SOUND ON SOUND

[Arpangel]

There's the difference between can and need. :lol:

Yeeeesss, that’s always been a difficult one for me.

:D

[CS70]

If the peaks are anywhere 0dBFS, the first thing to do is to lower the gain level of the channel containing the instrument, so that your loudest playing peaks around -12dBFS on the DAW meter and no higher. If it sounds too low, turn up your playback volume.

When you say the gain level of the channel containing the instrument, which of the two are you referring to, the gain level of the instrument track in Logics workspace? Or the instrument channel strip volume fader in Inspector?

I believe both will act in doing the same thing? But just to be sure..

(not using Logic... I suppose you refer to gain/level controls on the synth output itself, as opposite to a gain control on the channel)?

If so: yes, same thing. Gain is gain, at least the digital sort.

Personally, if the synth has a gain or level control I use that, because I like to have all my channel gain knobs having the same "meaning" - any correction I need to do due to different gain settings at recording stage (and hopefully, with good gain settings at recording stage, they're all not moved much at all).

But if you can't change level at the synth output, using the channel gain is functionally identical.

[Hugh Robjohns]

When you're 'gain staging' in anticipation of a mix, It makes life a lot easier to keep the channel faders at (or near) the unity (0dB) mark.

So if an incoming source is too 'hot' -- forcing you to pull the fader down below unity before you even start mixing -- you should find some way of reducing its level before the signal reaches the fader. If we're talking about virtual instruments there might be a master output volume control that you can adjust. If not, then insert a gain-adjusting plugin at the top of the channel strip and do it with that.

As a general rule, and as mentioned earlier, a good practice is to adjust the input gain staging so that the signal averages around -20dBFS, with typical peaks to around -10dBFS.
That headroom comes in really handy in live performance situations and should mean you don't need to worry about peak overloads, which is a great stress reliever! :-)

However, in a more controlled situation where peak levels are unlikely to vary much, so that you can work safely with less headroom, aim for average levels around -15 to -12dBFS and peaks no higher than -6dBFS.