One preamp, several mixes, and who gets to turn it

• Clipping is shared. Set a preamp with 10 dB between the loudest peak and clipping, let the owner add 12 dB, and the followers' levels don't move while the preamp runs 2 dB into clipping for all of them. Yamaha's manual makes the same point the other way round: turning a distorting channel down with Gain Compensation on doesn't help, because the network signal is raised by the same amount and stays distorted.
• Noise is shared, in the other direction. If the owner takes 15 dB out, every follower's trim puts 15 dB back, and that brings the converter's own noise up with it: as much as 15 dB, relative to the signal, on a channel where the converter's noise is the noise you hear. A preamp turned down for the drummer's benefit is turned down for the broadcast truck as well.
• Trims run out. A follower that has already trimmed a channel down 20 dB, on a ±24 dB trim, can only take 4 dB more. Let the owner add 8 dB and 4 dB comes straight through. Every system on this page has a limit somewhere, and only some of them publish it.
• Steps rarely bite. Analogue gain moves in whole dB on the Rio, the MP8R and the dLive MixRack, and a follower trim in 0.25 or 0.1 dB steps can cancel a whole dB with nothing left over. Midas's DL431 moves in 2.5 dB steps, which would matter more if anything shared it.

In the box. The stage box applies the compensation itself, before the signal reaches the network, so the network carries a level that doesn't follow the owner's gain. Yamaha's Rio does this, Focusrite's MP8R does it on a second set of outputs, and DiGiCo's SD-Rack can send a gain-tracked MADI split. Anything receiving that channel gets the held level: another brand's desk, a recorder, a broadcast truck, a laptop running a virtual soundcard. The owner needs a way to hear its own moves, and each maker solves that differently.

On the following console. The network carries the preamp's output as it is, and each following desk moves its own channel trim. Allen & Heath, DiGiCo's console-side tracking and Avid work this way. It protects desks of the same make that have tracking switched on, and nothing else. A recorder tapping the same stream records every gain move the owner makes.

The box model protects more receivers. The console model leaves each follower's trim on its own surface, so its engineer can see how much range is left. On a mixed rig the question is which receivers you need protected.

On CL, QL, RIVAGE PM and DM7 with Rio and the other R series boxes, Gain Compensation is a per-channel switch: on a CL it's the GC button beside the analogue gain knob in the channel's GAIN/PATCH popup. With it on, the Rio applies a compensation gain inside the rack, so the level it puts on Dante stays where it was when GC went on. RIVAGE PM's manual puts it plainly: raise the analogue gain and the compensation gain in the I/O rack comes down by the same amount.

• Every console sees the held level, the owner included. Each console sets its own level with its digital gain (D.GAIN, given as −96 to +24 dB in CL, RIVAGE PM and DM7 spec listings). From CL firmware V2.0 there's an AG→DG LINK per channel, and AG→DG ALL ON/OFF, which makes the owner's digital gain follow its analogue gain moves, so the owner hears its own change while the network stays put.
• Switching it off doesn't jump. Turning GC off returns the analogue gain and the compensation gain to where they were when it went on, so the network level doesn't move.
• Fixing a distorting channel is three steps. Yamaha's procedure: turn GC off, set the gain properly, turn GC back on. While it's off, everyone hears that move.
• A Rio that won't change level when you turn it has GC on, which is the first item in the Rio-D2 manual's troubleshooting list.
• Range. The Rio3224-D2's preamp runs −6 to +66 dB in 1 dB steps. I didn't find Yamaha's figure for how far the compensation gain itself stretches. A forum post says ±16 dB, rising to ±24 dB with AG→DG LINK; that's a forum post, so it isn't in the tables here.

On dLive, Gain Tracking belongs to Multi-Surface mode: up to four surfaces on one DM MixRack, or two on a CDM, sharing one engine and its 128 input channels. It's switched on at the surface that wants to be protected. Allen & Heath's own example: with Gain Tracking on at the FOH surface, preamp changes made from the MON surface are compensated by the FOH channel's trim. Users on Allen & Heath's forum describe it as one way: the trim follows the gain, and a follower's own trim changes don't move the gain.

• Pad changes aren't compensated. That's in Allen & Heath's Multi-Surface guide, in so many words.
• It's one system, several surfaces. Two separate MixRacks sharing a stage box over gigaACE or Dante are two systems, and users on Allen & Heath's forum report that tracking isn't available between them, and it's been asked for as a feature. I haven't found the current firmware saying otherwise.
• Avantis has Gain Tracking in the preamp window, by forum accounts, including a two-desk FOH and monitor rig. I didn't find Allen & Heath's own documentation for it.
• SQ and Qu don't have it, again by forum accounts. Sharing an SQ stage box leaves the follower trimming by hand; an Allen & Heath community post gives the SQ trim as −24 to +24 dB.
• Range. The MixRack preamp covers +5 to +60 dB in 1 dB steps. I couldn't find dLive's trim range in Allen & Heath's own documents; the ±24 dB used in the range table below is the SQ figure and is marked as unconfirmed.

DiGiCo's version depends on the transport. Over MADI only one console controls a rack's analogue gains. Both consoles select the shared port in Setup > Audio I/O and press Shared; the owner then takes Full Control and the other connects Receive Only, with the Track buttons at the top of its input channel screen switched on for the shared channels. When the owner moves a gain, the tracking console's trim moves the same amount the other way. DiGiCo call this uni-directional gain tracking, and the same setup works the other way round if monitors want the gains. A rack set to isolate doesn't track.

• Over Optocore up to five consoles on one loop each get their own Gain Tracking and keep access to the analogue gains, so whoever hears a channel clip can take the gain and fix it without moving anyone else's mix.
• The rack can do it for you. An SD-Rack can send a gain-tracked MADI split, set on the rack or from a console's Audio I/O panel, so the receiving console needs no tracking of its own. That's the box model, and it's the one DiGiCo option that helps a receiver of another make.
• Snapshots. "Snapshot Recalls Total Gain", at the bottom of the Snapshot Global Scope panel, compares a snapshot's stored analogue gain with the socket's current gain on recall and offsets the difference in the recalled trim. It applies when the socket's rack is Receive Only, or when analogue gain isn't in the recall scope.
• Range. DiGiCo give ±40 dB of digital gain for tracking, against −20 to +60 dB on the SD mic pre. That fits, but only just, as the range table shows.

VENUE 5.2 brought I/O sharing to S6L: two systems on one Stage 64, extended to three from VENUE 7.0, each engine needing two AVB-192 cards. One system is the Input Master for each Stage 64 and owns all its input slots: gain, pad and phantom. Input slots can't be controlled by two systems at once. Output slots are claimed card by card. The other systems' channels pick the signal up after True Gain, which Avid describe as compensating in real time for analogue gain changes made by the system that owns the preamp, and which sits first in the S6L input chain.

• Pickoffs. VENUE 7.2 lets a channel take its source from a choice of pickoff points. In the parts of Avid's 7.2 notes I could read, Avid describe Top of Channel as the raw signal, at the level recorded to Pro Tools for virtual soundcheck, and the True Gain pickoff as the one that respects each engineer's own gain structure.
• Repatching moves the gain. Move a hardware input to another channel, by hand or by snapshot, and its gain, pad and phantom go with it.
• Range. S6L analogue inputs run +10 to +60 dB; digital inputs −20 to +18 dB. I didn't find a published limit for True Gain's compensation, so it's absent from the range table.

I haven't looked at sharing on the older Profile and SC48 systems for this page.

Midas's answer for the big rigs is to not share. The DL431 splits each of its 24 inputs to three Midas preamps: two with independent remote gain control and phantom switching, in 2.5 dB steps, each with its own rear-panel analogue split, and a third at fixed gain for the front-panel transformer-isolated output. The two variable preamps are meant to be controlled from two places, FOH and monitors. The DL231 gives two independent preamps per input across 24 inputs and 24 outputs.

With a preamp each there's nothing to compensate, and the parts compensation can't fix go away too: monitors can run a channel hot without clipping FOH, and FOH can turn one down without raising anyone's noise. The mic is still one mic. Both variable preamps have phantom switching, and I haven't found Midas's word on what happens when one desk turns it off and the other leaves it on.

• Single-preamp boxes (the DL251, the DL15x range, DL16 and DL32) have one owner. I found nothing in Midas's documents about gain tracking on the PRO series or HD96, so on those the other desk trims by hand.
• M32 with a DL16 or DL32 works the same way. One console holds the headamps; the other is handed control, or not, with the HA Remote setting for the AES50 port in the preamp setup (menu names from user write-ups; I haven't found them in Midas's manual). The follower's channel trim runs −18 to +18 dB in 0.25 dB steps, and the X32 protocol document gives that trim for digital sources only, so whether it trims a shared headamp channel at all depends on the HA gain split preference, which I've only seen described on forums.

I found a published preamp range and compensation range for two systems, DiGiCo and RedNet, and a likely pair for dLive. In each the window is tighter than it looks. DiGiCo's ±40 dB covers its −20 to +60 dB preamp to the dB, but only from a lock at +20 dB, the middle of the range. Lock at +40 dB, a plausible vocal gain, and the owner can go to the top but only down to 0 dB before the trim runs out. RedNet's ±12 dB covers less than half its preamp.

None of the console-side systems works across makes. Remote preamp control is each maker's own protocol, and a desk drives another maker's box only where support has been built for it, as Yamaha did for RedNet. So with a Yamaha at FOH and a DiGiCo on monitors, the DiGiCo can't see the Rio's gain, let alone track it.

The box model is the one that crosses brands, because the held level is just audio on the network. A Rio with GC on, or an MP8R's channels 9–16, or an SD-Rack's tracked MADI split, carries a held level that any desk can receive. On a mixed rig that's usually the cleanest answer: let the owner's brand of box hold the level, and give every other desk the held copy.

I've had a go at the console side in Dante BabelBox, which has a gain lock: one desk leads, and when its preamp moves, each follower's input trim is moved the other way over that desk's own control protocol. It works in deltas, so a follower engineer's own trim change survives the next compensation, and whatever a trim can't take at its limit is kept as owed and paid back later. Followers today are X32/M32 and Wing only; the leader can be any desk the bridge reads preamp gain from, including dLive and DM3. It's on main and not in a release, and it has only been run against mock desks: no real console has followed a leader yet. If you try it on a real rig, its guide has the checks to run first, and I'd very much like to hear how it goes.

• Tracking on at one desk and not the other. It's per channel on Yamaha and DiGiCo, and switched at the following surface on dLive. A channel somebody missed is a channel that jumps, usually the one that was added at soundcheck.
• The follower's trim is nearly out. A monitor engineer who trimmed a channel well down has little left in that direction, and the next gain move comes straight through. On RedNet the window is ±12 dB from switch-on whatever the follower has done.
• Somebody presses the pad. On a shared preamp that's a 20 dB step for everyone unless the system tracks pads, and Allen & Heath say theirs doesn't. I haven't found the others saying either way, so assume it moves everyone.
• The owner recalls a show. Scenes and snapshots can carry analogue gain. DiGiCo's Snapshot Recalls Total Gain offsets the trim to match; S6L moves gain, pad and phantom with a repatched input; other desks' scene filters differ. Before the doors, find out which desk recalls the preamps and whether its scenes include them.
• Fixing distortion with compensation on. Turning a held channel down doesn't stop it distorting. Switch compensation off, fix the gain, switch it on, and tell the other desks first.
• Virtual soundcheck. A multitrack taken from a held output keeps the gain from the moment of lock, and one taken from a direct output follows every move. Play it back into the other kind of channel and soundcheck won't sound like the show. Check which one your recorder is patched to, and what your desk's gain control does in playback mode before touching it on a shared rack.

Put in the owner's gain at lock and now, the follower's trim and its range, and the headroom the preamp had at lock. It shows what the follower hears with and without compensation, whether the trim runs out, and what's left at the preamp.

• Yamaha, CL Series Reference Manual (CL1, pages 33–35 on ManualsLib): setting Gain Compensation, the relationship between analogue and digital gain with the +30/+45 dB example checked above, and the distortion procedure. RIVAGE PM series manual, input channel I/O unit section (manual.yamaha.com), for the compensation gain moving inside the I/O rack and the switch-off behaviour. Rio3224-D2/Rio1608-D2 Owner's Manual for the −6 to +66 dB head amp range, the GC menu and the troubleshooting entry. CL V2.0 supplementary manual and firmware 2.03 notes for AG→DG LINK; CL V3.1 supplementary manual for third-party HA control of RedNet 4 and MP8R. Digital gain range from CL, RIVAGE PM and DM7 spec listings.
• Focusrite, RedNet MP8R User Guide (the French edition from Focusrite's download server was the one I could read in full): the 16-channel layout, per-channel Comp, the 0/−3/−6 dB offset and the ±12 dB tracking limit, the Yamaha ID setting, and the 10 to 65 dB gain range. RedNet MP8R data sheet for the DSP gain tracking description and its 0 to 55 dB figure.
• Allen & Heath, Understanding dLive Multi-Surface, Issue 1.2: surface counts, Gain Tracking on the following surface, and pads not being compensated. MixRack preamp range from Allen & Heath's dLive specification as listed by dealers. Allen & Heath community forum threads for Avantis and SQ, two-MixRack tracking, and the SQ trim range.
• DiGiCo, SD Series User Manual, chapter 3 (pages 92–93 on ManualsDir): rack sharing over MADI, Full Control and Receive Only, the Track buttons, the rack's gain-tracked MADI and Snapshot Recalls Total Gain. SD-Rack product page (digico.biz) for ±40 dB and five consoles on Optocore; SD Mic Pre Module and 32 Bit Mic Pre Amp data sheets for −20 to +60 dB.
• Avid, VENUE S6L System Manual (S6L-48D, pages 129–133 and 184 on ManualsLib): Input Master ownership, output slots, gain ranges and repatching. S6L data sheet for True Gain at the head of the input chain. VENUE 5.2, 7.0 and 7.2 feature reports from trade press, and search-result excerpts of Avid's 7.2 page (which refused my fetch), for sharing, three systems, the AVB-192 requirement, True Gain and the pickoff points.
• Midas, DL431 and DL231 product pages (midasconsoles.com) for the preamp layouts and 2.5 dB steps. M32 and X32 headamp hand-over from user write-ups and Behringer's forum; I didn't find it in Midas's manual.
• My own: Dante BabelBox's gain lock guide (docs/GAIN-LOCK.md), including its survey of which desks' protocols expose a writable trim and the X32 and Wing trim ranges and steps.

Assembled 3 November 2026 with AI assistance. The arithmetic and the published ranges are checked at build time (Yamaha's worked example, DiGiCo's window against its preamp, RedNet's window and offset). That catches a transcription slip; it can't catch a wrong source. Nothing on this page was tried on a real console for it, and where a figure comes from a forum the page says so. Menus move between firmware versions; check the manual for the version on the desk.

Companion pages: Dante network best practice for the network these racks sit on, Dante, AES67, RAVENNA, AVB and Milan for why a Yamaha, a DiGiCo and an S6L don't share a transport, let alone a control protocol, and XLR, AES3 and DMX for the phantom power a shared preamp can only switch once.