Reduced Volume when rendering

[Treskalle]

The above is only true when the noise is added after the gain stage. Any noise added with (or before) the gain stage rises and falls with the gain, and the ratio to the signal being amplified is fixed. In other words, turning up the gain just turns up the noise with it, so you might as well optimize your levels for the later phases of the process. Besides, it's been decades since noisy gear was such a problem that you had to drive everything nearly to clip to minimize the noise.

0dBVU generally lines up to -18dBFS or so. When you are getting digital levels with peaks above -6dBFS your analog gear might be running above its optimal level.

Thanks. I believe in that now, but my experience was only a little bit different, or at least practical different. Anyways, when I work with antenna's and distribution signal, the way is a bit different. Cuz, there you will gain up much as possible in the start to minimize the noise, I thought that this might be the same if it's tv/radio signal or just audio signal as in recording. But thanks for clearing it out!

Well, Boulder tried explaining it to you, so I'm not going to repeat what I and others have corrected people on over and over.

I'll try to be helpful, though. This is a great artcile by a regular member here. It explains things a lot better than I can:

Proper Audio Recording Levels | Rants, Articles

Thanks for the links. This really made me understand, sorry I sounded so stubborn. I just had my experience not so good when recording "TOO low" ( ) Anyways. This article was real nice.

So here is what I have found - some of which is part of the learning process, some of which was a silly error on my part, but I will share in hopes that it will help someone else.

Problem one, and the main point of my confusion - I had two discs that I was using as a reference, BOTH of which were recorded a good bit hotter than your "average" recordings, not sure why, but they were. These were commercially available and all, but just recorded a good bit hotter than normal. This explained why my disc sounded much softer on other players than my "reference".

Problem 2 - when playing back through the PC - I had my PC output going into input 11 of my Tascam1800 - which has no gain control, and yields a lower gain that normal, thus why it sounded WAY quieter when played back on the PC. The reason I had it routed this way (temporarily) was that I was using a PC Drummer to produce my click track. (using click, snare, and hi-hat, makes a nice click by the way.)

Problem 3, and more subtle, but still an issue - Normalize!! did not do this, and yes it made a difference. Purely my oversight.

With all of the above corrected, I am now very, very happy with my results. Hope this helps someone else.

I had the same problem. I know excactly what you mean. All the reference and everything does look ok in reaper, but not in other sources. When you render it, you will loose so much volume. It's wierd. Didn't get any solutions. Should maybe just take the hard way and master it afterwards anyway. Though it is a lot of work for something that doesn't need much mastering and should pretty much be raw..

 

[Treskalle]

The above is only true when the noise is added after the gain stage. Any noise added with (or before) the gain stage rises and falls with the gain, and the ratio to the signal being amplified is fixed. In other words, turning up the gain just turns up the noise with it, so you might as well optimize your levels for the later phases of the process. Besides, it's been decades since noisy gear was such a problem that you had to drive everything nearly to clip to minimize the noise.

0dBVU generally lines up to -18dBFS or so. When you are getting digital levels with peaks above -6dBFS your analog gear might be running above its optimal level.

Thanks. I believe in that now, but my experience was only a little bit different, or at least practical different. Anyways, when I work with antenna's and distribution signal, the way is a bit different. Cuz, there you will gain up much as possible in the start to minimize the noise, I thought that this might be the same if it's tv/radio signal or just audio signal as in recording. But thanks for clearing it out!

Well, Boulder tried explaining it to you, so I'm not going to repeat what I and others have corrected people on over and over.

I'll try to be helpful, though. This is a great artcile by a regular member here. It explains things a lot better than I can:

Proper Audio Recording Levels | Rants, Articles

Thanks for the links. This really made me understand, sorry I sounded so stubborn. I just had my experience not so good when recording "TOO low" ( ) Anyways. This article was real nice.

So here is what I have found - some of which is part of the learning process, some of which was a silly error on my part, but I will share in hopes that it will help someone else.

Problem one, and the main point of my confusion - I had two discs that I was using as a reference, BOTH of which were recorded a good bit hotter than your "average" recordings, not sure why, but they were. These were commercially available and all, but just recorded a good bit hotter than normal. This explained why my disc sounded much softer on other players than my "reference".

Problem 2 - when playing back through the PC - I had my PC output going into input 11 of my Tascam1800 - which has no gain control, and yields a lower gain that normal, thus why it sounded WAY quieter when played back on the PC. The reason I had it routed this way (temporarily) was that I was using a PC Drummer to produce my click track. (using click, snare, and hi-hat, makes a nice click by the way.)

Problem 3, and more subtle, but still an issue - Normalize!! did not do this, and yes it made a difference. Purely my oversight.

With all of the above corrected, I am now very, very happy with my results. Hope this helps someone else.

I had the same problem. I know excactly what you mean. All the reference and everything does look ok in reaper, but not in other sources. When you render it, you will loose so much volume. It's wierd. Didn't get any solutions. Should maybe just take the hard way and master it afterwards anyway. Though it is a lot of work for something that doesn't need much mastering and should pretty much be raw..

 

[RAMI]

Thanks for the links. This really made me understand, sorry I sounded so stubborn. I just had my experience not so good when recording "TOO low" ( ) Anyways. This article was real nice.

No problem, man. It is a great article.

 

[moondoggie53]

Great comments, all. A finely tuned bunch of politicians. The questions remain: does ANYONE know why this is happening? And, does ANYONE know how to keep it from happening? I'm an information sponge, so don't think I'm unappreciative of the knowledge, but I'd love to see an answer, too.

Sorry about calling you politicians: all the usual epithets have lost their meaning.

 

[mjbphotos]

Great comments, all. A finely tuned bunch of politicians. The questions remain: does ANYONE know why this is happening? And, does ANYONE know how to keep it from happening? I'm an information sponge, so don't think I'm unappreciative of the knowledge, but I'd love to see an answer, too.

Sorry about calling you politicians: all the usual epithets have lost their meaning.

If you read through the whole (old) thread, the OP was routing his PC volume through an input on his interface tha thad no gain control and had lower overall volume to it.

Can you be specific on what YOUR problem is? Mixing down, rendering .... give us all the details, your equipment, etc.

 

[philbo]

Your problem could happen if the master fader is set below 0 dB when you render.

Say it's at -6. Then you load the rendered file into a new track and play it, now it's running through that master fader again, lowering it *another* 6 dB.

At this stage of mixing, it's pointless to compare the volume level to a reference CD, since your stuff hasn't been mastered.
It SHOULD sound quieter at this point.