How to adjust track gain of individual channels?

I am going through setting up proper gain staging for my templates and would like to know where the gain knob is for each track?

Pre (Filters/Gain/Phase)

Thank you. didn’t realize that the “e” button must be pressed on track fader…

So do you (and/or most people) keep the tracks fader at 0 and just adjust the pre gain knob?

no - use the faders.


The gain is generally set by your recording volume in… or the output level of a VST or synth etc.

You do also have the option of attenuating the level of audio on the main page by selecting and moving the square anchor in the middle of the selected audio.


The gain can be useful on the master if you’re running too hot.

I pretty much never use the pre/gain in Cubase, i fail to see the point.
But I have to add that I record the audio myself, and do the gain staging before the AD converter.

If I mix stuff for others, I find it much less confusing just normalizing everything to say -12dB and use clip/gain to adjust here and there. That keeps the visual waveforms to match the actual output.

I tend to work like this:

  • Normalize every (audio) part to 0dB (I like to be able to see proper waveform in my project window. I know I could use the slider on the right hand side, but I just prefer this)
  • Open mix-console, reset everything (just be be sure), Meters to hold & forever.
  • Play through the hole song 1 time and check all meter levels at the end.
  • Lets say the masterbus has + 12 dB, than I normally set all channel gains at -10 dB.
    I work with a hardware controller, so I like my faders at unity/0 as/at my starting point.
    Leave the gain untouched and just bringing all the faders down as suggested, that will put them in a lower “range”, = less accurate.
    Check out this video, I based my work-method on that: A Simple Trick To Maintain Headroom In Your Mixes - YouTube