all right I'm Dave Rat and I'm going to talk about gain structure gain structure refers to the level
that the audio signal is at as it travels through the various pieces of audio equipment or through
a mixing board is typically what people are talking about in order to understand
gain structure there's two basic types of level controls that we deal with in audio gear one of
them is a gain knob which is basically the lamp afire and the gain knob controls the amount of
increase in volume or in level and voltage to the signal that's coming in it it amplifies it
like most amplifiers when you get try and turn it up to loud it reaches a point words are incapable
of amplifying beyond a certain point it can only get so loud and then it can't do anymore at that
point typically there's a light a peak light or a clip light which says that the amplifier is now
distorting the other type of audio level control we have it's called an attenuator an attenuator
it might have a little amplifier before it to boost it a little bit it takes whatever signal it
is and doesn't alter it all it just reduces it in volume so when it's up all the way it does nothing
it goes straight through take a piece of wire as you turn it down you turn the signal and the noise
to a lower level there's some confusion regarding the differences between the two I've heard it said
by several people that if you turn up the gain knob you'll be bringing up the singer and also
the background noise whereas if you use the fader it tends to only bring up the signal and not the
background noise or you're more likely to increase of background noise with the game pot that's
partially true it's only true if you are operating your game pot where you've reached a point where
the signal can't get any louder the loudest signal can so as you turn it up the background noise
sounds like it's coming up because the primary signal is incapable of reaching in more output
if you operate your mic priests a good distance from clipping the sonic difference between these
two controls in is negligible or none at all to be honest these things have no idea that another
difference between background noise and the actual signal so what is proper gain structure proper
gain structure is keeping three things in order first of all you want to make sure that you have
enough gain to get the signal above the noise floor two you have noise everywhere you want to
make sure that the noise is an insignificant or minor component to the overall signal to low of
gain you're going to have noise issues you want to make sure that the gain is not set so that it's so
loud that you're actually distorting the signal and affecting it causing the sound and away you
know desire and finally you want to set it so that the other knobs the other controls are in
logical and controllable positions so if you try and get every last drop of gain out right before
clipping and just under the clip light a lot of times I will force the rest of your knobs down to
unusually low levels if you try and keep the gain obso far from clipping then you'll often find that
your other controls reach their maximum level and you run out of the ability to control you actually
have to start turning it up here so a proper gain structure it's pretty much logical it's you want
to make sure that the knobs are convenient and usable positions so how do you set up a proper
gain structure follow it backwards what I do is I actually set my faders how I wanted to see I make
them visually look how I want to show the sound I want the kick drums you know maybe here snare
drum a little lower about the same high hat I want to drop down the Tom's kind of in that same region
like the guitar and bass about mid level and I like the vocals up above plus three on the
faders the ability because guitar solos I want a lot of room to push them up during a solo the kick
and snare I want those consistently hotter than nominal and by building the mix on the fader the
way I want to see it the way I envision the band should sound and the way I like to have control
over it then that gives me a starting point now I know what these need to be the other thing I'll
do is make sure your PA is off is while they're playing I will crank the game pot check check
check hey hey hey up in the clip hey hey hey and then I'll bring once in the clipping hey
hey hey hey hey I'll turn it down maybe quarter turn little less than a quarter turn down I'll
get that all the way across in fact I'll have the whole band play I don't like to do kick snare Tom
how often do I have a band on stage playing just the rack Tom during the middle of the show never
I never have that so what's the use of checking it by itself unless I have a problem with it the
way I line check sound check of bands I have the whole band go onstage get their monitors worked
out and play songs they can just rehearse and play if it's a bigger band maybe we have the backline
guys do it and just have them play while they're playing I cranked each game-pod up fine clipping
come down a quarter turn now I've got my gain set I do I know where my faders are putting my main
faders up to where I want to see those which is typically a zero which is about the 3/4 position
and then I bring my kick drill up find out if it's about where I want it and if it's a little too if
I have to go up too high maybe I'll add some more gain to push it down and then I'll follow that
pattern so I will massage the settings of the game pots in order to force the faders to be how I want
it to look with my output faders at nominal then I go through and make sure that my offsets aren't
crunched all the way down to the minimum or all the way up at maximum I will adjust that by the
master I like to see my effect send straight up and down to 12 so affect the master until
I get that about right and that's it it's pretty straightforward and simple if you find that you've
got faders cranked all the way up to maximum the sports in there we go based it then maybe
you have some issues with the next piece of gear in line so let's talk about gear you got various
components you your interconnecting you've got XLR connectors quarter-inch connectors hopefully
not too many RCA connectors you see minus 10 plus 4 minus 20 switches on various pieces of
gear you've got mic level line level in a perfect world all your gear would just be plus 4 you have
your microphone level coming in you crank it up and get your level set and then everything else
would be plus 4 levels and you can plug everything in and everything's in this nice 1/2 to 3/4 range
and everything will come up occasionally you'll find that you have maybe a piece of pro audio
gear that's going to plus 4 out and you've got an older cheaper EQ that maybe takes a minus
20 or some lower level in where you're having to reduce your faders down to a level whenever you
do that you're pretty much going to be adding noise or on the verge of distorting something
that's a bit more complex than I want to get into for this a simple way to set up your board you set
it up logically it's common sense get your knobs where you want to see them keep these things out
of pink and on the critical things that you want clean oh peak peak lights it does not hurt the
console to have the channel clip hey hey hey hey that thing is not going to clip itself to death
it's not going to get hot and blow up and it's not going to have unfriendly feelings and sound
bad tomorrow because you punished it today with too much red light clip lights within reason you
can pretty much run these as hot or cold as you want as long as you're going to deal with the
sound you get I personally like to clip my kick drum and snare drum and percussive instruments on
most high quality consoles unless the clip sound of the console is some kind of gritty snapper it
adds some artifact that I find displeasing I try never to clip the vocals but if they clip
occasionally it's not that big of a deal you don't need to freak out alright so I am hope that was
helpful useful informative whatever if you find these videos interesting and you might want to
check out some other ones I try and cover subjects that aren't normally taught in school or different
angles different explanations for various aspects of being a pro audio engineer alright