Four ideas cover most of what you need to run sound well: cables, gain, EQ and compression. Learn them in that order.
Cables: over-under
Wrap cables over-under: alternate the direction of each loop. The cable lies flat, comes out straight next time, and lasts years longer. It’s the first thing anyone in AV notices about you.
Gain staging
The most important thing in audio. Set each input’s level at the source, before any other processing.
Signal flows source → gain → processing → fader → output. Every output (house, monitors, stream) starts from the same gain, so get it right once.
- Aim for green to yellow on the meter.
- Too low gets you a weak, noisy signal.
- Too hot gets you distortion that nothing downstream can fix.
EQ
EQ shapes tone, not volume.
- Lows (20–250 Hz): weight, boom. Kick, bass, room rumble.
- Mids (250 Hz–4 kHz): most of the sound. Clarity or mud happens here.
- Highs (4–20 kHz): air and detail. Cymbals, consonants.
Cut before you boost. If something sounds muddy, cut the low-mids instead of boosting the highs.
Compression
Compression evens out loud and quiet moments so you’re not riding the fader.
- Threshold: where it starts working. Lower means more compression.
- Ratio: how hard it turns down. 2:1 is gentle, 4:1 is moderate, 10:1 and up is limiting.
Use it on vocals, speech and drums.
Go deeper
- 10 Essential Tips for Volunteer Audio Mixers (Yamaha)
- Gain staging, part 1 (QSC training)
- Mixing Station docs
Back to Audio.