Gain staging explained: where your levels should sit, from mic to master

Gain staging means setting the level correctly at every point where a signal changes hands. Microphone to preamp, preamp to converter, converter to file, file to DAW, DAW to master bus. Each stage has a comfortable window, and the whole chain is only as good as the first stage.

Stage one: the preamp

This is the only stage that improves signal to noise ratio. Everything after it can only preserve or worsen what the preamp captured. Set gain so that normal dialogue peaks around minus 18 to minus 12 dBFS, with shouts landing no higher than minus 6.

Stage two: the recorder

• 24 bit gives roughly 144 dB of theoretical range, so headroom is cheap and clipping is not.
• 32 bit float recorders remove the clipping risk entirely, but still record a real analogue noise floor.
• Limiters belong on the safety channel, not on the take you intend to use.

Stage three: the DAW

Inside a modern 32 or 64 bit float mixer, internal headroom is effectively unlimited, so a channel peaking at minus 3 dBFS is not a problem in itself. The real risk is plugins: analogue emulations, compressors and saturators are calibrated around minus 18 dBFS and behave differently if you feed them hot.

Stage four: the master

Delivery is where the numbers become contractual. Broadcast specs are loudness based, typically minus 23 LUFS in Europe and minus 24 LKFS in the United States, with a true peak ceiling at minus 1 or minus 2 dBTP. Streaming platforms normalise around minus 14 LUFS.

Diagnosing a badly staged file

Drop the file into the inspector and look at the peak and average. A file peaking at minus 30 dBFS was recorded too low and will hiss once raised. A file glued to 0 dBFS with flat topped waveforms was clipped and cannot be fully repaired. Both problems are visible in seconds before you commit to an edit.