Low volume output on wav file

[rcf]

Can anyone help me with this. I am new to recording at home and am using Sonar le 6 which comes with the edirol usb. I have recorded a few tracks that when i playback on my monitors the volume sounds cool. When i export the audio tracks to a wav file and put onto a cd and play in the car the sound volume is way softer than any other cd. It is driving me mad because i am already getting red line delux on the outputs so cant push that anymore.

Please help

[drgamble]

There are a variety of things that could be causing this problem. Using compression and limiting is normally how you would boost up the levels on a CD. If you google "Loudness Wars" you can find information about this. Most new CD's are so compressed that the level meters barely move off of 0. That is why they are so loud. You have to be very careful with this though and usually tasks like this are left to a mastering engineer. You may also have too much low end. Too much low end will make the meters read 0 dB, but all of that energy is in low end. You would be surprised how much bass you can remove and still have a solid sounding track.

[TonyB]

Yes, what drgamble said. You need to slap a limiter on it to get the volume up. That will probably get your going in the meantime.

Adding eq and comp in front of the limiter will help as well.

[almostagain]

try exporting to mp3.. check all your level's and settings other cd's sound good in your car stereo?

[rcf]

Thanks for the help will check it out using your guides. hey i want the recording to sound like Coldplay viva la vida perhaps being a little foolish seeing i am using a home studio. Thanks Again

[BudmanRocks]

Originally Posted by almostagain

try exporting to mp3.. check all your level's and settings other cd's sound good in your car stereo?

Donot do this. No DISRESPECT....I have had this problem b4.... After you bounce your tracks down to stereo, open it back up in sonar for mastering. The bounced down is never ready for burning to cd. Once you open it for mastering bring your main outputs (not tracks or buses) all the way up as far as you can with out clipping. Add any mastering plugins you need to. Then go to file, export audio. Box pops up, asign where you want the final file togo and lower right part set the drop down box to "what you hear" and hit export. Aslong as you had the main outputs up all the way with out cliping your final track will be louder. I use Cool Edit Pro for my stereo mastering. It does some things that sonar doesnot. The reason i sed not to export as a mp3 is = wave or mp3 will make no difference in volume. But when you burn it your burning program will have to convert it back to a wave. I keep all my final stereo in wave form. Less work for your computer to. I hope this made sense to you. GARY BTW limiters also work well as told by the other members too,

[aarondarter]

I'm happy to hear that someone else has been having this problem, but feel for ya. You must be pulling your hair out like I have been over the past month or so.

I have one questions. I've got the whole compression thing down pretty well now and am getting better with my EQ techniques. Where would I find a limiter (on a program). Does something come with Sonar? Would I set it up as a stereo bus and run the all the tracks through it? Should I mixdown, import the mixdown track to a new sonar file and use the limiter that way? Any suggestions would be awesome. I''m lossing enough hair trying to figure this out.

[BudmanRocks]

In sonar use your Boost11, it's compressor limiter and will help too.