Dive into the essential tips for gain staging your plugins and mastering without clipping. Discover the perks of using 32-bit float audio and how it can enhance your mixes. Learn the importance of headroom in both recording and mixing stages, and how to maintain a balance between loudness and audio quality. Finally, explore the challenges of mastering in today's loudness war, and get insights on optimizing your workflow for better sound.
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insights INSIGHT
Plugin Boost Cuts Headroom
Boosting gain within EQ plugins reduces their internal headroom, limiting how much input they can handle.
Purely digital EQ plugins can cope with boosts but have a finite maximum input level, typically around +20 dBFS.
question_answer ANECDOTE
Analog Emulation Plugin Warmth
David Mellor tested an analog emulation plugin that mimics valve warmth, noting warmth increases with input level.
The plugin began to distort and clip slightly above +20 dBFS, showing practical limitations of analog-style plugin gain staging.
insights INSIGHT
DAW vs File Format Headroom
Your DAW's internal processing headroom is vast and typically avoids clipping beyond 0 dBFS levels.
However, traditional 16 or 24-bit WAV files do not support this extended range, limiting static gain staging.
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In this fourth and final episode, David Mellor, a sound engineer and the founder and Course Director of Audio Masterclass, delves into Gain Staging your plug-ins and how to avoid clipping during the mixing and mastering stages.
Chapters
00:00 - Introduction
00:50 - Gain Staging Your Plug-ins 08:08 - 32-Bit Float 11:35 - Mixing And Mastering 16:27 - Gain Staging The Mix 19:32 - Headroom 21:50 - Mastering Using LUFS
David Mellor Biog David Mellor got his start in pro audio through the Tonmeister course at Surrey University studying music, piano performance, acoustics, electronics, electro-acoustics and recording.
He went on to work at London's Royal Opera House, with responsibilities including sound design, front-of-house operation, stage monitoring and electronic design satisfying the likes of Luciano Pavarotti, Placido Domingo, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa and Karlheinz Stockhausen. He has also had over 600 works published in the field of production music, including the Chappell and Carlin music libraries (now combined into Universal Publishing Production Music). Notable uses of his music include the BBC's Horizon, Fahrenheit 911, and the Oprah Winfrey Show.
David has been actively involved in Audio Education since 1986, teaching students of City of Westminster College and Westminster University, and also returning to lecture at Surrey University. He also worked with John Cage on the International Dance Course at the University of Surrey. David now specialises in online audio education and has been Course Director of Audio Masterclass since 2001.
Recording & Mixing