Gain Structure SECRETS for Live Sound
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- Опубліковано 3 чер 2024
- In this video, we're taking a deep dive into the MOST important function of your mixing board: gain structure. We're going to learn how to set gain, balance levels, achieve great fader resolution, and more!
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Shoutouts to Ansanta, Dave Rat, Robert Scovill, Audio University, Plugged-in AV, and many others who's videos/blogs helped me come up with a clear and concise way to explain this very broad concept!
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00:00 Intro
00:27 Why Is Gain Structure Important?
01:30 Workflow Challenges
03:17 Faders vs. Gain For Volume
03:58 Optimizing Fader Levels
06:17 What Does Gain Actually Do?
07:25 What Is "Line Level"
09:01 Setting Your Input Gain
09:50 Gain Structure Through Faders
12:08 Using Audio Subgroups
13:28 Benefits Of Proper Gain Structure
Music Sync ID: MB01ZILDWRQTEPF
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I liked this video and found it very informational. My only thing is I wished you demonstrated what you were saying. It would really complete the learning experience of this video especially for the visual learners
For sure! This was meant as a quick, high-level explanation of a fairly deep concept. In our online courses (which you can check out at worshipsoundguy.com ) we go MUCH deeper into demonstrating all these concepts.
Yeah I would have really liked it if I've been able to watch it on a mixer the whole time
While it's true that using the subgroups (or DCAs) this way to keep proper gain structure at the inputs, and channel faders riding 'around' unity, works... And for an installed system with volunteers that maybe shouldn't be messing with things at a system level is not a bad approach up front...
But...
Technically, if a properly gained channel cannot have it's channel fader getting anywhere near unity without being WAY too loud, and everything on the console seems normal (no excess makeup gain on compressors, no double-assignments, no DCAs accidentally dimed, master level at 'normal'...)... Then that is pretty much a case where a system tech needs to evaluate system gain after the console. Of course, always starting with looking at things within the console to make sure everything is as it's supposed to be. Especially since we're talking a house system where all the gear stays the same versus a provided rig (rax and stax) where an act might be bringing in their own console on a revolving menu of of amps and speakers for each show.
So for an installed rig, if the staff isn't all that technically savvy, there's nothing really wrong with just adjusting at the main fader as a quick fix versus adding subgroups or DCAs into the equation that weren't already there.
In fact, there are some good reason why that might even be a better approach. Let's say there's a stream mix on a matrix off the main L-R bus. Assuming it's tapped pre fader (as it likely should be for a stream from the mains) then turning the main down will not at all change the signal going to the stream.
Adding subgroups between the channels and the main out will be choking things back before the main bus and so the stream matrix will get a weaker signal.
But ultimately, if we're talking major amounts of pulling things back (whether channels, subgroups, DCAs, or mains) to get a tolerable level in an installed PA, than that's really a good time to get a tech onsite to evaluate the system gain.
If it's just a case of one channel being really loud and everything else is OK at 'around' unity... then that is odd. The faders of course need to be where they need to be for a solid mix, but for one thing to be that far off unity when everything else is OK kind of points to some type of problem with the channel (double bus assignment, makeup gain cranked on a compressor... etc...). Or something really loud onstage. And in that case, it probably doesn't even need to be in the PA ;)
Thank’s for this understandable video. I appreciate it so much.
Thank you for the video. In the future could you work in some visual application? Some of us are visual learners and it would help seat your words in our memory banks.
You did an excellent job explaining. This is exactly what we needed for our team. Your thorough explanation is what makes you the best. The knucklehead who commented on you saying too much should just fast forward the video. Lol
At last a video where the subject is well explained. Seems like you have watched the "Where did 0dB go?" Video by Robert Scovill, which I can highly recommend. Thank you.
I've been doing live sound for 20 years and I really enjoyed watching your video looking forward to being able to use you to help train my team at church
Very well articulated. God bless you. Love from India!
Thanks so much Danny!
One thing I’ll add that I’ve even seen industry people who do this everyday miss, is don’t forget your pads. Some preamps are so sensitive that you can have the gain all the way down and drums mics will still peak them out. Don’t forget to take advantage of your pad in that scenario.
Yes!! I've definitely run into some situations where people were like "oh yeah my drums just always clip" and I'm always like "but... you can put a pad on it right?" and most of the time they've never considered it haha. Always a good one to remember!
My goodness this just sounds like exactly what i needed to learn. Though my problem is that am using an analog mixer to set the foh mix for our church. How do i maximise the subgrouping strategy being that the board i use has only one subgroup option and one aux option. I feel stuck there, also being that am using the same board for sending sound to our live stream through the aux out. What can i do
This sounds a lot like Robert Scoville's gain structure method that he's been teaching forever. I like the approach of this method, my only issue is when you start to apply group processing you are likely to be clipping on the input side of the group therefore clipping your processors in the chain. My approach is to use VCA's as "trims" into these groups in order to maintain my levels at optimum throughout the console level architecture. Line level on the input chain, line level at the groups, line level at the master, line level at the matrix. By following this I am confident that any processing I apply at any point in the console I know will be at an optimal operating level. Cheers.
For sure! I love Scoville's approach. I watched probably 8+ hours of videos on different methods of approaching gain before finally sort of combining them all into this haha. Clipping on group/bus processing is definitely something to watch out for. My take on that is to utilize the trim control on the group input (if necessary) if I feel like I need more headroom going into the group.
Might I suggest that the issue sounds like post fader processing on the input side that has not been gain matched input to output on the individual channels. Trimming from the VCA's is a quick way to fix it, but I would look at how hot the output of my in channel processing is too. Might give you some resolution back on your VCA's. Great idea though.
Dude, your voiceover sounds incredible. Kinda random but I had to say it
Quick question, if you used an effect on the mains, like a compressor, would there be any disadvantages to lowering the output that way so the volume is correct in the room?
What about using the gain (make up gain) in compressor to get the level even before the fader.
Okay so my drummer has a D4 would he be in one subgroup in the bass player being one subgroup and the acoustic guitar player being one subgroup and then the praise and worship team being one subgroup pastors lapel being one subgroup and the piano being a one subgroup is that how I'm understanding it?
Hahaha this is the problem im facing now.. Thanks for the good explanation
What kind of soundboard are you working with? I suffered the same issue I have a pre-Sonus live 32 now I'm not knowing where to set my amps at I usually have them at about 12:00 to 2:00 sometimes when my pastor gets on his lapel it is way too loud or the acoustic guitar is extremely too loud and everything else is perfectly set is this what you're struggling with too?
What if I turn down the trim knob? Is the same thing of turn down the group?
I agree on the Input gain part, Set at -15 or -18 dbFS (Can lean to -12 db on Digital instruments and sound sources since they are compressed by nature of their output amplifiers).
But the fader part, really goes against the "avoid mixing at Unity philosophy".
Faders are meant to be used along all their scale, even if their resolution is better near Unity. The artistic use of it needs it to go from -infinity to overhead.
Human sound perception is diferent when there is a calm, melodic, contemplative interpretation of the song (Where transients are small and not many instruments on stage) than the perception of a full Rock energetic piece is being played. Where many sound sources have to be compressed and fight for leading place, and consecuently, any fraction of a db has an impact on the relative position of the stage.
It is a deep topic worth conversation. May the years of experience and experimentation lead us to better serve the Lord.
Edit: for typos and clearer interpretation, since english is not my first language.
Hey Lucio! That's a great take. I absolutely agree that faders are meant to be used all along their full scale. There are definitely times when I'm pulling stuff way down, or really pushing it, depending on the situation/song. My main point here is not that you need to keep all your faders at unity, but rather that somewhere around unity should be your "home base". I can't tell you how many times I've gone to mix at a church and they pull up a template where input gain is set pretty well, but all the drum faders are down at -30, the vocals are at +8, guitars are -15, and so on.
It can become a mess really quickly!
By having your "in the room" volume set by your subgroups, it lets you have a lot more consistency with the way you mix, rather than relying on big fader moves to compensate.
Like if I'm trying to dial in a drum mix, I really might want to move things around by just a decibel or two, and that becomes a lot more difficult if the faders are down in the "lower resolution" area.
Now, all that said, you have to do what you have to do to make it sound good! Sometimes you do end up radically moving faders around and that's fine, but as far as where I want my "average position" to be, I want them closer to unity to I can be precise when I need to be.
I really don’t understand the sub group bit ..?
I’m a vocalist with a laptop for backing vocals.. should I turn my volume on my laptop down to achieve near unity on my mixer for better quality sound..?
Thanks for this! Super helpful! We're running the Behringer WING. I have my DCAs set for each instrument group along with their FX and parallel compression buses. So the Drums DCA also has my drum verb and parallel compression bus in it. Would that DCA then be acting the same as a subgroup or do I need to free up some buses on the board and replace my DCAs with subgroups?
DCA are not the same as a sub group as mentioned in the video. The dca is basically like a controller for all the channels assigned to it. You are essentially moving all the faders of those channels at the same time with the dca. So. If you are feeding anything “post fader” especially like Fx, the more you adjust the dca, the more you adjust the level going to Fx and such.
This is the way! @@samgonza1975
If you have a digital trim on each input, mixing with DCAs works just fine. Although a very helpful and powerful way to mix, you don't need to mix with sub-groups if you have to comprimise.
Great video man! One really important question though. What about digital trim on the input channels? I work on a Midas Pro-Series console. We can change the signal flow several different ways like most consoles can but we also have a digital trim at the same stage as gain. Is this something only Midas has? I'm confused as to why you didn't mention it.
A simplified version of our workflow is gaining up to line level, adjusting the digital trim to the point we can get the fader up to unity, dynamics, eq, and then the signal splits pre-fader to the auxes. Our inputs then go through DCAs and then finally the master bus.
Is this the wrong way to mix as described at the beginning of the video or is this just another way to mix?
As he said, the consoles are optimized to work at line-level. So trimming the signal down has the same effect as turning down the gain.
hello i just get x32 and im wondering about your “X-32 PRESETS PACKAGE”.
Where Can I check the preset list?
Is there any shure mic preset?
Hey great question! There are literally hundreds of presets so we don't have them all listed out on the products page ( shop.worshipsoundguy.com/products/x-32-presets-package ) but it covers basically every instrument that's typically in a contemporary worship mix. We didn't do presets for specific brands of mics because we didn't feel it was necessary, but I personally use a ton of Shure mics and they work great with these presets!
Good explanation ！👍 But if you include 「Optimum Signal/Noise Ratio」adjustment in the `initial Gain Staging process' it would be more complete ！ 😊 👍
Thanks for your video. I want to watch more videos but I appreciate a bit of practice and tasks showing and listening band or artists making soundcheck to get the sound that we want
You can do it!
What about if you have a lower end console where subgroups are at a minimum or not at all? How does gain staging apply to that when it comes to reducing input sound?
I started on an Allen and heathe analog console where subgroups was difficult to use so I used my ears a lot of the time to gain stage while fader was set at unity and then mixed rather than looking at metering in that process.
For sure! In that case, I like to do my final gain staging at the PA amps. I'll get my console set up where my input gain is all set correctly, and my master output is hitting where I want it, then I'll go to the amps and turn them up to the point where I'm getting a good volume for the room.
If your digital console has a digital trim on a per-input basis, it's best to use that rather than turning amps down.
That’s the technique I’m doing; not enough busses left to subgroup
Very well done. I've been looking for someone online that I can send others to that ACTUALLY understands all of this. The one thing that I think would help push this along further is if you were to show folks how you would approach a drum group mix, or vocal group mix, or even better, the ever tricky guitar group mix that has acoustic and electric guitars in it. I think if people could see that there is a fader in EVERY group that is at Unity and everything else is balanced around it, the "digital difference" from analog would click a lot faster. Once again, GREAT job.
Thank you so much! That really means a lot. And that's actually something that we do in our online courses over at worshipsoundguy.com
Great minds think alike haha!
@@WorshipSoundGuy I will definitely be pointing people in that direction. Since most folks don't have the opportunity to get their hands on a large analog console where they can see everything, definitely need a knowledgeable resource to help them get their minds around large input count, small format, digital desks.
The guitar group mix becomes far less tricky when it only has EGs in it.
@@MyFatherLoves True, but when you're limited on your busses, sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
@@erikluper2677 indeed. I know how that is. I’ve got a mono track channel lumped in the keys DCA. Drives me nuts.
Aren’t Groups different from busses though? An aux/bus would be a separate mix you can do with individual fader control of each channel within that submix that can be pre/post fade, while a group would essentially be like a post fader bus with the sends all at unity, but no separate fader control
There's some overlap in terminology here for sure. I use (and most often hear) "bus" to mean "A signal path that can combine other audio signals together". So... an aux is a bus, a matrix is a bus, a group is a bus. It's kinda one of those "not all coffee is espresso, but all espresso is coffee" kind of situations haha :)
@@WorshipSoundGuy correct me if I’m wrong, but on Digico, Groups (not control groups which are like DCAs), which can be routed to at the bottom of a channel strip, don’t have separate fader control for the sends, right?
I was hoping you would mention "Digital Trim". Curious to see you use it.
GREAT question! I do sometimes... I'll do some trims within SuperRack (if I'm using it) to compensate for gain that's added by other processing. The only limitation with using digital trim on channels/groups on the console is that it's usually pre-processing, so if you get your gain set right, but then use the digital trim to change it, you'll mess up your levels going into your channel EQ/compression/gates/Waves. On the other hand, if your console can do digital trim at the END of the signal chain (post processing) that can be very useful!
@@WorshipSoundGuy Thanks again for all the great content!
Do you know if the digital trim on the Wing at the end of the signal chain??
If your console has gain and digital trim at the start of your input, you can still use the digital trim effectively without it messing up any of your processing and without using sub groups. When you soundcheck, set your gain first and then adjust the digital trim so that you can have your fader at unity. Handle all of your processing after that.
But using subgroups will create the same scenario as lowering the LR bus?
Just use DCAs and digitally trim the master down...
No, using subgroups will help you get a good gain structure and have a good mix on the PA. Turning down a DCA turns down the faders assigned to it and so the post-fader levels (fx send e.g.) will go down too.
I'm amazed, 15' of video to answer why if you done the gain structure correctly on the console the sound in the room is unmanageable: your power amplifier is too high!!
What about DCA/VCAs?
Great question! So, the issue with using DCA/VCA's to adjust the volume in the room is that they're basically just functioning as a "remote control" for the input faders. This means you're going to affect levels to post-fader sends from the input channels as well change the amount of any bus processing you might be going into further down the signal path.
Like for example, if you've got your drums going to a group (or a band bus or whatever) and maybe you've got some saturation or parallel compression on that group/bus, but then you reduce the level of the signal going into that group/bus by pulling down your drums DCA, you're going to change the amount of saturation/compression that's happening on your bus.
If you adjust the level using a subgroup, the change is happening "post processing" so you'll still get exactly the same amount of compression/saturation/whatever and you can turn the group up or down to adjust the level in the room without having any effect on bus/group processing or changing what gets sent out to post-fader sends.
Really good question!
-Johnny
@@WorshipSoundGuy Right, hadn't thought bus/group compression
@@sgommerablebut you can set the DCA or VCA to control the level of the subgroup, if you want to use them because of ergonomic or layer control reasons etc.
Thanks, but this was mostly over my head. I need a 101.
I would recommend watching the "Where did 0dB go? " video by Robert Scovill. Once you unterstand it, it's so easy and logical.
bro yaps for a living
Vola
Good video ... though it's always best to show it on the mixer of what you talking about.
Explain and show works best as a teacher learner in music.
Cut out the too much talk .
Most important button? Easy, it’s the MUTE button. 😜
Haha in some instances absolutely YES!
Thanks for the tip. But couldn’t you have said this in 2 minutes?