Technically you can lose precision with repeated floating point operations, but it's not usually something you need to worry about in music production, unless you're doing something truly out there. If you're programming with floating point numbers it's definitely something you need to be aware of though.
Q: What’s the best way to bring all your faders down at once? A: Tell them they were made cheaply (by Begrinher) and will crackle & break sooner rather than later. You can tell if your mix is too ‘Clippy’ when an annoying cartoon fader icon appears, saying you look like you’re writing a song and asks if you want help choosing the notes.
@@jasonchu4400 It’s not an engineering joke really - Clippy used to be the irritating animated Help character in Microsoft Office. The first part, on the other hand is an obvious snipe at the quality of Behringer products.
I don’t believe changing the clip gain in Logic is destructive by the way. I just ran a test to double check and indeed the original file had not been altered in any way. I made double sure, closed the project quit logic, started again and the original file is not altered at all, no change in gain or file date etc. I have often wandered though what exactly is going on when I change the clip gain though. I assumed it was simply an internal function in Logic, which my test seems to back up. Just thought I’d mention it.
Being able to change the gain of an audio region non-destructively from the Inspector is very useful. It’s also surprising how many people don’t seem to realise that you can reverse a region in a similarly non-destructive way.
Yeh it's definitely non-destructive. Its a really handy feature but would love it if it was a bit more efficient to use - like clip gain in Pro Tools, or even just let us set our own key command!
While not necessary I love to use the Klanghelm VUMT for this purpose. It’s very cheap, you can trim the levels, set high and low pass filters and it even has a single band compressor. (It’s also M1 native)
When recording, always set up your gain and outboard first, before using plugins at all. Every plugin is behind the AD conversion and you can't correct the gain afterwards. Also, I would never use anything on the masterbus, while recording, other than a limiter for safety reasons. In a complex setup it's sometimes difficult to find an internal clipping, this can happen easily when you re-use track or plugin settings. A quick click through all of them saves you time in the end. I miss the analog days sometimes. A clipping was a clipping and gain staging was much more important, so all of us learned that at the beginning. Today with 32bit and headroom to record a starting rocket up close, many sloppy recordings are forgiveable. Sorry for making it so long, these are such so bad times and any diversion is most welcome. Peace!
In fact, there are people who don't know how to do gain staging correctly, and there are even those who don't know how to do it Worse, it's those people who can't hear the clearly audible distortion their mixes have. Excellent video!
An anagram of 'Gain staging matters' is 'Mastering giant tags'. Now that can't be a coincidence, right Mark? Anywho, great video as always! I learn, smile and improve my audiyoyoism. Thx!
I’ve been doing this for ages without knowing it was called gain staging… just tried finding a way to get the right sound and levels out of my analog-modelled plug-ins. Thanks for clarifying!
Really excellent guys, thank you. I appreciate the work you put into this. You corrected me on a small detail I hadn't properly understood. I was struggling with this very issue today. I keep recording my fortissimo french horn parts too loud, and have a better strategy for managing this now. Thank you!!!
A lot of virtual instruments will start up with their output at 0dBFS which means lots of adjustments. I've gotten to where I set the default preset of Omnisphere with everything at -18.
Yes, it's true. If you're all digital, the only gain staging you need to do is your main buss. If it isn't overloading, you're fine. The only exception is if you're using any analog emulation plugins. Those can cause problems. Otherwise, gain staging is an old analog mindset and you just don't need it in digital. Producer Kenny Gioia pretty much proves this on his channel.
Hey just a correction - reducing the gain of a region in the inspector drop-down menu like you did in the video does NOT destructively change that audio file in Logic Pro x
@PresentDayProduction - there is an error at 3:45 in the video. Logic's Region Gain Parameter is not destructive. It behaves no differently than the gain plugin also used in the video. Other than that - I enjoyed the video. (BTW - It can also be conveniently lowered across all channels at once.)
If your mix sounds like a hipposhart tsunami you're probably doing it wrong. If your kick drum sounds like an exploding eardrum, you have achieved gabba nirvana.
isn’t it important to note that its the RMS value we need to look at to gain stage it right? Not peak value. That would bring the level down so low analog style compressors might not be doing much even at full throttle.
When we finally have 32-bit flopping point, the DAW will just know. On the other hand it will also randomly crash throughout the day to nap and your CPU fans will start purring.
How is the comparison underpinning this argument valid? I struggle to see how creating compression settings for levels that are 20dB lower than the original and then feeding the tracks through the same compressor at the original level and saying “this sounds bad” proves gain staging is important. It seems like an excellent example of how compression can be used like distortion when extreme settings are applied, but has very little to do with gain staging. I’m fine with learning that gain staging is significant, but I don’t find this comparison compelling. That being said, I don’t mean to be a jerk. Love you guys and this channel. Thanks for all you do!
Because many many modern plugins emulate real hardware - hardware that has a particular sweet spot around 0dB VU or -18 dBFS. If you stray away from the sweet spot the hardware modelling plugin will sound like crap.
Yeah some emulations 'emulate' the transformers and other circuitry before the compressions stage that are in the units they are emulating. So if you hit the plug hard, there with be some processing going on. even with no GR.
VU meter to the fast transient is almost unusable. Everytime i tracking drums, set the mic gain low properly, the VU on the API channel strip showed about -10 to -7 dBFS(-28 to -25 dBU equally),my apogee symphony io's meter is about -13 to -10 dBFS(0dBFS=+24dBU so +11dBU to +14dBU equally). So i highly doubt that recording drums in the analog era ,signal was clipping much by using console and VU meters.
One thing i want to know guys, how do you properly mic up a Flopcat?? if you used the phones mic i'd be most dissapointed lol. We all need to know how to gain stage a cat : )
Once again an excellent and informative video. I do however note the reduction of Flop Cat content! Have you guys over compressed the Cat content channel?
Why do devolpers design analogue modelled vst this way. They should have automatic gain staging so that the vst works at the optimal level all the time of at least be switchable.
it would take away the ability to control the saturation they cause. analogue modeling never made sense to me. you need saturation, use an extra plugin for it
What do you do if you like the way the whole mix is hitting the master bus processing but the output level is clipping, is it then ok to bring down the master fader?
Very useful, thanks; I used to apply volume automation instead of a gain plugin for a recording gain staging issue, is it correct? I suppose it depends on the fader, if the fader is pre-FX it would be righr, if it is post wouldn't fix the problem, am I right? 🤔🤔 I am now definitely going to use the gain plugin option so in that way I don't have to care on the fader settings
Gain is when you turn down the volume of your hearing aid when your girlfriend is screaming too loud for hours. A compressor only reduces the incoming signal when your girlfriend is yelling that you have to do the dishes.
Normalize destructively raises the highest peak level on the audio file to 0dbfs. It scans the file for its highest peak and then raises the whole file up in level so that peak is now 0dbfs.
@@NgaTaeOfficial Though in logic if you normalize form the main window, all it does is set the clip gain to the max without clipping. so thats a non destructive way of doing it
Technically you can lose precision with repeated floating point operations, but it's not usually something you need to worry about in music production, unless you're doing something truly out there. If you're programming with floating point numbers it's definitely something you need to be aware of though.
"Accumulative" is the key word here when gain staging! Another great tutorial guys!
Q: What’s the best way to bring all your faders down at once?
A: Tell them they were made cheaply (by Begrinher) and will crackle & break sooner rather than later.
You can tell if your mix is too ‘Clippy’ when an annoying cartoon fader icon appears, saying you look like you’re writing a song and asks if you want help choosing the notes.
😂
this Audio Engineering inside joke kinda went over me..
@@jasonchu4400 It’s not an engineering joke really - Clippy used to be the irritating animated Help character in Microsoft Office. The first part, on the other hand is an obvious snipe at the quality of Behringer products.
@@PANTECHNICONRecordings thank you for your explaination, i appreciated that!
I don’t believe changing the clip gain in Logic is destructive by the way. I just ran a test to double check and indeed the original file had not been altered in any way. I made double sure, closed the project quit logic, started again and the original file is not altered at all, no change in gain or file date etc. I have often wandered though what exactly is going on when I change the clip gain though. I assumed it was simply an internal function in Logic, which my test seems to back up. Just thought I’d mention it.
Being able to change the gain of an audio region non-destructively from the Inspector is very useful. It’s also surprising how many people don’t seem to realise that you can reverse a region in a similarly non-destructive way.
A1! The destructive editing in Logic is in the audio file editor window, or selection based processing.
Yeah, that didn't sound right; thanks for checking.
Yeh it's definitely non-destructive. Its a really handy feature but would love it if it was a bit more efficient to use - like clip gain in Pro Tools, or even just let us set our own key command!
While not necessary I love to use the Klanghelm VUMT for this purpose. It’s very cheap, you can trim the levels, set high and low pass filters and it even has a single band compressor. (It’s also M1 native)
Another great video on a topic that doesn’t get talked about enough when people are looking for information on how to begin their recording journey.
When recording, always set up your gain and outboard first, before using plugins at all. Every plugin is behind the AD conversion and you can't correct the gain afterwards. Also, I would never use anything on the masterbus, while recording, other than a limiter for safety reasons.
In a complex setup it's sometimes difficult to find an internal clipping, this can happen easily when you re-use track or plugin settings. A quick click through all of them saves you time in the end.
I miss the analog days sometimes. A clipping was a clipping and gain staging was much more important, so all of us learned that at the beginning. Today with 32bit and headroom to record a starting rocket up close, many sloppy recordings are forgiveable.
Sorry for making it so long, these are such so bad times and any diversion is most welcome.
Peace!
Changing the gain in the Inspector in Logic does not change the file destructively. Changing it in the File Editor does. So don’t do that…
Definitely one of the better explanations of gain staging I've seen. Thank you!
In fact, there are people who don't know how to do gain staging correctly, and there are even those who don't know how to do it Worse, it's those people who can't hear the clearly audible distortion their mixes have. Excellent video!
Lots of useful videos on your channel
And another one, very busy boys!
They're too busy, someone give these guys a holiday!
An anagram of 'Gain staging matters' is 'Mastering giant tags'. Now that can't be a coincidence, right Mark? Anywho, great video as always! I learn, smile and improve my audiyoyoism. Thx!
No way! :O Mastering Giant Tags will be our new motto.
I’ve been doing this for ages without knowing it was called gain staging… just tried finding a way to get the right sound and levels out of my analog-modelled plug-ins. Thanks for clarifying!
Awesome! Glad to help!
Great info gents, you really know what you are doing and explain it quite well in a concise and useful way
Great video! Really helpful stuff here. Those ATC’s are amazing as well 👌🏼
Really excellent guys, thank you. I appreciate the work you put into this. You corrected me on a small detail I hadn't properly understood. I was struggling with this very issue today. I keep recording my fortissimo french horn parts too loud, and have a better strategy for managing this now. Thank you!!!
Why doesn't this channel have more subscribers?
A lot of virtual instruments will start up with their output at 0dBFS which means lots of adjustments. I've gotten to where I set the default preset of Omnisphere with everything at -18.
Yes, it's true. If you're all digital, the only gain staging you need to do is your main buss. If it isn't overloading, you're fine. The only exception is if you're using any analog emulation plugins. Those can cause problems. Otherwise, gain staging is an old analog mindset and you just don't need it in digital. Producer Kenny Gioia pretty much proves this on his channel.
Hey just a correction - reducing the gain of a region in the inspector drop-down menu like you did in the video does NOT destructively change that audio file in Logic Pro x
@PresentDayProduction - there is an error at 3:45 in the video. Logic's Region Gain Parameter is not destructive. It behaves no differently than the gain plugin also used in the video. Other than that - I enjoyed the video. (BTW - It can also be conveniently lowered across all channels at once.)
If your mix sounds like a hipposhart tsunami you're probably doing it wrong. If your kick drum sounds like an exploding eardrum, you have achieved gabba nirvana.
isn’t it important to note that its the RMS value we need to look at to gain stage it right? Not peak value. That would bring the level down so low analog style compressors might not be doing much even at full throttle.
Yes this, and then adjust accordingly if it is something with extra transient/dynamic range, like a snare drum for instance
When we finally have 32-bit flopping point, the DAW will just know. On the other hand it will also randomly crash throughout the day to nap and your CPU fans will start purring.
What about a video to educate us about metering tools like REW and how to read the results?
Very useful. Thank you
Professional _Level_ Processing
How is the comparison underpinning this argument valid? I struggle to see how creating compression settings for levels that are 20dB lower than the original and then feeding the tracks through the same compressor at the original level and saying “this sounds bad” proves gain staging is important. It seems like an excellent example of how compression can be used like distortion when extreme settings are applied, but has very little to do with gain staging. I’m fine with learning that gain staging is significant, but I don’t find this comparison compelling. That being said, I don’t mean to be a jerk. Love you guys and this channel. Thanks for all you do!
Because many many modern plugins emulate real hardware - hardware that has a particular sweet spot around 0dB VU or -18 dBFS. If you stray away from the sweet spot the hardware modelling plugin will sound like crap.
Yeah some emulations 'emulate' the transformers and other circuitry before the compressions stage that are in the units they are emulating. So if you hit the plug hard, there with be some processing going on. even with no GR.
Doesn't logic have postfader inserts ? this way you still could bring the master fader down to get a healthy level into the limiter/maximizer.
Do most DAWs (or Logic for that matter) handle it when you exceed gain limits BETWEEN plugins?.. 🤔
VU meter to the fast transient is almost unusable. Everytime i tracking drums, set the mic gain low properly, the VU on the API channel strip showed about -10 to -7 dBFS(-28 to -25 dBU equally),my apogee symphony io's meter is about -13 to -10 dBFS(0dBFS=+24dBU so +11dBU to +14dBU equally).
So i highly doubt that recording drums in the analog era ,signal was clipping much by using console and VU meters.
One thing i want to know guys, how do you properly mic up a Flopcat?? if you used the phones mic i'd be most dissapointed lol. We all need to know how to gain stage a cat : )
Whichever mic they use, I hope they connect it to the interface with a cat 9 (lives) cable.
Once again an excellent and informative video. I do however note the reduction of Flop Cat content! Have you guys over compressed the Cat content channel?
What do you mean when you say the clip gain in logic is a destructive edit? Just that it changes the level on the source file?
They were wrong about that, it doesn’t do anything of the sort
What is the matter with logic's "clip gain"? Shouldn't it work just fine for this example? I didn't quite get the problem with it here.
There’s nothing wrong with it, they were wrong about that point
Why do devolpers design analogue modelled vst this way. They should have automatic gain staging so that the vst works at the optimal level all the time of at least be switchable.
it would take away the ability to control the saturation they cause. analogue modeling never made sense to me. you need saturation, use an extra plugin for it
What do you do if you like the way the whole mix is hitting the master bus processing but the output level is clipping, is it then ok to bring down the master fader?
Yes
Very useful, thanks; I used to apply volume automation instead of a gain plugin for a recording gain staging issue, is it correct? I suppose it depends on the fader, if the fader is pre-FX it would be righr, if it is post wouldn't fix the problem, am I right? 🤔🤔
I am now definitely going to use the gain plugin option so in that way I don't have to care on the fader settings
Who in their right mind does not monitor the signal in their plugins? I mean surely you can see it’s clipping lol.
My faders all go to 11 and I never record anything in doubly. 😅
In pro tools, the master fader’s plugins are post fader aren’t they? So you can just turn down the fader…
* starts to doubt myself immediately 🤔😅
I think you’re right. As a Logic user of nearly 20 years, I’ve never understood why PT does that.
Very interesting but i don't see a difference between what you call a gain plugin and a compressor?
Gain is when you turn down the volume of your hearing aid when your girlfriend is screaming too loud for hours. A compressor only reduces the incoming signal when your girlfriend is yelling that you have to do the dishes.
Hmmm... "Gain" magic?
Nice vid. How does this relate to the Logic "Normalize" levels function?
Normalize destructively raises the highest peak level on the audio file to 0dbfs. It scans the file for its highest peak and then raises the whole file up in level so that peak is now 0dbfs.
@@NgaTaeOfficial Though in logic if you normalize form the main window, all it does is set the clip gain to the max without clipping. so thats a non destructive way of doing it
Cat tax? Did you just donated cat tax?