And so it came to pass, on 06-28-97 09:39,
   that Bonnie Goodwin spake unto Terry Smith:
 BG>  As far as stages go, ideally you want the gains to be set to a
 BG> level that is not to soft, not too hard, but is JUST right.. Don't
 BG> allow peaks to distort that stage, and don't have the gain set so
 BG> high to get a weak signal through that your noise floor goes
 BG> through the ceiling.
A rule of thumb we used in the car stereo shop, but which can be applied 
equally well to other areas of audio, is to bring up the gain of each stage 
until it JUST starts to clip, then back it off a bit.  This process was used 
avoid thing like amps set too low, necessitating the deck being pushed to 
clipping to get any kind of decent SPL, or amps cranked wide-open, so that 
the volume control on the deck essentially had only "silent" and 
"ear-bleeding" settings.
 BG> Many mixers have a detent or center unity gain position as an
 BG> example. 
"Unity gain" being theoretically ideal, of course.  The other factor to keep 
in mind is that MOST "pro" gear has a nominal +4dBV input/output line levels, 
while most "semi-pro" and "home" equipment runs nominally at -10dBV (some 
"pro" gear allows you to select +4/-10 as well, to allow proper line-level 
matching).
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Love, luck, and lollipops...
Matt


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