This is literally one of the best gain staging tips on the internet right now! I've not seen gain staging explained better out of 1000's of videos! Although there are some points missing, this is the best! Thanks and keep it up!
Besides of some Producers I like who have some give aways here, this must be really the first high quality YT Tutorial video on Mixing/Mastering where I can stand the musical material 👍 Well Done Sir!
Wow! Best tutorial have seen on TH-cam. Picked up so many tips from this and made me understand Cubase’s signal path and proper gain staging correctly. Answered a lot of “why” questions I had. Thank you very much.
Great video! A good workaround I found for myself was working with sum-busses for instrument groups, which will be routed to another bus down the line. In every new bus I check the input level and adjust the pre-gain accordingly. That way I have pretty tame mix levels at the master bus and I assure that every effect plugin has enough signal to work as intended.
Thanks for another great masterclass 👍. It helped me as a double check with a pro (FeatherLightStudio) this hybrid setup that I just migrated in totallity from LPX and BitWig to Cubase 12, which I always knew would be my final DAW.
Again, really good stuff here - the entire series is so well done and I really appreciate the time you've put into making such excellent educational material, FOR FREE. I was definitely guilty of recording WAY TOO HOT. When speaking specifically about ELECTRIC GUITAR DI TRACKS, do you feel that an average of -15dbfs with a peak of the most aggressive right hand sledgehammer on strings up to as high as -3dbfs is about where a DI should be? I'm using NEVE RNDI into Fireface400 and looking at TOTALMIX monitor to see these levels.
The NEVE RNDI has a great deal of headroom so those levels should be fine going into the Fireface. Keep in mind that the TOTALMIX is only giving you peak levels into the FireFace and not into the RNDI so it might still be possible to clip at the input stage of the NEVE RNDI.
I was hoping you would offer suggested True Peak levels for outsourcing to Masters or some of the streaming services. About 16:42 you mention headroom scenarios, and ways to resolve them but not what one might be achieving in their summed output.
Great suggestion but goes a little beyond the scope of a single video and really gets more into mastering. While Cubase is capable of completing tracking/mixing/mastering processes all in the same project, there are significant advantages to breaking that process up into 3 distinct parts. While Cubase's Control Room can accurately meter True peak levels, dedicated mastering programs like Ozone and Wavelab are far better at that metering info and give you much greater control over the final product, especially for streaming destinations. Izotope Ozone is currently the industry standard for ITB streaming service preparation because of its many template algorithms. When I export a mix out of Cubase for the purpose of mastering in Wavelab or Ozone, I shoot for a true peak level of ( -2.db or -6.db ) to leave plenty of headroom to master. If I were to master a high intensity rockproject straight out of Cubase, that would be a lot closer to -0.04db and might change with each streaming service vs CD Duplication and music genera chosen. ( classical vs pop/rock/rap ) To complicate things even further, most of the current streaming services have changed their upload protocols and will 're-encode' your music to insure that the track conforms to their self imposed -14db LUFS playback standard. This standard is based on apparent frequency loudness over time vs just peak metering and is widely used in the film industry in an effort to establish a universal metric that everyone can follow. The take away is the 'volume wars' are finally coming to an end. Now its just about trying to create a finished master with musical dynamic range while still competing with commercial releases. This is where dedicated Mastering tools really pay off in the long run.
Very helpful and well presented. I notice you're using a post-fader limiter on many channels and was wondering what settings you recommend for that? I realize that different tracks may require different settings. (Cubase Pro 10 user).
The post fader limiters are there just as a safety to reduce the buildup of transients from tracks / Busses and finally the Master. This is simply to keep any 'one' effect from having to do 'all' the work and color the sound dramatically. The default release settings for the Cubase limiter is 500ms which is fine for strings and slower material but quite slow for most everything else. I usually set this to 250ms and then tune from there.
How did you get the mixer to show 2 lines for the track names? Also, I see you're sending a bunch of stuff to "limiter" send? Where is that return and what's the purpose? Great video thanks!
This video was done on Cubase 10.0.40 ( Still allowed you 2 lines of console channel titling ) Before we upgraded to 10.5.12. Its not a 'Limiter' send. Its individual limiters on each of the Buss Channels. These primarily act as safety valves for each channel before it hits the Master Buss. They are set a unity and have each of their ceiling thresholds set at -0.03db with fast attack and release. The only time they affect the signal is if a transient sneaks beyond the threshold of the buss. This technique helps keep the Buss Compressor on the Master Buss from being fooled by very fast transients that would otherwise pull down the Master Buss Comp.
We use PT because we have to but, but our main DAW is Cubase Pro because there is just SO much more Cubase can do as far as workflow and is untouchable where music creation is concerned.
"Pre' means it is the first in the signal chain before anything else. If the FX send is 'pre' it means that it comes before anything in the channel including other inserts/panner/volume fader. If it is 'Post' it comes after those things.
@@Featherlightstudio I really enjoy your way of teaching and explaining the different task. Great stuff keep up the great work love your channel!Thanks
While its always good practice to shoot for keeping the faders close to unity , the practice of 'not touching them' came from earlier 16 bit audio engines that could not produce the headroom that modern day 32 bit DAW engines can. However, its important to note that your channel faders DO affect all your 'downstream' processing of your groups/busses AND your master fader. ( for example how hard the channels hit a group/buss compressor, ect )
Hi thanks for this video. When you used the rack function pre gain minute 6:42 did you have the function meter position imput set? or put position pre fader ?? thanks for your answer.
Cubase out of the box has it's global meter position set to 'post fader' by default, but that can easily be changed by right clicking in the 'console view' just above the channel panner area and choose 'global meter settings' then click on 'meter position'. If the session is new and there are no inserts or processing then the meter is basically reading the input or 'pre' signal anyway. You could also assign a Key Command to the meter state for added convenience to toggle back and forth. If you use the 'Full Console View" you have even more powerful options for metering. In the full console view ( insert + f3 ) you can enable 'meter bridge' in addition to having the regular meters by the faders. These can be set to wave showing you the actual 'input' ' while the regular channel meters are set to 'post fader'. This gives you the best of both worlds...input metering on the top Meter Bridge and post fader metering on the regular fader.
Hi Steve - a great video (thank you)! One question though... going through every audio event and adjusting its gain can be fiddle and time consuming. What about if i select them all and normalise them? What are the pros and cons of doing this (I get mixed advice from Google)? Many thanks, Phil
Heh Philip, You can certainly select all clips and normalize but there are 2 good reason why you might not want to do that. 1. Normalizing doesn't raise all the volumes in relation to one another, it forces them to an absolute value. 2. Buy doing this, your effectively destroying all the difference between your tracks, meaning your killing all the dynamic of the song, track, or clip. This is why the use of the 'Pre Gain Control' on the track edit window in conjunction with a compressor works much better at controlling track volume and dynamics without killing the performance. 05:51 You can...however...select all the clips in a track ( or even project ) and, while all the clips are still selected, grab the little square clip gain handle at the top/center of the clip, and raise ALL the selected clips volume at one time. This will maintain all of the selected clips relative level to each other.
Featherlightstudio Thanks Steve - that’s really helpful. BTW - do you have any experience of using DTouch and a multi touch monitor? I’m just trying it out.
Thank you for the video. Could you please help explain to me why the sweet spot -18dbFS to -12 dbFS is around the -10dbFS to -5dbFS on the volume fader but not at the -18 to -12? Thank you very much.
This is because of the difference in Analog vs Digital Metering and is a MUCH bigger topic on its own. The short version is: Analog metering is measured from the noise floor upward using a dBV or dBU scale to represent the difference. Digital metering is measured from the absolute clipping point downward using dBFS or dB Full Scale.
Thanks for the great video! I have a question: I saw some videos that tell me it's better to set the pre-gain levels of every tracks at 0VU on VU meter, but when I set the levels of tracks like drum to be at 0VU, it's peak are over 0 dBFS. So should I just set the peaks to be at -18~-12 dBFS regardless of VU meter? I wonder if cliping is the thing that must never happen in every step of mixing or not.
All meters ( VU, Peak, RMS, ect ) are there to simply give you an accurate measurement of the signal level, input or output. Meaning, you still have to use your ears and eyes and if the input level is clipping, then adjust according to the meter. There is no universal setting that works for all meters. As a very general rule, always try to avoid clipping at every stage if possible.
Heh Matt, this goes into a bit more detail at 03:17 but, if you right click on any of your track meters and choose 'Input' instead of post panner, it will disregard the position of the meter and allow you to see the incoming level of your signal 'before' any downstream processing. From here you can see if your recorded levels are way to loud or way to quiet to start with. And as always, this is just a 'ballpark' guide, there are a lot of exceptions when recording.
@@Featherlightstudio Thank you so much! I really appreciate your response. The video was very helpful as far as getting the correct volume going in. Thanks again!
Thanks 4 the info. Now that I have 2 mix my own tracks is it best 2 setup the Cubase project to render & bounce audio at 48/24 I always set up at 44/24. Any help on this?
This really depends on the destination of the audio and if you are going to “Master” the tracks yourself in separate software or...mix down directly out of Cubase. Used to be that audio destined for Video (TH-cam, Vimeo, etc) was always 48k but in the last few years, 44.1k has become much more common. If your Project rate is set at 44.1k, then render and bounce at that. You will probably cause more harm to the audio trying to “re-render” to 48k.
at 1:36 You are confusing the internal processing computations done in your DAW with the recorded file format and its bit-depth..! this has nothing to do with dynamic range or headroom..;
Thanks for the heads up, I do clearly show that this is a 'Mathematical Computation" used by the audio engine of Cubase only, and not the project settings that relate to sample rate or the hardware bit depth in use. The reference to signal to noise and headroom was a computational reference only, and is admittedly a 'huge' over simplification of a much longer topic about the precision of 16bit word lengths vs 32/64bit and how the truncation ( rounding errors ) of those calculations over many times can decrease the precision of the file. Yes, word length, sample rate, bit depth, and memory addressing are all very different things. This definitely warrants a more complete explanation of Host/Plugin procession power vs project Bit depths and sample rates in a future video.
One should not say then, that the 64bit processing gets you 384 dB of range, which you do..; apart from that a nice presentation you have done, keep it up! Greets!
![PURPEECH - นี่ฉันเองคนที่... (It's me) [Official MV]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/NuhHd0hOOg8/mqdefault.jpg)
This is literally one of the best gain staging tips on the internet right now! I've not seen gain staging explained better out of 1000's of videos! Although there are some points missing, this is the best! Thanks and keep it up!
This is the utmost,best,completely understandable gain staging tutorial that I've EVER watch SUBSCRIBED !!!!!!!!!
Besides of some Producers I like who have some give aways here, this must be really the first high quality YT Tutorial video on Mixing/Mastering where I can stand the musical material 👍 Well Done Sir!
We want more information and more knowledge! One of the best Teachers on the youtube :D
thank u .. please more videos i learnt from u alot
Will do, thanks!
I'm new to Cubase but wow....This is one of not the BEST breakdowns of gain staging as a whole. Thanks! You just picked up another subscriber.
Thanks a lot for all the time spent teaching us Cubase. Very useful . Much appreciated.
You're very welcome!
This was one of the best Cubase tutorial videos I have seen.
TheJakeonthego thanks, really appreciate that!
Super useful for non-professionals, thank you very much!
Glad it was helpful!
Wow! Best tutorial have seen on TH-cam. Picked up so many tips from this and made me understand Cubase’s signal path and proper gain staging correctly. Answered a lot of “why” questions I had. Thank you very much.
Thanks for watching, means a lot!
Fantastic tutorial! I watched at least another dozen videos on Gain Staging on YT and yours is the best! I just subscribed!
Very informative thanks
Thanks a lot. It's information to the point.
Great video!
A good workaround I found for myself was working with sum-busses for instrument groups, which will be routed to another bus down the line. In every new bus I check the input level and adjust the pre-gain accordingly. That way I have pretty tame mix levels at the master bus and I assure that every effect plugin has enough signal to work as intended.
Great tip!
Again, key info bro. Thanks.
Thanks Thomas
Thanks for another great masterclass 👍. It helped me as a double check with a pro (FeatherLightStudio) this hybrid setup that I just migrated in totallity from LPX and BitWig to Cubase 12, which I always knew would be my final DAW.
Awesome!!
Another great and well explained straight to the point video!. Thank you very much!.
Great information, thank you! Can't wait for the analogue out gain staging video.
Thanks so much. Learning a lot from this vid. Tom
Great tutorial! Subscribed. Awesome channel!
Really really really great video. Thanks a lot. This is exactly what I was looking for
Greatly informative! Thanks for sharing.
new subscriber, amazing stuff mate
your videos are the best, thanks so much
very helpful, thank you very much.
Learnt so much from this one video... thank you 🙏
Awesome content! It is great to learn some more real world techniques!
Learnt a lot. Thank you.
Again, really good stuff here - the entire series is so well done and I really appreciate the time you've put into making such excellent educational material, FOR FREE. I was definitely guilty of recording WAY TOO HOT. When speaking specifically about ELECTRIC GUITAR DI TRACKS, do you feel that an average of -15dbfs with a peak of the most aggressive right hand sledgehammer on strings up to as high as -3dbfs is about where a DI should be? I'm using NEVE RNDI into Fireface400 and looking at TOTALMIX monitor to see these levels.
The NEVE RNDI has a great deal of headroom so those levels should be fine going into the Fireface. Keep in mind that the TOTALMIX is only giving you peak levels into the FireFace and not into the RNDI so it might still be possible to clip at the input stage of the NEVE RNDI.
I was hoping you would offer suggested True Peak levels for outsourcing to Masters or some of the streaming services. About 16:42 you mention headroom scenarios, and ways to resolve them but not what one might be achieving in their summed output.
Great suggestion but goes a little beyond the scope of a single video and really gets more into mastering. While Cubase is capable of completing tracking/mixing/mastering processes all in the same project, there are significant advantages to breaking that process up into 3 distinct parts.
While Cubase's Control Room can accurately meter True peak levels, dedicated mastering programs like Ozone and Wavelab are far better at that metering info and give you much greater control over the final product, especially for streaming destinations. Izotope Ozone is currently the industry standard for ITB streaming service preparation because of its many template algorithms. When I export a mix out of Cubase for the purpose of mastering in Wavelab or Ozone, I shoot for a true peak level of ( -2.db or -6.db ) to leave plenty of headroom to master. If I were to master a high intensity rockproject straight out of Cubase, that would be a lot closer to -0.04db and might change with each streaming service vs CD Duplication and music genera chosen. ( classical vs pop/rock/rap )
To complicate things even further, most of the current streaming services have changed their upload protocols and will 're-encode' your music to insure that the track conforms to their self imposed -14db LUFS playback standard. This standard is based on apparent frequency loudness over time vs just peak metering and is widely used in the film industry in an effort to establish a universal metric that everyone can follow.
The take away is the 'volume wars' are finally coming to an end. Now its just about trying to create a finished master with musical dynamic range while still competing with commercial releases. This is where dedicated Mastering tools really pay off in the long run.
Genius !!
A really nice video, thanks! I was wondering how you were able to neatly divide the vocal tracks on the left side of the mix console?
Check out this video for more info on that: th-cam.com/video/wTOILRxfIWE/w-d-xo.html
Very helpful and well presented. I notice you're using a post-fader limiter on many channels and was wondering what settings you recommend for that? I realize that different tracks may require different settings. (Cubase Pro 10 user).
The post fader limiters are there just as a safety to reduce the buildup of transients from tracks / Busses and finally the Master. This is simply to keep any 'one' effect from having to do 'all' the work and color the sound dramatically. The default release settings for the Cubase limiter is 500ms which is fine for strings and slower material but quite slow for most everything else. I usually set this to 250ms and then tune from there.
@@Featherlightstudio Thanks for details on that. I think it's a good work flow. Again, nice video. Thanks for sharing.
How did you get the mixer to show 2 lines for the track names? Also, I see you're sending a bunch of stuff to "limiter" send? Where is that return and what's the purpose? Great video thanks!
This video was done on Cubase 10.0.40 ( Still allowed you 2 lines of console channel titling ) Before we upgraded to 10.5.12.
Its not a 'Limiter' send. Its individual limiters on each of the Buss Channels. These primarily act as safety valves for each channel before it hits the Master Buss. They are set a unity and have each of their ceiling thresholds set at -0.03db with fast attack and release. The only time they affect the signal is if a transient sneaks beyond the threshold of the buss. This technique helps keep the Buss Compressor on the Master Buss from being fooled by very fast transients that would otherwise pull down the Master Buss Comp.
Man I miss Cubase, work flow is light years ahead of ProTools.
We use PT because we have to but, but our main DAW is Cubase Pro because there is just SO much more Cubase can do as far as workflow and is untouchable where music creation is concerned.
I would like to understand pre and not pre? Thanks
"Pre' means it is the first in the signal chain before anything else. If the FX send is 'pre' it means that it comes before anything in the channel including other inserts/panner/volume fader. If it is 'Post' it comes after those things.
@@Featherlightstudio I really enjoy your way of teaching and explaining the different task. Great stuff keep up the great work love your channel!Thanks
What if you use the master bus gain instead of the fader? I've been taught that touching the faders affects the audio quality. Thank you!
While its always good practice to shoot for keeping the faders close to unity , the practice of 'not touching them' came from earlier 16 bit audio engines that could not produce the headroom that modern day 32 bit DAW engines can. However, its important to note that your channel faders DO affect all your 'downstream' processing of your groups/busses AND your master fader. ( for example how hard the channels hit a group/buss compressor, ect )
Hi thanks for this video. When you used the rack function pre gain minute 6:42 did you have the function meter position imput set? or put position pre fader ?? thanks for your answer.
Cubase out of the box has it's global meter position set to 'post fader' by default, but that can easily be changed by right clicking in the 'console view' just above the channel panner area and choose 'global meter settings' then click on 'meter position'. If the session is new and there are no inserts or processing then the meter is basically reading the input or 'pre' signal anyway. You could also assign a Key Command to the meter state for added convenience to toggle back and forth.
If you use the 'Full Console View" you have even more powerful options for metering. In the full console view ( insert + f3 ) you can enable 'meter bridge' in addition to having the regular meters by the faders. These can be set to wave showing you the actual 'input' ' while the regular channel meters are set to 'post fader'. This gives you the best of both worlds...input metering on the top Meter Bridge and post fader metering on the regular fader.
Hi Steve - a great video (thank you)! One question though... going through every audio event and adjusting its gain can be fiddle and time consuming. What about if i select them all and normalise them? What are the pros and cons of doing this (I get mixed advice from Google)? Many thanks, Phil
Heh Philip, You can certainly select all clips and normalize but there are 2 good reason why you might not want to do that. 1. Normalizing doesn't raise all the volumes in relation to one another, it forces them to an absolute value. 2. Buy doing this, your effectively destroying all the difference between your tracks, meaning your killing all the dynamic of the song, track, or clip.
This is why the use of the 'Pre Gain Control' on the track edit window in conjunction with a compressor works much better at controlling track volume and dynamics without killing the performance. 05:51
You can...however...select all the clips in a track ( or even project ) and, while all the clips are still selected, grab the little square clip gain handle at the top/center of the clip, and raise ALL the selected clips volume at one time. This will maintain all of the selected clips relative level to each other.
Featherlightstudio Thanks Steve - that’s really helpful. BTW - do you have any experience of using DTouch and a multi touch monitor? I’m just trying it out.
Thank you for the video. Could you please help explain to me why the sweet spot -18dbFS to -12 dbFS is around the -10dbFS to -5dbFS on the volume fader but not at the -18 to -12? Thank you very much.
This is because of the difference in Analog vs Digital Metering and is a MUCH bigger topic on its own. The short version is: Analog metering is measured from the noise floor upward using a dBV or dBU scale to represent the difference. Digital metering is measured from the absolute clipping point downward using dBFS or dB Full Scale.
Thanks for the great video! I have a question: I saw some videos that tell me it's better to set the pre-gain levels of every tracks at 0VU on VU meter, but when I set the levels of tracks like drum to be at 0VU, it's peak are over 0 dBFS. So should I just set the peaks to be at -18~-12 dBFS regardless of VU meter? I wonder if cliping is the thing that must never happen in every step of mixing or not.
All meters ( VU, Peak, RMS, ect ) are there to simply give you an accurate measurement of the signal level, input or output. Meaning, you still have to use your ears and eyes and if the input level is clipping, then adjust according to the meter. There is no universal setting that works for all meters. As a very general rule, always try to avoid clipping at every stage if possible.
@@Featherlightstudio Thanks for the comment! Learning a lot from you.
What settings do you have your meters set to? Mine are hitting like a quarter of what you are getting. Thanks!
Heh Matt, this goes into a bit more detail at 03:17 but, if you right click on any of your track meters and choose 'Input' instead of post panner, it will disregard the position of the meter and allow you to see the incoming level of your signal 'before' any downstream processing. From here you can see if your recorded levels are way to loud or way to quiet to start with. And as always, this is just a 'ballpark' guide, there are a lot of exceptions when recording.
@@Featherlightstudio Thank you so much! I really appreciate your response. The video was very helpful as far as getting the correct volume going in. Thanks again!
Thanks 4 the info. Now that I have 2 mix my own tracks is it best 2 setup the Cubase project to render & bounce audio at 48/24 I always
set up at 44/24. Any help on this?
This really depends on the destination of the audio and if you are going to “Master” the tracks yourself in separate software or...mix down directly out of Cubase. Used to be that audio destined for Video (TH-cam, Vimeo, etc) was always 48k but in the last few years, 44.1k has become much more common. If your Project rate is set at 44.1k, then render and bounce at that. You will probably cause more harm to the audio trying to “re-render” to 48k.
at 1:36 You are confusing the internal processing computations done in your DAW with the recorded file format and its bit-depth..! this has nothing to do with dynamic range or headroom..;
Thanks for the heads up, I do clearly show that this is a 'Mathematical Computation" used by the audio engine of Cubase only, and not the project settings that relate to sample rate or the hardware bit depth in use. The reference to signal to noise and headroom was a computational reference only, and is admittedly a 'huge' over simplification of a much longer topic about the precision of 16bit word lengths vs 32/64bit and how the truncation ( rounding errors ) of those calculations over many times can decrease the precision of the file. Yes, word length, sample rate, bit depth, and memory addressing are all very different things. This definitely warrants a more complete explanation of Host/Plugin procession power vs project Bit depths and sample rates in a future video.
One should not say then, that the 64bit processing gets you 384 dB of range, which you do..; apart from that a nice presentation you have done, keep it up! Greets!