Gain Staging on the Stage

[Iconoclast]

This whole discussion reminds me of two sound engineers I used to work with. They would often take turns at the same console (usually not changing during a gig, though). One insisted that all faders should be around 0 dB in "normal reference song" position, and thus worked the input gain to achieve this. The other equally strongly defended his position that all levels hitting the mix bus should have similar, thus working the input gains to make each channel peak around 0 dB before summation.

Seen the exact same phenomena, but I think if you read around, the first type you describe is definitely NOT what is recommended.
http://blog.sonicbids.com/the-critical- ... and-volume
https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques ... w-software
https://www.musicianonamission.com/gain-staging/

Really, just look anywhere. They all say the same thing with digital boards (which operate just like a DAW). -18dbs is the new 0dbs. No one recommends mixing via input gain anymore.

I doubt that internal clipping in the board would be what the OP is experiencing.

Right on. I don't think so either. My first suspect would be the input gain of whatever he's running his board to. If he doesn't have a great amplification system, it could be on the output of his speaker or speaker amplfier.

[Iconoclast]

Yikes, this thread blew up. At home in the studio, the NS3 sits atop the MP11 and both are routed into a cheap mixer, which has everything set to nominal 0. I kept the master vol on the Nord at roughly 50% and the volume on the Kawai at 50% also. My monitors are at 75% gain each. I've noticed that the Nord sounds better with the Section volumes turned down and the master volume turned up, rather than the other way around and was trying to get some insight on this.

I seriously doubt that any clipping is occurring inside the Nord. I've seen nothing like that in my system.

Check the input gain on your mixer and make sure that it's allowing plenty of headroom. Especially with piano sounds make certain that you are not clipping by reducing either/both how much the Nord is sending and/or the input gain or trim.

Also, depending on the speaker, 75% might be too high. I've used a lot of speakers that are plenty loud at 50% and some are even recommended there. So consider turning your speakers down. If your Kawaii is sounding OK through them, they're probably at an OK level.

Adjust the fader to get the volumes matched and correct.

No reason to expect that your Kawaii and Nord would have the same output levels. For example: I have a Kurzweil Forte that puts out about twice as much signal as any other board I have. I cannot run it above about 60% with factory patches or it will clip inputs. Even lower levels are required on my keyboard amp.

[Fallboard]

I think I need to go back and take another listen

[Quai34]

I don't do the 50% level at all:
For me, all volume potentiometer for all my units, stage 2, C2, DSI synth etc are always at 100% because I'm pretty sure it's what they called the 0db nominal level....
Then, I adjust the input gain on my mixer to get 0db on the Vu meter for each unit...
Between the internal engine, I adjust then individually for the 2nd and 3rd parts (the ones that are not the main ones...) in decreasing them....
I have two output on my mixer then, I adjust mine to get enough volume for me and for competing with guitarists and loud drummer but for the FOH, I just raise the volume until the sound guy get 0db as well....
So, not sure I understand why you should keep any level before the final one at 50%, for me it's kind of "damaging" the nominal level of the board....

My mixer is on the ground so unreachable while I'm playing.
We don't have our own soundguy, so how could I possibly make myself heard with a solo if everything's already at 100% ?

I agree on your 0db setting wrt to the signal-chain but in practice this doesn't work for me.
I need the 'headroom' from a practical perspective.

Ok, you're right, my mixer is always reachable and we always have a sound check guy that could increase my volume during a solo and I make sure he knows when we have solos, I give them a sheet with all the infos per songs and I review it with them before the show....
For the issue of mixing with the gain, as said with the example of the two sound guys, I was not thinking about this, for me the gain stage must be done at the front desk with PFL per channel (Pre Fader Listening) and then, you mix with the faders....
On my Tascam LM-8ST that I use live, there is only one Pot/gain knob because it's a 1U rackmountable unit but I always reach the two main volumes, one for me and one for the FOH o trunk them up before a Piano solo....For organ, most of the time, the swell pedal is enough and for my Analog synth, DSI and Matix 1000, I'm at 75% most of the time otherwise their outputs are too hot compared to the other units....
But yes, I'm using a lot the control/volume pedals to adjust nuances during my playing....

[baekgaard]

This whole discussion reminds me of two sound engineers I used to work with. They would often take turns at the same console (usually not changing during a gig, though). One insisted that all faders should be around 0 dB in "normal reference song" position, and thus worked the input gain to achieve this. The other equally strongly defended his position that all levels hitting the mix bus should have similar, thus working the input gains to make each channel peak around 0 dB before summation.

Seen the exact same phenomena, but I think if you read around, the first type you describe is definitely NOT what is recommended.

Totally agree (even in the days of Analog mixers I think it was a bad idea, also for several other reasons). But some stuck to the practice and still managed to make it sound fine

They all say the same thing with digital boards (which operate just like a DAW). -18dbs is the new 0dbs.

For the Nord, if you disregard the output effects, you need around 15.6 dB headroom to safely mix the 6 instruments. If you add in the effects and allow for things like the resonant filters, you need much more, so I think that for an instrument like the Nord, -18 dB(FS) is not enough.

My guess is that Nord probably uses 32 bits on the effects/summation bus, so 0 dB (100%) at each instrument could even correspond to -48 dB(FS or vs digital headroom max), if we assume they use 24 bits for the instruments. Then at the output stage some digital normalisation likely takes place, effectively reducing this somewhat. Of course it could be done in many other ways too, but there is very likely much more than 18 dB headroom in the chain.