Gain staging, and riding a level
Why a master starts by putting every mix at the same level — about -18 LUFS — and what to do about a verse that came in under its chorus.
The box at the front, and the one that fixes what nothing downstream can. Trim is gain staging: every threshold in this rack is an absolute number, so a mix that arrives 12 dB quiet meets a compressor that never opens. Balance corrects a stereo pair that leans. And Ride compares each section against the whole mix and moves slowly, in dB — a fader hand rather than a compressor, so a verse that came in under its chorus comes up without anything being squashed.
The controls
Every range and starting value below is the one the processor actually uses — this page is generated from it.
- Trim
- Input gain staging. Set so the mix hits the rack at about -18 LUFS, which is the level every threshold below here was chosen for. ZENITH puts the level back at the end, so this costs nothing.
- Balance
- Corrects a mix that leans to one side. Whatever comes off one channel goes on the other, so the level doesn't move — only the centre does.
- Ride
- How much of the level difference between sections to take out. This isn't compression: it works over seconds, against the whole mix, so the transients inside a section are untouched. Half is plenty on most records.
- Range
- The furthest the rider may move. 6 dB covers a verse that sits under its chorus; more than that and you're rewriting the arrangement.
Sonic Station's mix finisher runs this entirely in your browser — the audio is never uploaded anywhere.
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