Reply To: Gain Staging Explanation to a beginner :(

[Guido tum SudenKeymaster]

"Normalize Region Gain…" is great. You can set it in different ways. For PLAP mixes I would set it to per Track. When I work with my students I often set it to per Region. That can be dangerous because if there are, e.g. in vocals, spikes that Region will be much quieter. You can set it to LUFS and I found that -23 LUFS often works well.

Other than that, don't be afraid to use more Gain plugins. I mix a little bit quieter than Paul with -10 to -12 dBFS peaks. But if a plugin needs more input and it doesn't have Input and Output knobs, put a Gain plugin before and after it to push it first and then back down.

You wrote, that you sometimes mix too quiet. That is only the case, if you hear a lot of noise in your mix, after boosting your mix at the end.
Since DAWS nowadays can handle many dBs above 0 a lot of mixers don't care about clipping anymore. They just turn down their mix at the Output channel.

I like to use a VU meter as well. I start with a Bass Drum of -3 VU and usually the mix will end with being around 0 VU as long as the meter is set to -18 dBFS.
If I do some mastering for myself I set the VU meter to -10 dBFS, use the master bus chain to get to 0 VU again and will so end up with a song around -14 LUFS.