Eliminate Gain Staging Guesswork For Good!

In this video, I’m walking you through the exact gain staging system I use at the very start of every mix. It’s deliberately simple and it only involves properly setting the level of two tracks, not every single channel in your session.

You’ll see how I use a quick visual waveform check to understand the recording before touching any meters, then how I use a VU meter to set the relationship between the kick and bass. This is the only part of the process where numbers really matter. After that, everything is built using your ears and musical judgement.

I also explain why I calibrate my VU meter to -14 dB, how this affects analogue modelled plugins, and why gain staging still matters even in modern floating point DAWs. If you’ve ever wondered why your faders end up miles below unity or why your mix feels hard to control from the start, this video will make things much clearer.

This method is the foundation of my Static Mix workflow and sets things up so the rest of the mix feels calm, intentional, and much easier to build.