Proper Gain Structure

Now the signal hits the console — and this is where mixing actually begins. The very first job is gain staging each input. Get this wrong and your EQ, compression, and everything downstream gets harder; get it right and the whole mix falls into place.

What gain is

Your sources arrive at roughly mic level — too weak for the console to work with. The preamp (your gain knob) brings them up to line level, the range the board is optimized for. Think of it as adding “juice” to the channel so there’s enough signal to manipulate.

Why it’s critical: these days you’re often splitting that signal — front of house, a monitor console, a broadcast/livestream feed. If the gain is wrong, everything downstream suffers. In digital, there’s a second reason: a too-low signal gets converted with too little resolution (low effective bit depth) and ends up thin and noisy. Bring it up and the converter has plenty of detail to work with.

The target: −18 to −20 dB

In the old analog days the VU meter’s 0 mark was the target. On a digital console that translates to about −18 to −20 dB for the average level of an instrument. Most meters change color around there — green, then yellow, then red (clipping = distortion, the crackly, gross sound you never want).

Dip it in the mustard. At the loudest point of someone’s playing, the meter should just touch the yellow.

Percussive sources (kick, snare) will spike higher than the average — that’s fine. You’re setting the average, not the peaks.

Set it by eye, fast

You don’t even need the fader up — leave it down, watch the meter, and set gain with your eyes:

1. As each player arrives and plugs in, have them play a louder part (a chorus), not the quietest thing.
2. Bring the preamp gain up until the average dips into the yellow around −18.
3. Now bring the fader to 0 (unity — it’s passing the preamp level through, neither boosting nor cutting). That’s your starting point for the mix.

With regular players who show up with consistent gear, you won’t re-do this every week — but always gain-check new players quickly.

Fader is not gain

The fader is your volume control during the mix; the preamp is the gain. If a channel is too quiet, don’t just shove the fader up — there’s nowhere to go. If it’s clipping, don’t yank the fader down — fix it at the gain source. And if a channel is gained correctly at unity but still too quiet/loud in the room, that’s a PA problem, not a gain problem. Never over- or under-gain to compensate for something downstream.

Application

• Find the −18/−20 reference on your console’s meters and learn what “dipped in the mustard” looks like there.
• This week, set the whole band by eye with faders down before you push a single one up.
• Audit your channels: is anything running hot into red, or so low it sounds thin? Fix it at the preamp.