Gain staging HELP!

[Marcello]

Hi! First time I do a mix, I have several electric guitar tracks. I recorded them with th3 plugin amp simulator. The output of the plugin was set up almost at maximum when recorded. Now the guitar sound look ok to me, but I have a few peaks on the volume bar so I reduced the volume from the faders of each track so it doesn’t reach the red. 
Now in each track the gain is set at 0. I have read that a gain staging should be done, it seems that to balance the gain I have to turn off the effects and eqs on each track and put the fader and gain to 0 as a start, then play the guitar tracks and adjust the gain (not the faders) to be roughly between -18 and -12/-6  (peak) db on the fader meter. After this adjustment I should then enable effects and eqs and when you do this it will take more room and unbalancing the meter again, so at this point the output in the plugin should be adjusted to again stay between -18 and -12/-6 db . It’s this procedure correct? Is it necessary? Because of course I set up the guitar sound from plugin amp with the gain I like, when then I adjust the gain from cakewalk consol of course it takes the gain down or up of the guitar, so then I have to readjust the gain on the amp again to reach the sound I created before. Hence, a bit messy and long procedure. Is it good practice to do gain balancing this way? Or I can just keep the gain at 0 and use the fader in order to not reach the peak?

 

[Nigel Mackay]

It needs to be done the long way. 😀

(Very rough) Guide

You should get all the music recorded, and written if using MIDI, before you do anything else. (Of course, you can do quick checks to see if what you are doing is feasible, but the problem is things don't sound the same when played alone or with the entire mix.) That is the tracking stage.

Then switch to console view and, with all effects disabled, using Input Gain get continuous sounds to -18dB RMS and very peaky sounds (like snare drum) to -12dB PEAK. No need to be OCD about it. That is gain staging.

Still with no effects, adjust the levels of all the tracks to get close to the sound you want. That is the dry mix.

Now you start tweaking. Enable TH3. Set it for the sound you want, and then use the last knob level to bring it back to -18dB. Then EQ, compression, bring it back to -18dB. All the way through. That is part of the mixing stage.

You will find that at various points through the music you will need to make changes. Make something louder during the chorus, fade something a bit during a solo, that sort of thing. You use automation for that.

When the automation is finished, your mix is done.

[Marcello]

Great many thanks!!!