Gain staging? Isn’t that something guitarists obsess about when chaining effects pedals together to avoid hammering the input levels of each box, as well as the front end of their precious tube amps? Surely, gain staging is a thing of the past for recording musicians working with DAWs that offer stratospheric dynamic ranges.

Well, such rebuffs do have merit—to a point.

If your DAW uses 32-bit floating-point resolution, for example, you’re looking at what can be described as an obscene amount of dynamic range—around 1,680dB. Even 24-bit recording offers approximately 144dB of dynamic range—a figure that has been accurately and hilariously defined by Brooklyn producer and educator Justin Colletti (sonicscoop.com) as “more than the difference between leaves rustling in the distance and a jet airplane taking off from inside your home.”

Given the above data, it seems virtually impossible to sully, deform or distort 24- and 32-bit digital signal paths. However, you need to get into the small print before undertaking a rowdy and unfettered approach to your recordings. Those “tiny-text exceptions” have a lot to do with plug-ins—which are obviously vital to digital recording—but they also inform other operations that can have a significant impact on the clarity and expansiveness of your mixes.

Table of Contents

What Is Gain Staging?
Dynamic Range Comparison Chart
A Quick Chronic of Audio Gain Staging
How to Optimize the Source Signal From Mic to Preamp
Watch Analog Hardware Levels in Your Digital System
Take Care With Digital Plug-ins That Emulate Analog Gear
The Point of No Return
How Important Is Gain Staging?

What Is Gain Staging?

Quite simply, gain staging is the practice of setting ideal audio levels across a signal chain. The goal is to set the output level of a processor so that it doesn’t distort the input stage of the next processor. If everything is set optimally, the signals are sufficiently high to rise about the noise floor of a recording but not loud enough to overdrive the subsequent processor in the chain. The result is superior headroom and pristine audio quality throughout the entire pathway of analog and digital devices—if you want that.

The yin and yang of gain staging is that you don’t have to keep everything spotless. You can choose to distort certain analog processors or digital emulations of analog gear to attain a vibey saturation.

What you don’t want to do is bust through a purely digital ceiling of 0dBFS (decibels full scale). Go over that limit in a non-32-bit floating point situation, and you’ll likely experience hard digital clipping (squared off waveforms), which is the opposite of pleasing.

Dynamic Range Comparison Chart

	Analog Tape	16-Bit Digital	24-Bit Digital	32-Bit Floating Point Digital
Dynamic Range	77dB	96dB	144dB	1,680dB

A Quick Chronicle of Audio Gain Staging

Primitive gain staging was present even in the very low-fidelity era of mechanical recordings cut into wax and metal discs during the late 1800s to early 1900s. Musicians typically had to play loud to record above the noise floor of the playback medium, as well as “mix” the instruments by arranging themselves around a single horn that captured the sound of the ensemble. Engineers of the day were likely thrilled to document sounds at all, so they probably weren’t overly concerned with some level of input distortion (which was inherent in the audio discs anyway) and didn’t have a lot of control over signal levels in the first place.
When Western Electric’s electronic microphone systems debuted in 1925, the advancement not only greatly improved sound quality, but it also spurred development of mic preamps, power amps, mixers, compressors, EQ filters and other processors. Now faced with more devices crowding the signal path, engineers took measures to ensure narration, music and sound effects were reproduced as tidy as possible for radio plays and recordings. The new medium—and its increased audio requirements—soon established careers for “professional recording engineers.”

The recording scene got more intense when magnetic tape was introduced to the world in 1945. (Germany used tape for broadcasting since inventing the media in the ’30s, but World War II restricted the technology to Deutschland until the Allied victory.) Signal chains still had to address the gain stages of hardware preamps and processors, as well as the additional sonic influences of tape biasing and tape-deck calibration and, eventually, the demands of multitrack recording.

By the 1960s, proper gain staging—a procedural bastion for producing clean, coherent and dimensional audio—had been subverted by rock-and-roll rebels seeking new sounds. These artists and producers purposefully sought ways to sabotage gain stages to create overdriven signals. Gritty methodologies included, but definitely were not limited to, pinning recording meters in the red, cranking up preamp levels and, in the case of “Street Fighting Man” by the Rolling Stones, driving the input of a Phillips cassette player to transform acoustic guitar parts into belligerent, ragged aggression.

The Beatles used “gain stage distortion,” as well. For “Revolution,” John Lennon’s Epiphone Casino was plugged into a direct box, routed to the mixing board, and then the preamps were creamed to craft that blistering tone. The same method was used for Paul McCartney’s fuzz bass on “Think for Yourself.”

Pro tip: You can evoke the “Fab Four fuzz” without journeying to Abbey Road Studios London and time traveling to 1965 to enlist Beatles engineer Norman Smith with the Chandler Limited REDD.47 Tube Microphone Preamp.

Pictured: Chandler Limited REDD.47 Tube Microphone Preamp

In the mid 1970s, digital recording revolutionized the audio industry, and rather quickly led to excellent-quality, musician-operated home studios that eventually supplanted the dominance of big, commercial studios. While digital audio massively improved dynamic range, it didn’t necessarily unleash a “wild west” of gain staging approaches, nor did it eradicate the concept and practice of gain staging.

So, let’s look at three ways you can set optimum levels for your recordings …

How to Optimize the Source Signal From Mic to Preamp

Digital dynamic range doesn’t mean a whole lot if you tarnish the signal before it even gets to your DAW. If you’re miking instruments and vocals, the starting line for gain staging is your microphone. Snare and kick drums, and horns and guitar amps possess the sonic muscle to overwhelm condenser and ribbon mics—and, in extreme cases, even some dynamic microphones—if you’re not guarding the purity of the input signal.

Pro tip. For the sake of staying focused on gain staging, we’re not going to discuss mic-placement techniques in this article, but if you want some refresher courses on miking strategies for source sounds:

• The Best Drum Recording Techniques

• How to Record Electric Guitar

• How to Record Acoustic Guitar

• Best Microphones for Recording Vocals

Getting back to microphones and source sounds, if you hear unwanted audible distortion, you have a couple of options to clean up the signal:

• Reposition the microphone. Sometimes, the mic is simply too close to the source. If you can move the mic away from the “danger zone” that is causing the microphone to overload, go for it. The safe distance may be relatively close to the position you already had, and if that’s the case, there shouldn’t be a significant tonal variation. Keep in mind that any attempt to avoid distorting a mic or mic preamp by changing its location will have an effect on the sound. If moving the mic changes the sound to a point where it’s no longer what you are trying to achieve, you may have to enter the “compromise zone” of sacrificing a few shades of tone for clean audio or vice versa.

Pictured: Microphone Positioning on Fender '68 Custom Deluxe Reverb Amplifier

• Deploy the pad on the mic, mixer or preamp. If you don’t want to adjust the microphone position or have the singer back off from the mic, many condensers have an onboard pad to reduce the incoming signal level. Padding can also be a less sonically intrusive gain staging approach than repositioning a mic, as pads typically reduce signal strength without significantly altering audio character. The AKG C414 XLII, for example, offers three attenuation levels (-6dB, -12dB, -18dB), and the Neumann U 87 Ai provides a -10dB pad. If your mic doesn’t have onboard attenuation capabilities, you can always use the pads on your audio interface, mixer or standalone microphone preamp. The Universal Audio Apollo Solo Heritage Edition includes a -20dB pad, Yamaha’s MG12XU offers beefy -26dB pads on its mono inputs, and the Universal Audio LA-610 Mk II Classic Tube Recording Channel provides a -15dB pad, to name just three options.

Pictured: Universal Audio Apollo Solo Heritage Edition Audio Interface

Pro tip. Obsessively watching signal meters isn’t always the most productive way to ensure your gain staging is delivering clean audio. Trust your ears. Listen critically for any evidence of buzzy signals—no matter what the meters are showing. If you hear something, do something.

Watch Analog Hardware Levels in Your Digital System

Just because you are using a DAW doesn’t mean you’ve freed yourself from old-school, analog gain staging. For example, you may opt to use analog hardware for your recording system’s front end, or as external inserts in your DAW. You may have seen a YouTube demo touting the glories of some vintage or retro-influenced, hardware mic/line preamp or compressor, and guess what, if you incorporate that marvelous and vibey device into your digital system, you’re also embracing analog gain staging.

Pictured: Rupert Neve Designs Shelford Channel Strip

You now have three main jobs to ensure proper level settings for that beauty (or beauties):

• Don’t use anemic input levels. If the input signal to your analog gear is too quiet, you risk veering too close to the device’s noise floor. A whispered, Billie Eilish-style vocal may be surrounded by very distracting audible hiss, for example, if you get all wispy with your mic preamp’s gain control. Conversely, cranking the input level to chase the subtle passages of a nylon-string guitar part can also introduce noise.

• Carefully monitor mighty input levels. Slamming the input of an analog device may produce “unusable” distortion. We put “unusable” in quotes, because the role of overdrive in the analog landscape is subjective. You may desire some charming grit, or the grind may offend your sensibilities. Again, trust your ears. But you may also need to look ahead to your third job …

• Optimal gain staging must be practiced throughout the entire signal chain. Remember our definition in “What Is Gain Staging?” Every point in the signal chain needs to be kept clear and distinct from the source to the mix bus. Crafting some pleasing distortion on a vocal with that vintage preamp is probably all kinds of awesome for that particular element, but if too many other parts of the signal chain are similarly driven too aggressively, the mix could be compromised with a pool party of audio gremlins. There’s no reason to abandon that saturated vocal if you love it, but it’s probably a good practice to adjust—meaning, in this case, reduce—the levels down the line to ensure a fair amount of headroom. In short, the level of every single track and every single processor in your signal path should be adjusted to ensure an impactful, coherent and dimensional mix.

Take Care With Digital Plug-ins That Emulate Analog Gear

It stands to reason that a digital plug-in, being digital, should follow the dynamic-range benefits of digital audio. But here’s some more fine print: Unless the plug-in scrupulously models the behavior of analog gear. In that case, your gain staging should follow analog wisdom. Hit that plug-in too hard, and you’ll get analog-style, saturated audio—even if you lower a corresponding fader to gain some headroom.

Now, the overdrive may be exactly what you want, but even if you are recording and mixing completely in your DAW, that plug-in may require you to follow the same methodology as if you had incorporated hardware analog processors inside the digital realm. To ensure you are managing any vintage analog plug-ins properly, please reread the previous section in this article, “Watch Analog Hardware Levels in Your Digital System.”

There’s also a bit of a “cheat code” to gain staging plug-ins. Most plug-in manufacturers settled on a basic input-level standard. Send your signal into a plug-in between -12dBFS and -18dBFS, and all should be well. Another safeguard is the dedicated output control found on lots of plug-ins. Use it to manage how hot the signal is going to the next plug-in present in the chain.

Pro tip: Want an ultimate “cheat” for ensuring plug-in gain staging is optimized? Check out the Soundtoys Decapitator 5. The Decapitator not only provides five drive emulations (Ampex tape, EMI/Abbey Road hardware, Neve channel, triode tube, pentode tube), but its Auto Gain function automatically reduces the output level. This means you can punish the Decapitator’s input to achieve feral levels of saturation—if you so choose—and rest assured the output gain will be managed to provide optimum headroom, and avoid gain staging glitches down the line.

Pictured: Soundtoys Decapitator 5 Plug-in

The Point of No Return

Perhaps the most important directive of digital-audio gain staging is making sure your DAW’s master bus doesn’t reach or exceed 0dBFS. This is imperative. Creep past 0dBFS, and your audio will be degraded to some level—even if you’re in a 32-bit floating-point environment. Here’s why …

• Many DAWs utilize 32-bit floating-point for internal processing. You can virtually ignore 0dBFS for your tracks without fear of digital distortion. However, if you bounce down or export your project, any sample exceeding 0dBFS will introduce digital clipping.

• Files exported at 24-bit that surpass 0dBFS will distort.

• Many recording projects still utilize 24-bit converters.

• Currently—even with 32-bit and 24-bit files available—tons of music distribution services work within the 16-bit file system.

• Gain staging your project to coexist and cooperate in a 16-bit fixed-point realm—where 0dBFS means 0dBFS—could avoid audio tragedies in your future. (At least the way the “future” is now—things can change.)

How Important Is Gain Staging?

If the concept of precise gain staging triggers spasms of curiosity in your tech-nerd neural net, there are plenty of scientific audio tomes you can get yourself lost in. Likewise, there are copious articles and YouTube videos littering the web which offer additional tips and techniques on gain staging for home-recording devotees and future pro audio engineers.

But you may still be asking yourself if history is clinging to a once-essential operation that offers an infinitesimal percentage of sonic benefit in today’s recording industry. It’s possible the enormous dynamic ranges of high-end digital recording really have terminated the need for precision gain staging.

However, keep in mind gigantic, 32-bit dynamic ranges come with a price. The colossal file sizes may be problematic for those who don’t have ultrarobust computing power, specialized storage networks and professional-level file transfer capabilities—especially if you’re producing pop epics or film scores that require legions of tracks. So, playing it safe is never folly. Whichever DAW you use, adherence to gain staging guidelines and best practices can ensure a flawless mix down the line.

That said, we’ll leave you with an old-school studio tale and a final thought.

The late Mitch Miller of the kitschy, so-not-hip Sing Along With Mitch television series (1961–1964) was also an innovative record producer, pop-music influencer and head of A&R at Columbia Records. Miller reportedly had a habit of sitting behind his engineers as they mixed a song and barking “freeze” when he liked the sound. One day, after hearing the freeze command, an engineer said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Miller, the recording meters are in the red. I need to turn down the levels.”

When the engineering crew returned to the studio the next day, they discovered that every single meter was hidden under mounds of gaffer’s tape.

The lesson here? If you love the way your track sounds, consider embracing it—no matter what the meters may be trying to tell you. A positive strategy, then, is to approach gain staging correctly, but if the sound doesn’t knock you out, get in there and fearlessly shatter convention until you’re beaming.