Is there a preferred loudness range for incoming signals?

[SashaKindel]

I've heard of the idea that some plugins sound best when the incoming signal is within a certain loudness range. This means the gain of the track should probably be adjusted at at least two points in the signal chain; once before the signal goes into the plugin, to lie within its preferred range, and then again on the output of the plugin, so as to balance as desired with the other tracks. Is MIR like this? If so, what range does it like incoming signals to lie in?

I ask because I have been setting my gains at only one point, namely, on the dry signals before they go through MIR. I set them such that once they come out of MIR, they balance the way I want, and add up to be a little short of clipping at the loudest point in the piece. It just so happens that this involves setting a lot of my dry signals to be so quiet that if there is such thing as too quiet in this context, they might qualify.

[Dietz]

MIR relies on linear convolution which is more or less "agnostic" when it comes to input gain. It also calculates in 32 bit floating point which makes it largely immune to overloading. This means that you are very likely to get away with seemingly problematic gains as long as you make sure that the actual output of the D/A converter is within its operating range.

... but of course all of this might be different for many other plug-ins in your chain, especially non-linear processes like dynamics, saturation etc. IOW: It's always a good idea to keep the signal within a "healthy" range. MIR 3D shows thy by its "magic eye"-like "signal present" indication in the top half of each Icon.

HTH!