Normalize it to -18. done. If you want gainstaging to -18 for what ever reason.

 

TBProAudio mvMeter 2, best by far

 

how about this?
https://www.hornetplugins.com/plugins/hornet-thenormalizer/

 

Very interesting suggestions.
Apparently Hornet's Track Utility can do this too:
https://www.hornetplugins.com/plugins/hornet-trackutility-mk2/

 

Removed for the security reasons lool

 

Last edited: Apr 9, 2022

Mixing engineers just lower all clip gains by -6db for gainstaging. Or use your ears to adjust the balance

 

u guys don't understand gain staging, lol

 

We had fun, there were completely over the head ironies and sarcasm - you really can tell alot about how little audio people know, when they don't even see the sarcasm. Well, moving on.

The reality is that such a plugin is not possible to make (hence the very perplexed reaction of people that know audio). Think of any track from instruments to vocals, they all have expressivity (aka variation in dynamic range and level). It is not ok for a plugin to constantly react and level out peaks or rms, that will kill the performance entirely. A plugin can't guess expression or context of the mix. Especially on vocals, we automate syllables to enhance the expressivity of the artist while on other tracks we make opposite adjustments on lead instruments if needed. No compressor, rider or any other type of plugin can't do that.

If you want to flatline your mix to -18 dB FS just pull the plug and call it a day. Until you stop being lazy and actually start mixing, you won't go too far in this art

 

Ok,
I agree with you completely,
I didn't read the thread and i just saw the subject of the thread and then I shoot the Ayaic mix Monolith,
I would remove my suggestion as it's not even related to what you are looking for.

Mate, I think you need to change your subject, it's not gain staging! now I believe that you are talking about dynamics!
Good luck!

Edited: I can imagine something like sinewave with your expectation!

 

This is about gain staging and not mixing as a whole. The first step to pull stuff down to minus whatever your target is can be exhausting if you do it for every single track, so why not use an automated utility for it

 

If you're mixing for a 3rd party, the first step is to listen the material that just came in. The first step is to familiarize with the song. You will not do all faders down and ruin a mix an artist worked for weeks/months (if part of an album). Then you will carefully assess every track and if some gainstaging is needed (for the better) you do it without upsetting the balance of the mix. Gainstaging is never "just gainstaging", it's a very integral and purposeful aspect of the mix (unless you talk about recording gainstaging where, you set the proper recording levels as normal people do).

On the other hand, if you are working on your own music, you gainstage as the song progresses. Who tf will work peaking at 0 FS throughout all tracks, find a balance there (with the alleged saturation introduced by alleged plugins saturating differently according to the input signal) and then go all faders down "to do the mixing"? Are you that thick to ruin your work for the sake of some numbers?

 

for some vst that emulate the behavior of some analog devices in entirely digital vst it is a waste of time you just have to place everything so that the red does not reach the master and have a little headroom for the master chain

 

Yeah I was talking about your own stuff. It's my understanding you have to actively see to it that nothing clips, at every point of the production. So if you have a synth pad that clips +5db from the start, you have to pull it down before you can do anything with it, so you pull everything down as a first step before you do anything with it, so that you have enough headroom above to do whatever you wanna do with it, that's what i mean.

 

First of all, gain staging refers only to ensuring the next processor in line gets the optimal level of signal. That's it. It has nothing to do with how hot is the track's output or how hot you hit the master channel.

Back to your pad issue, that happens only if you completely lack any kind of mixing discipline, use no metering and have no perspective of the song (for example you start a new project from a piano melody, peaking at 0 dB - yeah of course the next elements will overload the master channel, d'oh). How I like to call it: complete lack of music production hygiene. There's no sane scenario in which a newly introduced element would need readjusting the entire mix(!)

Regardless of the genre you produce, it takes just a mix to observe what are the optimal levels for kick, drums, (sub) bass, instruments, vocals so the project would not overload the master channel. Just take a note and if you start the song with a drum groove, you know the kick sits at x dB, drums at y dB. If you start a new song with a melodic part, you already know instruments usually sit at z dB and so on.

 

your brain + your ears + a simple gain plugin
trust me those automatic stuff isn't the best also gain staging really depends the sound you want out of your mix lets say you have a drum kit , a piano and a vocalist and the gain staging plugin will putt all the at the same level then you have to go in manually and then fix it again

so please even if you are using a gain staging plugin go in again and tweak the levels so the song sounds the way you want it to

 

You seem to keep misunderstanding what I say.
I often have it that when I drop a pad sound or similar sounds, really, it comes in way too hot in the red, +5 or whatever. So I have to pull it down and bring it adequately below 0 so that there's room for any kind of processing. Not doing that across all channels will result in a clipping mess.

 

OK, but the guy in this video surely did understand.

https://www.google.com/search?q=gai...ome&ie=UTF-8#kpvalbx=_QTtRYreUF-eMrgSkkb2wBQ6

 

In case you're referring to me, he didn't understand anything of what I was saying because that video is not a response to what I said in this thread