Gain Staging

Every piece of analogue hardware—a preamp, an amplifier, a compressor or an equalizer, for example—has an ideal operating level at which its best sound is achieved, and at which it has a good signal-to-noise ratio. Gain staging refers to setting ideal input and output levels for each piece of equipment in an analog recording chain. For example, an analog chain could be a microphone going into a preamp, followed by a compressor and then into the line inputs of an audio interface. The preamp input gain would be set to achieve the desired sound which may be clean, driven, distorted or anything in between. Its output level would then be set so the compressor receives the right amount of gain for its input. The output gain of the compressor would then be set so that the input of the audio interface receives the correct amount of gain.