Mixdown output volume

[legionserial]

Hi!

I have recently started using cubase to record my music after years of not doing anything. Before that I was using Sonic Foundry's Acid music, which obviously has its limitations, on a pc that is now 1/10th of the power of my current machine.

The thing thats baffling me is that I was listening to some of the old stuff I made, whic had been mixdown to wav. with no compression or volume enhancers whatsoever, yet realised the volume was waaaay higher than what cubase gives me at mixdown. The final mixdown volume in cubase is stupidly low. I understand that I wont be able to get to commercial volume levels without some mastering etc but, this volume is just unbeleivably bad. I have tried all I can to push the volume up, but even using ozones volume maximizer wont get it to even the level of my old stuff without some serious clipping.

Is there something I'm doing wrong? Maybe I havent setup correctly I dont know, but as hard as I try I cant get the volume to decent levels.

Cheers

[Easto]

Are you normalizing it in Cubase before mixdown? That will take a bit of the edge off of it.

[legionserial]

I'm not sure that this is the issue. I mean, basically even if i turn the master fader all the way up, yes i get tonnes of clipping but the volume it mixes down to is so completely lame. I just dont understand why Cubase does this yet 4-5 years ago Acid was perfectly capable of reaching a reasonable volume, clipping or not.

What gets me is that although my recordings made in acid are not of the greatest quality, I havent had to compress the living hell out of them to get them to a decent volume. It sounds natural. Whereas the stuff im making in cubase may have a bit of shine, but to be honest I would prefer to listen to the older stuff 1)because it hasnt had the hell squashed out of it and 2) because its actually audible. I just dont get it. Thats why I am currently assuming that there is something i havent setup correctly driver or bus wise or something.

[Markaholic]

i use sonys sound-forge (used to be Sonic Foundry) to bring my mixed down wave levels up to par..you can normalize it...wave hammer it...does nice w/o destroying it! they do have a demo...give it a shot!