Free ToolsRecording Levels

Recording Level Reference

Where every stage of your signal should sit. Gain staging done right means headroom at every step - not fighting noise or clipping in the mix.

⚡ TL;DR
Set input gain so the loudest hits peak around −12 dBFS - never clip the input. Record, then mix by pulling faders DOWN from 0, not up. Keep the master peaking around −6 dBFS while you work. That's 90% of it - the chain below is the detail.
Live gain staging chain

The same demo loop, run through 4 real gain stages. Push a slider until a meter goes red and you'll hear the clip, not just read about it.

Move a slider yourself, or tap a scenario above to hear a common mistake.

1. Source (instrument / mic)
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Guitar/bass direct: use a good DI or direct input. Mic on amp: position for tone first, level second. Don't start adjusting gain until you have the sound you want.
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2. Preamp / interface input gain
Peak around -12 dBFS, average -18 to -12 dBFS
This is the most important stage. Set so the loudest transients hit around -12 dBFS on the input meter. Never clip here - once you clip the ADC, the distortion is permanent. Leave at least 6–12 dB of headroom above your average level.
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3. DAW track level (recorded clip)
Peak around -12 to -6 dBFS
The recorded audio file should have peaks in this range. This gives the DAW's 32-bit floating point engine plenty of room to process without arithmetic errors.
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4. Channel fader
Start at unity (0 dB), mix from there
Start every fader at 0 dB and bring them down to balance the mix - not up. If you're pushing faders up to hear things, your input gain is too low. Pull all faders to -∞ and bring them up one by one.
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5. Mix bus / master fader
Peak around -6 dBFS during mixing
Leave headroom on the master bus while mixing. If you're hitting 0 dBFS or clipping the master, pull everything down. The mastering engineer (or your limiter) needs headroom to work with.
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6. Export / master
Integrated LUFS: -14 (streaming) · True peak: -1 dBTP
Streaming platforms normalize to around -14 LUFS. Loudness war is over - masters that are too loud get turned down. Leave true peak at -1 dBTP to survive lossy encoding. A limiter on the master bus to catch peaks is fine; brick-wall limiting everything to 0 dBFS is not.

Tap a problem to see the fix.

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