GAIN STAGING misunderstandings, suggestions?

[Svemir]

Hi there,

I am still confused about some gain staging matters.
Seems there is too much hype about gain staging, people freaking out about it, when hearing mixed tracks here on the forum claiming the guitars are too hot!
First of all what do you mean by "hot"?
Is a metal super distorted guitar hot? of course it is by definition! it's super distorted!

Just to make you understand my doubt I have properly gain staged my guitar track as per manual, then I added a guitar amp plugin where you can choose different amps.
I have chosen an amp I like, despite the sound is great is lacking some distortion even if the amp gain is at maximum, this because when I did gain staging at the beginning I had to decrease the gain knob to stay between -18 and -6db.
So I decided to increase the gain on the track to increase distortion, and in order not to clip I decreased the volume fader, is this OK?

Usually everyone says that you should gain stage, then if it's clipping with plugins you should decrease the plugin output or gain, but that would change the sound making it less distorted, so I just low the volume fader.

My question is, instead of lowering the gain knob on the track in order not to clip, is ok if I low down the volume fader instead?
In the following video, he says it's just fine and ppl are just making too many issues with gain staging.

 

[mjbphotos]

Once you have digital clipping happening on a track, lowering the output volume fader won't change that! You have to stop the clipping from happening, which means lowering the input gain. I think you may be confusing the 'gain' control on your amp sim, which often is actually a simulation of making an amp distort by raising the input level.
When someone says a track is too 'hot' it means its' gain is too high and you are getting digital distortion. You don't want digital distortion - because it is literally chopping off the top of the wave forms - they are louder than the digital world can handle. If you want more distortion on your guitar track, use a plug-in (before the amp sim) if your amp sim isn't doing it enough.

On the other hand, if your master tracks are clipping (in the red), lower the output volume faders on all the tracks (or at least the ones that are overdriving things). This is usually the result of tracking too loud to start with. I have my drums on a group fader, instruments on a group fader and vocals on a group fader. If I see its's all adding up too loud - almost clipping, or maybe the loudest hits are going in the red, I just lower all 3 group faders a bit.

 

[keith.rogers]

I haven’t seen a lot of “freaking out” around here, just suggestions that it sounds like there is digital clipping, which is a gain staging problem.

Fortunately most DAWs today have 32-bit internal audio so there’s a bit more room to manage the 0dBFS problem if the input is ok and the final output below that.

However, we really don’t know what goes in inside a plug-in, which is where some might choose to err in the side of caution to insure inputs to those are managed even before, i.e., at each and every step. Some folks are just “sticklers for detail” about these these things. And it’s possible their ears are more sensitive, so never hurts to listen.

Moving a track fader only affects input to whatever bus it’s going to, not gain within plugins. And if your mix, when checked with something like Youlean’s loudness tool, shows peaks above 0dB in your fixed-point bit-depth mix, you should probably at least try to understand why and where that is happening. No freak-out, just IMHO, my $.02, etc...

 

[Farview]

I think you are missing some context. "Gain" means different things depending on what you are trying to do. Gain on a guitar amp or amp SIM is essentially a distortion control.
The gain control on the interface sets recording level. The gain control in the daw adjusts the level that goes into the next thing in the mixing chain.

With the di guitar, set the gain on your interface so that the signal doesn't clip. This is to avoid clipping the converters, which sounds bad.
If you are using an amp SIM on the input channel in your daw, and it doesn't have enough distortion, you need to increase the gain in the daw to drive the amp SIM. Depending on which daw you are using, there may be a gain control on the channel strip or you might have to insert a plugin, like a compressor set to 1:1 so you can use the makeup gain.

Once you get past the converters and are in the daw, the floating point math keeps the signal from clipping internally, so you can add as much gain as you need to drive the amp SIM. Then turn down the fader to set the mix level.

Generally, the only thing we are trying not to clip are the converters, so the input level and output level are the super important ones. Internal gain structure doesn't matter as much, unless the plugins you are using are emulations of real equipment that react differently at different levels.

 

[Svemir]

I think you are missing some context. "Gain" means different things depending on what you are trying to do. Gain on a guitar amp or amp SIM is essentially a distortion control.
The gain control on the interface sets recording level. The gain control in the daw adjusts the level that goes into the next thing in the mixing chain.

With the di guitar, set the gain on your interface so that the signal doesn't clip. This is to avoid clipping the converters, which sounds bad.
If you are using an amp SIM on the input channel in your daw, and it doesn't have enough distortion, you need to increase the gain in the daw to drive the amp SIM. Depending on which daw you are using, there may be a gain control on the channel strip or you might have to insert a plugin, like a compressor set to 1:1 so you can use the makeup gain.

Once you get past the converters and are in the daw, the floating point math keeps the signal from clipping internally, so you can add as much gain as you need to drive the amp SIM. Then turn down the fader to set the mix level.

Generally, the only thing we are trying not to clip are the converters, so the input level and output level are the super important ones. Internal gain structure doesn't matter as much, unless the plugins you are using are emulations of real equipment that react differently at different levels.

I am using guitar plugin amp emulation, very good one.

Thing is I gain stage without any plugin, and it happens that is clipping with gain at 0, hitting -1 or 0db
so I turn the gain down until the maximum threshold of -6db is reached. Gain staging done.

Then I add the plugin with amp distortion at maximum, but since I previously put down the input gain before with the hob set at -6 gain, now the amp is not too distorted, because the input gain is weaker.

Despite this is not clipping still I adjust the input gain closer to 0, now it's clipping but the amp distortion is good, the sound seems good to me honestly.

So now I just put the volume fader down so doesn't clip.

Is this procedure wrong?

 

[Steenamaroo]

+1 to what Faview said. Gain on a guitar amp is for taste/tone.
When we talk about gain staging we mean we're making sure that the signal isn't trying to exceed the capabilities of the gear at each stage of the chain.

Say you had a mic -> hardware preamp -> hardware EQ - > Audio interface.

If you have the mic preamp gain so hot (loud..high) that the signal is clipping coming into the EQ, there's no use just turning down the output of the EQ.
Doing so will make the final output signal quieter, and make your interface happy, but the signal will still have been 'clipped' and most likely sound bad,
so the solution is to reduce the mic preamp gain until the signal is health coming into the EQ.

In your case, since you're using a VST, the only hardware to worry about is the gain of the preamp/interface.
You should be using an instrument level input via 1/4" plug, or DI box into mic-level input via XLR, and setting the gain such that it does not go into the red when you thrash the guitar.
You should check the meters or peak LED on your interface for this - not meters in your VST.
If there's no indication on the interface then the main track meter on the DAW will do - Just make sure fader is at 0 and there are no live plugins when you check.

With that set your DAW should be seeing a health signal - Now work one the tone at the virtual amp.
Most have an input and output level control, along with gain. You should be able to adjust input level and/or gain to get the distortion you want,
safe in the knowledge the actual recorded audio is not clipped.

 

[Farview]

Exactly. You need to set the level of the di guitar without the amp sim so that you make sure you are not clipping the converters.

After the signal is in the computer, you can add gain in the daw to make the amp SIM have as much distortion as you want. How you do that will depend on your daw, but what will work in any daw is to insert a compressor plugin before the amp SIM plugin, set it for no compression and simply use the makeup gain to boost the signal into the amp SIM.

Some daws have a gain control on the input channel that you could use to boost the signal. The big thing to learn is where you add gain is important. Adding gain on your interface will clip the converters, adding gain in the daw is completely safe.

 

[Farview]

I am using guitar plugin amp emulation, very good one.

Thing is I gain stage without any plugin, and it happens that is clipping with gain at 0, hitting -1 or 0db
so I turn the gain down until the maximum threshold of -6db is reached. Gain staging done.

Then I add the plugin with amp distortion at maximum, but since I previously put down the input gain before with the hob set at -6 gain, now the amp is not too distorted, because the input gain is weaker.

Despite this is not clipping still I adjust the input gain closer to 0, now it's clipping but the amp distortion is good, the sound seems good to me honestly.

So now I just put the volume fader down so doesn't clip.

Is this procedure wrong?

The only thing you are doing 'wrong' is using the input gain on your interface to drive more signal to your amp sim. You had the recording input gain set correctly in the first place, you should leave it like that.

If you need to push the amp sim harder, raise the gain in the daw, not the interface. If the signal coming out of the amp sim is now too loud, turn down the output of the amp sim (if there is one) or turn down the channel fader.