VSTs at different levels out of the box

[John Vere]

Huge time saver for me when making backing tracks. I have over 200 now and I need them all to be exactly the same mix. 

I get weird glitches where even though there is no volume controller data my Ample bass will jump to a louder level than the pre set. I will catch that right away by the level in the meter. 

[CDK]

Thanks for all your replies, everyone. I'm a very experienced MIDI programmer but not as experienced in audio processing. I appreciate all your help

[CDK]

Actually one last question for today/tonight.

Can anyone suggest a good tutorial on using compressors/limiters (in BandLab) to get my finished track up to a volume level similar to commercially produced tracks, please?

[Starship Krupa]

On 10/6/2019 at 9:23 AM, lapasoa said:

Instead to speculating about every single VST gain, it would be much better in your mixing to use your ear and your creativity and you'll be fine.

Solid gold advice.

When confronted with hugely varying signal levels coming from multiple virtual instruments, rather than wasting your time trying to get them in the same range, fire them all up with whatever's coming out, whether they're almost pegging your meters or barely audible, and use your ear and your creativity to make that mix happen.

All that other speculation about gain staging and whatever, it's just superfluous. Who cares? It's all digital. Same with compressors and limiters. Even if you've never used them before and have no idea how they're supposed to work, or even what the function of any of the knobs is, just use your ear. Keep adjusting the controls until it sounds like you want it to. Then you're done.

You think I'm kidding? Darn straight I am.

[CDK]

On 10/8/2019 at 12:33 AM, Robert Bone said:

I do agree that using one's ears is a critical part of the whole music production, from start to finish, however I have seen many sources give -18 dBFS as a good target peak for digital audio recording.

From a Sound On Sound article on Gain Staging: "If you take the sound with the highest peak levels and set it so that it peaks at between -12 and -18 dBFS, you shouldn't run into problems with plug-ins or summing on the mix bus".

In any case, I initially set instrument volume and gain to a target of around -18 dBFS for my digital audio recording projects, without involving faders at that point.  (Avoid using faders for initial gain staging, because they affect signal after the plugins, and by adjusting instrument volume and gain, you are setting appropriate levels for sending signal to the plugins).

Bob Bone

If we're talking virtual instruments for a moment - so when you get to the mixing stage (after you've done all your gain staging), do you export your audio into a new project and begin adding eq/fx etc from there? Would you normalize your tracks first?