Mixdown volume question

[Bulls Hit]

I'm confused here.

Someone mentioned to me that this song I mixed wasn't very loud, so I started experimenting with the buses in my s/w (Guitar Tracks 3).

Say I have 20 tracks, and I mix down to a stereo track 21. I route the 20 tracks to a bus, called Mix1 and I route track 21 to another bus, Mix2. Then I output both buses to a Master bus.

On playback, neither the Mix1 or Mix2 buses is redlining, but the combined signal on the Master bus overshoots by, say 3db.

If I now bounce that Master bus to track 22, on playback the meter goes to 0, and no more.

If I go back and bump up Mix 1 and Mix 2 faders so the Master bus is now overshooting by 6db, and bounce it once more to track 22, on playback the track22 meter still won't go over 0. However the volume is louder than the previous bounce, and the waveform looks like it's been compressed.

Anyone know what's going on here? Does the Bounce function automatically compress a hot incoming signal so the output never peaks over 0?

 

[Son of Mixerman]

You stacking you tracks into the the bus and overloading the master section.

Im not sure why your bouncing to tracks? I rarely use bus for bouncing unless Im trying to apply some dynamics or reverb to a group of instruments or bounce internally for a mixdown. I always bounce to a new 2 track mix.

Are you muting the 20 tracks prior to sending mix1 and mix2 to the master bus?

If you going past "0" on the master bus you are clipping not compressing and your software might have a limiter built into it.

I typically do my ITB mixes exactly like I do a Harware mix.


SoMm

 

[Bulls Hit]

The way GT works, when you bounce to a track, in addition to selecting which tracks to include, you can also select from a list of the busses you've created.

The 20 tracks are not being muted - if I did this the Mix 1 bus would be empty.

I think you're right. There seems to be an automatic limiter kicking in