How do you all perform gain staging before you start your mixes? I just wanted to see what other people are doing inside Sonar for the gain stage process? Do you simply use the gain knob at the top of each channel to level things out? Or do you use another method?
 
I am sure others will be interested to hear some input here as well.
 
I just read an article by LANDR, which you can see here: http://blog.landr.com/better-mixes-even-start/
 
That is what prompted this question.

When I am mixing my own material I tend to just record at around -12db and then after using my guitar, compression, EQ etc. I am at around the -9db level. Any samples or loops I use are pretty well recorded so I just use the faders to balance them

When it comes to mixing I tend to get a nice bass level on the master channel (-9db) and then add the drums, vocal, other instruments - balancing the faders to keep the master bus bouncing around the -6db level

As it is my own stuff the lines between recording, producing, arranging and mixing get a little blurred

This has helped me get in to the habit of turning things down rather than up


If I am doing a mix for someone else I take a slightly different, more disciplined, approach as I sometimes don't know what I am going to get and I kinda specialise in mixing for those that aren't used to proper recording as well as seasoned pros

I will load up their tracks into SONAR and then balance things out using the gain pots at the top of the channel to get all tracks bouncing around the same point with the faders set to 0

I will then mix using the faders, knowing I can tweak the gain if I need to, using the principles above

I leave the final polish and volume boosting to the mastering process

No gain staging.
I first do all comping and editing, then bounce all clips to tracks.
Then I normalize to around -6 or -3dB depending on the type of material.
This makes it easier to move between DAWs.
 

jpetersen
No gain staging.
I first do all comping and editing, then bounce all clips to tracks.
Then I normalize to around -6 or -3dB depending on the type of material.
This makes it easier to move between DAWs.
 

 
Why do you normalize? What advantage does that have? I always thought normalizing was to ensure your tracks did not clip?
 

Boydie - This is similar to my process, which I find works well. 
 
One thing I noticed the last time I used the gain knob on the channel at the top, when I turned it all the way down, I was still getting audio? How exactly is that knob affecting the audio signal?

DJ Darkside
 
Why do you normalize? What advantage does that have? I always thought normalizing was to ensure your tracks did not clip?
 

I've never thought of normalizing as an "anti-clipping tool", as it simply lifts the peaks of the track to a desired level.
If there's clipping on the track before normalizing, then normalizing can't "unclip" it anyway, and a normalized track can start to clip when you, say, add FX to it. 
I can't see any reason not to use it for gain staging. I know many consider it somehow a not-so-recommendable tool in general, but I've never really understood why.
I've never really needed to bother with gain staging specifically, because my recording routines are always about the same so the base levels don't need much adjusting before mixing.

DJ Darkside
Why do you normalize? What advantage does that have? I always thought normalizing was to ensure your tracks did not clip?
 

It's quicker than fiddling with gain staging. Life's too short.

Kalle Rantaaho - As far as I understand, normalization brings to quieter levels of the audio to the set threshold. Is that correct? 
 
Wikipedia's definition
 
Audio normalization is the application of a constant amount of gain to an audio recording to bring the average or peak amplitude to a target level (the norm).
 
So from what I get from that... It will look at the audio, based on the average peak and set threshold of the normalizer, the audio will be raised up? Does this not alter or change the audio dynamics?

jpetersen
 
It's quicker than fiddling with gain staging. Life's too short.

I prefer the gain staging approach myself, I feel more in control that way.

DJ,
Normalizing raises or lowers the entire track by a certain amount. It does not alter dynamics.
If you normalize to -6db, the highest peak will be -6db. If prior to normalizing, the highest peak was -8db, the entire track will get a +2db boost.
HTH