Let's be honest. If you know what gain staging is, you either do it because you know its benefits or you skip it because you know how tedious it is. But absolutely nobody does it because it's fun. But now, even if you don't know what gain staging is, the HoRNet VU Meter MK3 plugin let's you reap it's benefits without the hassle. With a price at just around $5, you don't have any excuses not to gain stage before every mix. Here’s how it’s made the once-agonizing process a breeze and helped me make better mixes. Why do I gain stage? Before I start a mix, I import my tracks into my mix template and set the pre-fader trim so that each one is around -18 dBFS. Why -18? There are a lot of reasons why this is most people's magic number, but without boring you with the details, it's basically the digital standard calibrated with most A/D converters. But more importantly setting all my levels to around -18 gives me plenty of headroom so my mixes have plenty of room to move without clipping. Before I even touch a fader, all of my tracks are coming into my signal path at about the same volume. That's a great way to start a mix, especially if you're mixing tracks someone else recorded pretty hot. How has the HoRNet VU Meter MK3 change my life? The first and obvious way is that I used to have to gain stage manually. I'd go through, track by track with a VU meter and level everything out the best I could. And I must confess, it's often the reason I'd skip gain staging and just dive right into mixing. But now with the HoRNet VU Meter MK3's auto feature, I put it on the first insert of each track, set it to the level I want to gain stage to, click the auto button and let it play. The plugin automatically turns the gain up or down so the average db is at the target I set. Pro tip: once the HoRNet VU Meter MK3 tells you how much it's adjusted the gain, just turn your pre-fader trim up or down that much and remove the plugin. That way you can have that insert slot back! HoRNet VU Meter MK3 helps me reap the benefits of gain staging - every time! Once all my tracks are gain staged, I get all the benefits without the hassle. Here are my two favorite benefits: 1. Most analog emulations are optimized to -18 dBFS. Ever notice a little screw on Waves analog emulation plugins? Hover your mouse over it and the number "18" appears. This let's you calibrate the plugin to outboard gear or meters. Waves defaults to -18 (many other's probably do too) so it's reasonable to assume that's the level they used when creating all their presets. While presets are never full proof, gain staging has at least helped me use them as an even closer starting point. 2. I spend less time fiddling with plugin settings. Once I've gain staged a few mixes and dialed in the perfect settings on my plugins, it's much more likely those settings will work on the next mix I use because both mixes are starting at -18 dBFS. Or at least they're much closer so I can dial them in faster. I find this most useful for setting the threshold on a compressor. I've just tweaked the compressor on my snare drum and saved my settings. Chances are, on my next mix, those settings will be much closer to the mark since both were dialed in at the same levels. Less fiddling means more mixing! So there you have it. Give the HoRNet VU MK3 a try and let me know how it changes your life. |
Jeff ThomasThis is the story of an average Joe learning to record like a pro. Archives
July 2017
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