Better Sound, Through Proper Gain-Staging

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mojobone
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Re: Better Sound, Through Proper Gain-Staging

Post by mojobone » Tue Aug 26, 2014 9:56 pm

Something the article didn't delve too deeply into is that not all meters are created equal in the DAW world; it pays to dig into the user manual and find out what your meters are supposed to be doing. Many DAW meters have a built-in 'fudge factor', meant to prevent you from clipping at the summing bus or at the AD converter. In other words, if you don't check, there may be more available headroom you're not using. The best meters show peak and average levels side by side, so you can easily see/adjust the crest factor. (crest factor is the difference in dB between peak and average RMS level) Not all DAWs include this feature, but there are some inexpensive/possibly free VST plugins that do. I use Roger Nichols' Inspector, but I'm pretty sure it was discontinued.

Pan Law also figures in, here. My DAW recently updated, and they changed from a global pan law to per-track, so now if I build a template, I have to change the pan law to my preference for every single track, because it now defaults to linear, rather than -3dB at center. If my levels are hot, and I pan something center that was previously panned full left or right, it could clip because both speakers are now producing the same sound, thereby doubling the energy-IF I don't change the pan law.
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Jack
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Re: Better Sound, Through Proper Gain-Staging

Post by Jack » Fri Sep 12, 2014 5:01 pm

feaker66 wrote:Hi moj

I read it all. Comprehended 11%:) Keep volumes a little lower I guess. :oops:

Peace

Paul
lol that's more or less what I got out of it as well! Still helpful, nonetheless

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