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Gain Strucutres and where to adjust volume
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psilonaut
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Oct 10, 2007 12:23
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I was reading a short article today in MusicTech Magazine August edition about gain structures and it talked about setting your master volume to max at the start of writing a track then lowering it as you add sounds and instruments and the mix "hottens up".
This got me thinking about where to adjust volumes on a sound so as to not lose sound quality.
For instance say I have a vst instrument connect to a midi track. Now if I need to make the sound louder/softer I can increase/reduce the volume within the vst itself, adjust the vst's channel level or use say compression to make it louder.
I guess the first obvious answer is that adding gain in the compressor is going to give the sound that "compressed" feeling to it which is what you may or may not be after but what about adjusting within the vst Vs adjusting the vst instruments channel level?
Logically to me it seems that adjusting the volume within the vst (say the output volume or the oscillators volume) would result in less sound distortion (hence loss of quality) than adjusting the level of the vst instruments channel which is done within the DAW. But what do the more experienced producers think?
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Domi
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Oct 10, 2007 12:46
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Elad
Tsabeat/Sattel Battle
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Posted : Oct 10, 2007 15:05
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ALWAYS recduce at source (or atleast one pluging in the chain before it gets clipping)
specialy in party!!!
to have lower volume distortion is plain stupidity
(happens all the time btw , dj cranck the system thinking it sound better , soundman take the amp down to protect his gear)
when talk about export 32bit float it might be difrent tho... but still i think this should apply
so remember if your channel clips because of the eq , offcourse change the output chanel will not make the distortion disapear altho u dont see red LED , little tricky but abit of brain im sure its crystal clear
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Domi
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Oct 10, 2007 23:37
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MadScientist
IsraTrance Full Member
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Posted : Oct 10, 2007 23:43
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Quote:
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On 2007-10-10 15:05, Elad wrote:
ALWAYS recduce at source (or atleast one pluging in the chain before it gets clipping)
specialy in party!!!
to have lower volume distortion is plain stupidity
(happens all the time btw , dj cranck the system thinking it sound better , soundman take the amp down to protect his gear)
when talk about export 32bit float it might be difrent tho... but still i think this should apply
so remember if your channel clips because of the eq , offcourse change the output chanel will not make the distortion disapear altho u dont see red LED , little tricky but abit of brain im sure its crystal clear
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+1 
else I just adjust volume with distortion/overdrive sometimes if I want to gain that effect!
the faders of the mixer I only use for automation, like if a sound is starting with low volume and raising over 8bars or so till it got its full level... 
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OhmLine
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Posted : Oct 11, 2007 12:46
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Gain structure is a term coming from the analogue era.
It means that a device need to work in its' optimum level (Standard Operation Level) meaning, to get a nice healthy signal, otherwise it might drop down to the noise floor (the sound analogue gear produces because of electricity etc.) and re-amplification will raise the noise floor to an audible level.
As a rule of thumb, you shound have a strong signal going in and out of every device/plugin in the chain, of course considering timbre changes in the track that might lead to a peak - distortion.
Try to get your signal strong through all the chain and then use either the last decive or the track fader for volume changes.
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Elad
Tsabeat/Sattel Battle
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Posted : Oct 11, 2007 19:44
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its true in cubase work with only vst there is no electricity noise , but still there is -96DB range so if u work in -20db your range is actualy -76DB. this why i like most channels around -10 or -15 db
work on 32bit float gives floor of -144DB what might cause alot of difrence
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Colin OOOD
Moderator
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Posted : Oct 11, 2007 20:51
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Quote:
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On 2007-10-11 19:44, Elad wrote:
its true in cubase work with only vst there is no electricity noise , but still there is -96DB range so if u work in -20db your range is actualy -76DB. this why i like most channels around -10 or -15 db
work on 32bit float gives floor of -144DB what might cause alot of difrence
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Actually it's 24-bit (which is what most VSTis output) that has a noise-floor of -144dB I'm not sure what the noise-floor of 32-bit audio is - does it even have one?
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Glitch_CapeTown
IsraTrance Junior Member
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Posted : Oct 11, 2007 22:37
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hehe...