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What is gain staging?

Posted: September 24th, 2020, 5:49 am
by vortexsupernova
I got a feedback on my song in Newgrounds:
Nice, the arpeggio give me 2000s electronic dance vibes. I liked how punchy the drums were as well. I think some stuff you could work on for future songs is gain staging and changing the tuning for drums slightly to be more in the key of the music, if you're already trying to do this then you can ignore that bit. Great work either way.

--Dadush (dadush.newgrounds.com)
My song has bigger dynamic range, some unecessary loud volume of some instruments, and a few clippings. I think that was the reason why he suggested gain staging? But I dont know what is gain staging. I did some research but I barely understand some things.

How do you do gain staging in LMMS? What do you do to the fx channels and/or effects?

Re: What is gain staging?

Posted: September 24th, 2020, 8:38 am
by scratchmatch
vortexsupernova wrote:
September 24th, 2020, 5:49 am
I got a feedback on my song in Newgrounds:
Nice, the arpeggio give me 2000s electronic dance vibes. I liked how punchy the drums were as well. I think some stuff you could work on for future songs is gain staging and changing the tuning for drums slightly to be more in the key of the music, if you're already trying to do this then you can ignore that bit. Great work either way.

--Dadush (dadush.newgrounds.com)
My song has bigger dynamic range, some unecessary loud volume of some instruments, and a few clippings. I think that was the reason why he suggested gain staging? But I dont know what is gain staging. I did some research but I barely understand some things.

How do you do gain staging in LMMS? What do you do to the fx channels and/or effects?
Great article about gain staging https://www.izotope.com/en/learn/gain-s ... do-it.html

I'd say make your loudest instrument (drums most of the time) to a certain level of volume (at least -3db or louder) and match other instrument's volume to that by ears - not too loud, not too quiet. Depends a lot on the genre of course.

Re: What is gain staging?

Posted: September 24th, 2020, 3:52 pm
by vortexsupernova
scratchmatch wrote:
September 24th, 2020, 8:38 am
Great article about gain staging https://www.izotope.com/en/learn/gain-s ... do-it.html

I'd say make your loudest instrument (drums most of the time) to a certain level of volume (at least -3db or louder) and match other instrument's volume to that by ears - not too loud, not too quiet. Depends a lot on the genre of course.
Thank you, it helps a lot :)

Re: What is gain staging?

Posted: September 28th, 2020, 6:32 pm
by brandystarbrite
Gain staging? Wow! I haven't heard that term in a long time. :)