Gain Staging
Setting the right level at every stage so nothing clips and nothing sinks into noise
Related
Gain staging means setting the level at every stage — preamp, plug-ins, buses, output — into that stage's sweet spot: high enough to clear the noise floor, low enough to leave headroom before clipping.
Aim for roughly unity gain at each stage, boosting or cutting only where needed, and read peaks and average level on meters rather than by feel. Cumulative gain makes a chain louder until the bus clips. The rule of thumb maps 0 VU to about -18 dBFS, leaving 18 dB of headroom, though gear and material vary.
The usual mistake is to treat gain staging as "turn everything up". At 24-bit, recording conservatively costs no useful resolution; making every stage peak only saves distortion for the end.
Related → Headroom
Sources
- 增益结构与标称电平，参 Huber & Runstein, Modern Recording Techniques 与 Bob Katz, Mastering Audio 的通行论述；本文为原创表述
Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.