Digital Audio: Gain Improvement | (Mastering)

By Cesar Arevalo | Audio Specialist.

Perhaps one of the most difficult moments when facing “digital-based mastering” * is when we try to obtain optimum gain results in our final audio processing stage. This lack of gain can be caused by different reasons such as having low-quality recordings, lacking an optimum pre-amplification stage, or failing to achieve an ideal compression phase. Whatever the situation is, I brought to you a list of the digital plug-ins of my preference to fight back against these common issues and increase your output gain quality.

I would like to start by recommending an initial “peak compression” process which can be done by applying any basic compressor. Just make sure that the attack times are relatively fast (between 7 and 20 milliseconds) and the release is no longer than 60 milliseconds, just to ensure we are reducing peaks only. Be aware of your gain reduction levels. If these levels are higher than 4 dB, you are probably altering the original dynamic content of your mix. Remember to low down your levels before starting any mastering process.

NLS (Bus instance) by Waves

This plug-in has an outstanding approach to the simulation of the harmonic features of real analog mixers, and we are going to use it as our starting point in our improving gain process, the NLS simulators will expand our sound through its “drive” knob which is used not only to increase our gain a couple of dBs but also to “color” our output signal with the characteristics of 3 well know analog mixing profiles.

“Waves asked three very well-known engineers to lend them their analog mixing consoles, in order that their programmers could analyze each desk’s non-linear behavior and unique sound.” Frederick Norén.

CLA 2 by Waves

This plug-in includes a predefined compression algorithm that I consider appropriate to raise the output levels. This plug-in will take our mix to a higher sound pressure level, taking into account that we do not want to saturate the signal at the same time we keep our gain reduction levels around 4 or 5 dBs’ maximum. It is as simple as controlling and testing the device through its 2 simple knobs.

“Although is not usually a mastering compressor it does sound kind of cool because of its slow processing; a result of its optical nature-based simulation algorithms.”, Yoad Nevo.

Pro-L by Fabfilter

This plug-in brings us a simple limiter compressor that easily allows us to modify the output threshold and its gain amount through a simple and very graphic user interface. In terms of controls, it does not have any exceptional features but I really like the 4 “limiting styles” that come along with the device which depending on the music genre we are working on, will give us a more accurate approach to the limiting stage of the mastering process.

” There is, moreover, more to Pro‑L than meets the eye, thanks to the extra controls that are revealed by pressing the Advanced button. The most important of these is probably the choice of four different limiting algorithms.”Sam Inglis.

Of course, I would recommend including a multi-band compression, a stereo image control phase, and a multi-band exciting stage as well, but as we are focusing on gain right now, these topics will be covered in further updates.

*whether you are trying to support an audio mastering process or just want to achieve the best results with your VST plugins