Headroom 101: How to use Gain Staging for a Better Mix, LANDR Mix Tips, 7

What is headroom Headroom is how much room your audio signal has before it starts to get compressed and distorted. Subscribe to LANDR on YouTube: Every recording medium has a finite amount of headroom. If you try to record a signal thats louder than what the medium is capable of handling, it will clip the tops of the waveform and youll hear that as distortion. Good headroom in recording means that your levels are in the sweet spot range for the recording medium. That sweet spot is the perfect balance between a systems noise floor and clipping point. Todays digital recording software has an extremely low noise floor, but headroom still matters. You need good Headroom for your mixes to sound the best they can. Your DAW has an impressive dynamic range, but you still have to convert your signal to analog to hear it. Bad headroom affects the way your AD, DA converters handle what comes in and out. Record too low and youre