Why? For one, the stronger your signal is, the higher it is over the noise that is present in your chain. Less noise makes happier boyz. We'll hit on another reason shortly.Next was the EQ. Same theory, but the EQ can do either or both of 2 things, cutting and boosting frequencies. Cutting freqs will lower the overall signal strength, as boosting will increase it. A passive EQ most will most times weaken a signal some. Again, what you want here is unity gain going to the converters or tape. Now, if you;re using converters, you'll know if you clip. Ugly shit, not a nice distortion. Keep it out of the red at all times. With tape, sometimes you can get a desirable effect by letting it hit the tape really hard. Use your ears.
Change One Change All, the balancing act...
The next thing thats important to remember is that changing the signal gain at any point in the chain will affect it at its next stages.
For instance, if you have all your levels just right, and someone bumps the mic out of place, and you find that you need to adjust the preamp gain, it most likely will affect the amount of signal hitting the compressor and whatever follows. As a rule, if you change a gain setting, including any EQ'ing or compression ratios, you have to follow up by at least doing a quick check on every meter that follows. Make sense?
Riding The Gain
Gain riding is actually putting your hand on the gain during a performace you know well, say your vocalist, and keeping the level as hot as possible and reducing it when louder passages come in, increasing when softer passages happen. This can make your job mixing easier, as well as elimimate a compressor from the chain. Its also kinda fun, too, but tricky. Takes some getting used to.
Calibrating to unity across the chain
If you set up your entire chain and everything is running at professional +4 levels, and you have no compression set in and no eq adjustments, everything flat basically, then you can get an idea of how well calibrated your system is by running 0db out of the preamp, and all meters from start to finish should show the same level, no changes. There should be no changes in gain levels until you start adding/subtracting EQ and compression, etc... this can give you an idea of how your system operates...
One thing to watch out for is different operating levels at different areas in your chain. If your preamp puts out +4 and your compressor accepts +4 and outputs the same, but your EQ accepts -10 and outputs -10, then you have to kick back up to +4 for your converters, well... you see the problem. I hope you see the problem.
Umm, I can't think of anything else right this second, and I'm sure Bruce and everyone is gonna jump in and add some good shit too.
Ask as many questions as you can til you understand it all. Once you do, its second nature.
Happy tracking.
Paul
))) keep the tips coming good on ya m8
