I’ve been producing for years and never fully understood gain stating. When I stumbled open a VU meter plugin review I found a video explain how to Gainf stage tracks and more importantly WHY it is needed to be done . Why is their not more videos on this topic??? It’s like the best kept secret. It was the final key that unlocked Pandora’s box for me with producing. This should be the FIRST thing anyone starting mixing should watch and fully understand. It literally increased my production level instantly, and answered soo many questions I had about why my beats just weren’t quite their. Problem solved. Gain Staging Changes Lives. Thanks for making this simple to follow tutorial man, no bs and straight to the point ⚡️
New producer question here: I understand leveling everything out at 0 DB, but do you not want some tracks louder than others, and some tracks quieter? Or is the goal for every single component to be the same loudness?
@No U Productions You will want some things louder or quieter than others. The 0 VU is just to get things at a good level before diving into the mixing side of adjusting levels. Side note 0 VU is equally to -18 dB
In Pro Tools you can shit+option+click the output of 1 of your selected tracks and choose "track" in the menu. After that name your new track and all outputs will be routed to the new track you created.
I don't think you're doing this correctly. You're supposed to gain stage each track to around zero VU, and if your stereo buss is clipping then you just pull your faders down.
Thanks for this man. Please make a video on how to eliminate mic ambience that sometimes comes during dub. Secondly, a video on keeping industry standard recording levels i.e. how to sound check if we are achieving the proper levels or not. How to set those levels in tracking and finalise the take.
Important thing is 0, 20, 40, 60, 80, 100. you might know this is the vu scale but I regard it as dBSPL. you may have seen the chart about 60dB = talking, 80dB = helicopter and so on. what if we're going to match the music world and real world? if there is 140db sound(it causes hearing loss) and you're gonna imitate that on mixing, what you will do? first, you can't get over 0 dBFS. you can try satulation, distortion. it means it is very loud sound. your ears can't take that sound. so it'll clipped by your hearing system. generally you can oversaturate(saturation, drive, clipping...) your track, if the track should be very loud. if there is no reason for that, you don't need to do that. you can measure the popular songs first. about 100 vu scale(100 dBSPL) = what tracks are here? about 80 = what's here? about 60 = what's here? and so on. then you can use that on your song. I don't care 100 means 100% or 100 dBSPL. I can use this as my standard on my mixing. do you ever heard 100 dBSPL sound? acoustic guitar can't get over about 80 dB in real world. it's the physical limitation. so, you should think it very careful and very literary. what's the meaning of 130 dBSPL voice? what's the meaning of 50 dbSPL voice?
Those Klanghelm Vu meters are very useful still. I just updated to the deluxe version for $10. Gives extra controls like phase and an EQ, mono maker. I'm not using those extras much, but figured I'll do the upgrade anyway.
why we should use a VU meter istead of gain staging each track to hit peak at -12 db and minimum -18 db , does it play any role with the plugins that emulate the analog gear or if we do the -12 we are good with analog too?
@@RawTechniqueStudios no i was wrong at that time , using VU meters with a -14dbfs calibration is the way to go , or else the mix will suck , yes record at -12 to -18 db , but the forget about it , put VU meters in every track and gain stage properly ... took me so long to finally mix properly , here is where i was messing up :) hope someone sees it and changes his approach to mixing :P
To each their own but its kinda counter productive to me. If the point of mixing is about balance then this method of gain staging causes things to not sit really where you want them to and then you have to go playing with the faders again. Might as well balance from the jump. For example, after you gain staged the 808 was too loud, snares too low etc. But it works for your process cause at the end of the day your mixes still end up 🔥.
I usually get the balance started when gain staging. Then as I mix I may readjust with the faders. So it is balancing from the jump. Guess my balance is a little different lol
of course it plays a huge role a proper gain staging you just need to train your ears , listen to albums like thriller and you ll understand why , Raw Technique Studios is definitely right ! respect Shawn !
@@RawTechniqueStudios after averaging -12db @-18db each instrument, I think this process is just to gain alot of headroom for mixing. Therefore do u balanced everything post fader?
Thanks for sharing the knowledge. What's your take on soloing each track to do the gain staging? I like your approach as well. Different techniques to reach your ultimate goal.
Doesn't this technique have the disadvantage that you have to gain stage individual tracks again when applying analogue hardware/plugins to their fx chains? Let's say (after your adjustments) you want to apply an analogue emulating compressor to a snare track. The plugin expects -18dbFS. With your technique the snare will be much quieter and therefore has to be gain staged up to meet the sweet spot input volume. The output then has to be gain staged down, because it would probably kill your ears if not. Wouldn't it be a better approach to gain stage all tracks to e.g. -18dbFS (which overall sounds awful of course), then apply your fx chain plugins and only after these steps you're gonna adjust the track's gains in order that everything sounds good and distributed?
I like to keep the gain staging going throughout the entire mixing process. This just gives you headroom to start. You can’t really use a VU meter on just the snare because VU meters don’t do well with fast transient information. So adjustments will be needed as you mix
Great Video. One thing I don't fully understand if the VU meter is calibrated at -18db, does that mean the volume on the mixbus should be hitting at -18db while the VU reads 0?
@@RawTechniqueStudios For some reason it hits harder in the mix bus meter even tho the vu is at -18db and it hits at 0 vu. Thank you for clarifying. I will practice and get it right!
I know this will be very controversial but as a sound engineer of ye old analogue systems the vu meter was misunderstood by many then and I feel it has absolutely no place in the modern digital signal chain now. ( heads for the bunker😂😂😂).
VU meters are not good for transients so I wouldn't use it for a kick drum soloed out. Levels overall are what I'm going for not individually as far as using a VU meter to get setup.
You are referring to when the kick needs to be balanced with the bass so they play well together…have kick hitting around negative 3 then blend in the bass so they both hit zero combined..it definitely works.
So why do some people have VU meters on all their individual tracks??? And where should it go on the single chain? The beginning of the chain or at the end of the plugin chain???
Not sure but it can be either place depending on what you are wanting to meter. I like it on the overall mix to see that level. I tend to do it without a meter now days
Hi ! Thank you for this very informative tutorial on "Gain Staging" But ! tell me why don't you adjust your "Gain" with the "Trim" control of the "VUMT"? but rather directly on the audio wave? Thank you ! Yours truly !
🙏🏽 you need to finish that beat, I can actually see myself doing something To it. That synth is A hit maker, do t you hear the way it hitting? Simple but lethal is my motto.
It's a old beat that I had available back in 2013. I'm thinking of taking all of my beats and turning them into loop and sample packs. That way people can get use out if them.
You said you use -18dbs for mixing but what about mastering? Once you end mixing, what measure do you use for mastering? Because it gets louder on the mixing stage.
Towards the end I noticed you said that you don’t need to try and get vocals to hit the -0 mark on the VU meter. Thank you for clarifying that but do you simply try to just blend in the vocals within the mix to find that “pocket” in the beat? Would be okay to add a little gain to a vocal track for the sake of making it sit well?
Yeah vocals just blend with the beat and that can be a little on top or inside the beat whichever you prefer. No hard in adding gain to the vocals because they have plenty of headroom to work with.
@@RawTechniqueStudios thank you bro. I’ve literally been trying to get someone to answer this ONE question for almost a week now. Got a Instagram? I’ll follow you 👌
![โฮ่ง! (SUGOI) - LYKN [ OFFICIAL MV ]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/nFp4zjAARFs/mqdefault.jpg)
I’ve been producing for years and never fully understood gain stating.
When I stumbled open a VU meter plugin review I found a video explain how to Gainf stage tracks and more importantly WHY it is needed to be done
.
Why is their not more videos on this topic???
It’s like the best kept secret.
It was the final key that unlocked Pandora’s box for me with producing.
This should be the FIRST thing anyone starting mixing should watch and fully understand.
It literally increased my production level instantly, and answered soo many questions I had about why my beats just weren’t quite their.
Problem solved.
Gain Staging Changes Lives.
Thanks for making this simple to follow tutorial man, no bs and straight to the point ⚡️
New producer question here: I understand leveling everything out at 0 DB, but do you not want some tracks louder than others, and some tracks quieter? Or is the goal for every single component to be the same loudness?
Hell yeah gain staging for the win lol! Glad you liked the video
@No U Productions You will want some things louder or quieter than others. The 0 VU is just to get things at a good level before diving into the mixing side of adjusting levels. Side note 0 VU is equally to -18 dB
There’s literally tons of gain staging videos on here
ahhh i get it. The -12 peak and -18 minimum rounds out to 0 on the VU meter almost every single time lol.
In Pro Tools you can shit+option+click the output of 1 of your selected tracks and choose "track" in the menu. After that name your new track and all outputs will be routed to the new track you created.
I don't think you're doing this correctly. You're supposed to gain stage each track to around zero VU, and if your stereo buss is clipping then you just pull your faders down.
Thanks for taking time to explain the gain stageing
Great video; nicely explained with a killer beat to showcase the technique!! Great job...
Thanks!
Thanks for this man.
Please make a video on how to eliminate mic ambience that sometimes comes during dub.
Secondly, a video on keeping industry standard recording levels i.e. how to sound check if we are achieving the proper levels or not. How to set those levels in tracking and finalise the take.
Would wait :)
Shawn I appreciate you man
I do Rock and metal and that tip was very useful for me my mix sounds amazing now cause of you cheers
Thanks for Sharing Gain staging
💯💯💯 as always .
🙌
It's one of the best ways to get a balanced gain stage 👌🏻
Important thing is 0, 20, 40, 60, 80, 100.
you might know this is the vu scale
but I regard it as dBSPL.
you may have seen the chart about 60dB = talking, 80dB = helicopter and so on.
what if we're going to match the music world and real world?
if there is 140db sound(it causes hearing loss) and you're gonna imitate that on mixing, what you will do?
first, you can't get over 0 dBFS.
you can try satulation, distortion.
it means it is very loud sound.
your ears can't take that sound.
so it'll clipped by your hearing system.
generally you can oversaturate(saturation, drive, clipping...) your track,
if the track should be very loud.
if there is no reason for that, you don't need to do that.
you can measure the popular songs first.
about 100 vu scale(100 dBSPL) = what tracks are here?
about 80 = what's here?
about 60 = what's here?
and so on.
then you can use that on your song.
I don't care 100 means 100% or 100 dBSPL.
I can use this as my standard on my mixing.
do you ever heard 100 dBSPL sound?
acoustic guitar can't get over about 80 dB in real world.
it's the physical limitation.
so, you should think it very careful and very literary.
what's the meaning of 130 dBSPL voice?
what's the meaning of 50 dbSPL voice?
Those Klanghelm Vu meters are very useful still. I just updated to the deluxe version for $10. Gives extra controls like phase and an EQ, mono maker. I'm not using those extras much, but figured I'll do the upgrade anyway.
what a GREAT explanation. THANK YOU!
why we should use a VU meter istead of gain staging each track to hit peak at -12 db and minimum -18 db , does it play any role with the plugins that emulate the analog gear or if we do the -12 we are good with analog too?
You can skip the VU meter and just use peaks instead.-12 to -18db is a good target and you will be fine at that level for analog emulation as well
Gain stage everything to either -12 or -18 once you do this then do a static mix with the VU meter!
@@musicmediaproductions what exactly is the static mix? Isn't that technically what's going on in this video?
@@RawTechniqueStudios no i was wrong at that time , using VU meters with a -14dbfs calibration is the way to go , or else the mix will suck , yes record at -12 to -18 db , but the forget about it , put VU meters in every track and gain stage properly ... took me so long to finally mix properly , here is where i was messing up :) hope someone sees it and changes his approach to mixing :P
Wow.. great
Great explanation..Thanks for the video..
To each their own but its kinda counter productive to me. If the point of mixing is about balance then this method of gain staging causes things to not sit really where you want them to and then you have to go playing with the faders again. Might as well balance from the jump. For example, after you gain staged the 808 was too loud, snares too low etc. But it works for your process cause at the end of the day your mixes still end up 🔥.
I usually get the balance started when gain staging. Then as I mix I may readjust with the faders. So it is balancing from the jump. Guess my balance is a little different lol
@@RawTechniqueStudios thats what makes this game beautiful. Thee's no right or wrong once the end result is what you want
@@ArchAngelMusiq definitely!
of course it plays a huge role a proper gain staging you just need to train your ears , listen to albums like thriller and you ll understand why , Raw Technique Studios is definitely right ! respect Shawn !
@@RawTechniqueStudios after averaging -12db @-18db each instrument, I think this process is just to gain alot of headroom for mixing. Therefore do u balanced everything post fader?
Thanks for sharing the knowledge. What's your take on soloing each track to do the gain staging? I like your approach as well. Different techniques to reach your ultimate goal.
Soloing can be fine or all playing together. Guess whatever you prefer.
Bro solo each track and gain stage every single track don't let anyone tell you something different.
@@mooklane I use Adobe Audition, so would proper gain staging just be a matter of using Clip gain & a VU meter on each track?
Doesn't this technique have the disadvantage that you have to gain stage individual tracks again when applying analogue hardware/plugins to their fx chains?
Let's say (after your adjustments) you want to apply an analogue emulating compressor to a snare track. The plugin expects -18dbFS. With your technique the snare will be much quieter and therefore has to be gain staged up to meet the sweet spot input volume. The output then has to be gain staged down, because it would probably kill your ears if not.
Wouldn't it be a better approach to gain stage all tracks to e.g. -18dbFS (which overall sounds awful of course), then apply your fx chain plugins and only after these steps you're gonna adjust the track's gains in order that everything sounds good and distributed?
I like to keep the gain staging going throughout the entire mixing process. This just gives you headroom to start.
You can’t really use a VU meter on just the snare because VU meters don’t do well with fast transient information. So adjustments will be needed as you mix
@@RawTechniqueStudios Makes sense. Thanks a lot!
Great information bro !! Dropping Keys 👌🏽👌🏽🔥
🙌
Select track/s... Click output.. Select new track from sub menu... Choose track type and name it, quicker way of routing.
haha im mad im just learning this..thank u
Really helpful, thanks a lot!
AWESOME!! I really needed this....thanks. I have Studo One but concept is the same I believe..... :)
Glad it helped!
cool
This is gold. Thank you!
Good vid i like how u explained how to use a vu meter
so helpful dude, thank you
How are VU meters different from RMS meters? Do they use the same dbFS scale? Thank you very much :)
Raw Techniques Vids, always 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥 🔥
🙌
Great Video. One thing I don't fully understand if the VU meter is calibrated at -18db, does that mean the volume on the mixbus should be hitting at -18db while the VU reads 0?
Thanks and yes 0 VU would get close to -18 dB on the mix bus meter.
@@RawTechniqueStudios For some reason it hits harder in the mix bus meter even tho the vu is at -18db and it hits at 0 vu. Thank you for clarifying. I will practice and get it right!
This is what I’m confused about as well…
I know this will be very controversial but as a sound engineer of ye old analogue systems the vu meter was misunderstood by many then and I feel it has absolutely no place in the modern digital signal chain now. ( heads for the bunker😂😂😂).
To be honest I used them for like 1 month then made this video and never use them anymore 😂
Excellent man..
Thank you!!
interesting!! thx
If you have a computer capable of streaming, what is the point of the mix bus? Why can't you throw the VU meter on the master track?
in pro tools most people use a mix bus (aux) due to there being more inserts on an aux track than a master track
Does Using a K-20 Meter inside the Pro Tools and then reducing the clip gain on each track so that it is near 0 works the same way as using VU meter?
Thanks
Some says kick and bass should be 0dB on Vu meter, Kick only -3dB
VU meters are not good for transients so I wouldn't use it for a kick drum soloed out. Levels overall are what I'm going for not individually as far as using a VU meter to get setup.
You are referring to when the kick needs to be balanced with the bass so they play well together…have kick hitting around negative 3 then blend in the bass so they both hit zero combined..it definitely works.
So why do some people have VU meters on all their individual tracks??? And where should it go on the single chain? The beginning of the chain or at the end of the plugin chain???
Not sure but it can be either place depending on what you are wanting to meter. I like it on the overall mix to see that level. I tend to do it without a meter now days
Thanks for an informative video! If I’m getting it right, i should do the same process right after i mix all instruments and vocals, shouldn’t i?
I don’t use a VU after mixing I just make sure I have at least 6dB headroom to master with.
Hi ! Thank you for this very informative tutorial on "Gain Staging" But ! tell me why don't you adjust your "Gain" with the "Trim" control of the "VUMT"? but rather directly on the audio wave? Thank you ! Yours truly !
I like to do it on the track because I don't keep the VU meter on the whole time and I like to reduce the gain going into the insert chain.
You could also use an additional (stock) gain plugin to adjust each track's gain.
🙏🏽 you need to finish that beat, I can actually see myself doing something
To it. That synth is A hit maker, do t you hear the way it hitting? Simple but lethal is my motto.
It's a old beat that I had available back in 2013. I'm thinking of taking all of my beats and turning them into loop and sample packs. That way people can get use out if them.
Raw Technique Studios that synth is gold bro, yea you should.
@@EL_N0IR_2201 🙌
@@EL_N0IR_2201 You're easily pleased.. lol
You said you use -18dbs for mixing but what about mastering? Once you end mixing, what measure do you use for mastering? Because it gets louder on the mixing stage.
I don't have a set number but I tend to stay under -6 when mastering just so I have headroom to work with.
Does this method work for the jannies?
Towards the end I noticed you said that you don’t need to try and get vocals to hit the -0 mark on the VU meter. Thank you for clarifying that but do you simply try to just blend in the vocals within the mix to find that “pocket” in the beat? Would be okay to add a little gain to a vocal track for the sake of making it sit well?
Yeah vocals just blend with the beat and that can be a little on top or inside the beat whichever you prefer. No hard in adding gain to the vocals because they have plenty of headroom to work with.
@@RawTechniqueStudios thank you bro. I’ve literally been trying to get someone to answer this ONE question for almost a week now. Got a Instagram? I’ll follow you 👌
@@rhyh4710 Cool, yeah it is @RawTechStudios
@@RawTechniqueStudios just followed 👌
you can put the vu on a 2 track too
how you get side information up to 0
good money
Where did u put the VU meter? The 808 mixer bus or Master bass?
I don't use Pro Tools, but I think he just sent all his sounds to the same channel (bus) and that is where he put the VU meter. So no, not the master.
Would you take off the VU meter plug in after this process was done or leave it there for the whole mixing process??
it's just a meter so either way is fine.
What's your take on soloing the tracks and using pink noise instead of a VU meter?
Never tried it
I’ve tried that and had good results…at least from a “does this SOUND like a well balanced mix “ standpoint.
Does this work with Trap Music as well? lets say it has a Dry Kick & 808 Sub Bass?
Yeah you can use a VU meter on any type of music
why put the meter on a bus track instead of just putting it on the master track?
If you want to see the levels of a group instead of all or because the bus is the mix bus. Just depends on what you’re looking to meter
I thought all your tracks should peak to no more than -6 db
There is no rule other than don’t clip. But having plenty of headroom helps stay far away from clipping.
@@RawTechniqueStudios so having each track peak at no more than 0 on a VU meter, you'll have plenty of head room?
@@johnp82 yeah assuming the VU meter is calibrated to something like -18 or higher is fine also
@@RawTechniqueStudios so when it's time to do the final mix, should that same VU meter on the master bus/track peak at around 0?
@@johnp82 no I only use the VU in the beginning. At the end on my final limiter I set the output to -0.3 that prevents clipping
To much work bro! Use the stage gaining plugin from hornet plugins
That plugin looks cool. It doesn't take long to clip gain though. That plugin would be good for high track count songs.
Am also using hornet gain staging vst
Do you always build your gain staging around the 808?
Not always but I do like to start on the top and the top is where I put my drums.
Just hit under 6 before mastering thank me later
I think this is useless.
Cool
@@RawTechniqueStudios the meter itself is not useless, but the method you are showing is wrong