I have cubase LE elements 12 on a PC with Podfarm 2 plugin. Just been introduced to gain staging by a mate as my mastered tracks have previously sounded very overcooked.
I tick the Pre filters/gain/phase from the rack dropdown in the mix console which causes the gain to be present in the pre filter settings box (all good).
I have a guitar track with a pod farm insert. For this track I take the fader to zero and then try to get the output track level down to -18 (from what I can gather, standard gain staging). As I drag the gain down, the podfarm insert effect is reduced and by the time the track level is -18 the effect on the guitar has gone.
What am I doing wrong?
Thanks, Neil.
By “drag the gain down” I assume you mean the pre-insert gain control you mentioned earlier, right? so what’s happening is that you’re lowering the input into your pod farm insert. So if that amp emulation (?) has (wanted) distortion at some point it’s going to change as you change the input level.
What you should do is set the input into the plugin so that the plugin sounds the way you want. If the plugin has an output level control then you can use it to change the output level.
There are no magic numbers when you adjust levels at different stages (“gain staging”), just set the levels so that you get the sound you want and can work effectively and efficiently.
In this case you adjust the input first to get the response of the amp sim you’re looking for, and then either adjust the output of the plugin if you have to or you use the fader at the end of the signal chain. The fader is there to be used, leaving it at zero is something you can do of course but it’s there for a reason.
Also, “down to -18” doesn’t really mean anything. Is it an average level or peaks you’re referring to? Very big difference. And why that number? Generally I don’t believe in doing things without understanding what the reason is for doing them and how things work.
People overthink these things just because they hear the fashionable term “gain staging”.
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Couldn’t agree more. Some folks get obsessively fixated on hitting and maintaining a specific level throughout the signal chain. When mostly you just need to keep the signal from getting too high or too low and maintain a general level of consistency.
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If you’re using amp sims you should be using the plugins input and output controls (as much as they allow you to).
Use the Input Control and Master Output Control in Pod Farm, not the gain dial or faders of Cubase.
Set Cubase’s pre-gain to zero, Cubase’s faders to about -5, then get the tone you want, then adjust the Master Output on Pod Farm to get the required dBs on Cubase’s channel meter.
This would depend very much on the genre of the music.
The -18 is standard practice on hardware mixing consoles - unless your output is going to analogue emulation plugins, it’s irrelevant.