Tool
Gain Staging Calculator
Gain in decibels adds rather than multiplies, and clipping happens at the first stage that crosses the ceiling - not at the output where you hear it.
Run it
Gain Staging Calculator
Method
Running level, stage by stage
Each stage adds its gain to the level arriving at it. Showing the level after every stage is the point: the output figure alone hides where the problem started.
Method
The ceiling
Your ceiling is an input because it depends on the device and the format. When the running level crosses it, the stage that crossed it is the one to turn down, which is rarely the one that sounds wrong.
The honest part
Decibels are not tone
This is level arithmetic. Whether a stage sounds better driven hard is a judgement about the circuit and the music, and plenty of good tone comes from deliberately overdriving a stage. The tool tells you where it happens; you decide whether you wanted it.
Asked often
Common questions
Should I enter negative gain?
Yes. A pad or a volume cut is negative gain and belongs in the chain like anything else.
Why does my output sound clipped when the total is under the ceiling?
Because a stage in the middle may have crossed it and been attenuated afterwards. The per-stage lines are there to catch exactly that.
Is this the same as loudness?
No. This is level. How loud something sounds also depends on frequency content and duration, which no dB sum accounts for.