Selig Gain or Gain knob ssl duobt!!!!

[Jowe79]

Hi i have reason 11 and focusrite 6i6 2nd gen... In gain staging what is the best way? Using gain knob or TRim for adjust the signal correctly letting the faders in 0 (default position) ? OTHER question .... What is the place for better measurement... db peak or average... Place selig gain after hardware interface and before master output?? Or place selig gain in every channel track?? For good rwference... Of gain staging is better master out meter? Or Big meter? A bit confused.... Thank you guys!!

[Loque]

What do you want to do? I mean, peak measuring or average measuring? Gain staging or just poluting every track with devices?

[Jowe79]

Basically ... Gain staging for ensure enought headroom in master mix... thanks!!!

[DParris]

Clip gain for manually leveling prior to compression (keeps your compressors from working too hard), channel strip trim for making fader positions not ridiculous, faders for both initial balance and then later automation. If you want to measure your available headroom for mastering before exporting use the big meter, then adjust accordingly with master fader. Hope that helps!

[selig]

I'm one that believes it's helpful to keep your signal gain at a consistent level at every gain stage/patch point. My frustration with Reason was there was no way to know what level you were getting at each stage without soloing a channel, making absolutely sure you've bypassed everything including the bus or master FX, then trying to catch what the highest peak was on the Big Meter - THEN, making sure you restored all devices to the original non-bypassed setting before moving to the next channel. Naturally, this was a part of the reason for developing Selig Gain!
The thing is, you can set levels and then shift/drag the Selig Gain to the next patch point and check levels there, moving "down stream" and making sure levels were consistent. You don't need multiple devices, you only need a few seconds for each point.
For example, if I add a Subtractor with a Pulveriser on it, then add EQ and Dynamics in the mixer, that's 3/4 points I need to check. Start by inserting Selig Gain between Subtractor and Pulveriser, then drag it AFTER Pulverizer, then into the Mix Channel Insert and use the default routing (with has the inserts "post" EQ/Dynamics) to see if the EQ/Dynamics are adding gain. You can of course move the insert point around to check pre EQ or pre Dynamics (so you're only measuring one process at a time), but you probably don't need to be THAT anal!
It's the insert Gain I typically leave, if just to keep the dynamics section from adding unnecessary gain with it's "auto make up" feature.
From there you can measure the Master Insert, and I always keep a Selig Gain on the L/R outputs of the Master Section, and I use Ozone9 Elements after it for any mastering. This allows me to keep -3 to -6 dB mix headroom before mastering in the case the mix will be professionally mastered - bypassing Ozone restores the "headroom" so I can quickly export a mastered and pre-master version if necessary.

[sinusfiction]

The thing is, you can set levels and then shift/drag the Selig Gain to the next patch point and check levels there, moving "down stream" and making sure levels were consistent. You don't need multiple devices, you only need a few seconds for each point.

Gee, I've been working with Reason since 1.0, but never realised I could shift/drag a device to move it in the chain (always rewired manually ). Thx!

[EdGrip]

There's nothing wrong with using the channel strip gain knob, other than it's miles away right up the top of the channel strip and has no meter next to it.

I think you should use *literally any other* level knob or fader for automation - automating the SSL faders means you can't use them for mixing, so why not just use a different parameter?

If Selig Gain is too CPU intensive for you for this task, you could use the free kHs Gain RE which doesn't include a meter or the other pan, mono and fade-out functions of Selig Gain. It just reduces the level and nothing else.
Knowing Props' optimization of the old stock devices, though, it might be even lighter on resources to use a 6:1 mixer or the output/gain knob on an M-Class device. If you're not using level-dependent inserts, you could even use the channel gain knob. Just don't use the mixer faders - there's no reason to, but good reasons not to.

[Ottostrom]

Gee, I've been working with Reason since 1.0, but never realised I could shift/drag a device to move it in the chain (always rewired manually ). Thx!

It was introduced in Reason 7 or something and made my life so much easier!
Now you can just quickly check what difference the order of your effects make

[DParris]

I think you should use *literally any other* level knob or fader for automation - automating the SSL faders means you can't use them for mixing, so why not just use a different parameter?

Automating faders (or riding them, as they used to say) *is* mixing, or a big part of it anyway. Once you've got a general balance set, the only thing left to do with those faders is ride them according to the needs of the music.

The problem with trying to automate apparent volume using the channel strip trim, or a gain plugin, is that you've handicapped any gain-dependent processing that comes later in the signal chain: compression, saturation, dynamic eq, etc.

This can be a good thing (i.e., leveling out a really dynamic signal before it hits the first stage of compression, so that you're compressing by a few db consistently, rather than by a million db sometimes and nothing at other times).

But once you have your compression threshold set, the last thing you want to do is render that threshold moot by altering the strength of the signal hitting it.

The fader is the last thing in the channel before it gets summed, so that's where your volume automation should take place.

[EdGrip]

Not really - you can very easily place a gain utility last in the signal chain before the fader. That way you have one fader for mixing and one for automation. The same as creating a bus for automation, but neater.

[EdGrip]

(this would all be academic if Reason would allow relative automation of faders.)

[DParris]

Not really - you can very easily place a gain utility last in the signal chain before the fader. That way you have one fader for mixing and one for automation. The same as creating a bus for automation, but neater.

Well, to each their own. If it works for you, then by all means keep doing it!

If I decide after automating that the overall balance needs to change a bit, it doesn't seem that much harder to select my fader automation values and move them up or down wholesale. That's technically a little more work than grabbing the fader itself, but not much.

Adding an extra plugin to every channel and having one more knob to keep track of seems harder.

But that's the beauty of a platform like Reason. It allows so many different approaches to achieving results.

[selig]

(this would all be academic if Reason would allow relative automation of faders.)

I've been asking for this basic feature for ALL automation since Record (and the SSL mixer) was first introduced. Very surprised it doesn't exist from day one, it being such a basic feature that exists on all automation systems I've worked on in the past 40 years!

On the original SSL E series and onward, it's one button, cycling through three basic modes: off, absolute, trim. Adding this function to Reason would be dirt simple IMO, and I'd LOVE to see the automation button mirrored in the devices in addition to the sequencer, especially the SSL Mixer.

But I've given up on this ever being added to Reason, as it's hardly a "most requested" feature and Reason has so many other features waiting in line.