Too quiet?

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shadow5606

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This may be a really simple question or it could have more answers than you can shake a stick at...

I've noticed that my finished cakewalk projects (all audio, no midi) tend to be more quiet than a normal recording. If I raise the gain in cakewalk any more though I get cliping. I'm using compression but this doesn't seem to help. I'm not talking about a 50% difference but maybe 25% less volume than a normal commecially recorded track.

For what it's worth, when I play it back in Cakewalk it sounds louder, then I export the final mix to a wave file... Then it's quiet... however if I play the wave file in Steinberg Wavelab it seems louder there as well...

What am I missing here and what else would anyone need to know to help me out?
 
shadow5606 said:
This may be a really simple question or it could have more answers than you can shake a stick at...

I've noticed that my finished cakewalk projects (all audio, no midi) tend to be more quiet than a normal recording. If I raise the gain in cakewalk any more though I get cliping. I'm using compression but this doesn't seem to help. I'm not talking about a 50% difference but maybe 25% less volume than a normal commecially recorded track.

For what it's worth, when I play it back in Cakewalk it sounds louder, then I export the final mix to a wave file... Then it's quiet... however if I play the wave file in Steinberg Wavelab it seems louder there as well...

What am I missing here and what else would anyone need to know to help me out?
Click to expand...
My first thought is make sure your master bus is up enough.
 
I'll often go into Process -> Audio -> Normalize to make it at as loud as the mix will allow. Granted, as I get better at mixing, eqing, and psuedo mastering, I'll need to do this less, but for now it works okay.
 
Allow me to show my ignorance here but when you talk about the master bus do you just mean the volume slider on each track?

I trypically mix that way and then once I mixdown to a final track I set the volume slider as high as it can go w/o cliping.
 
You might check your WMP or which ever player you use. On my Delta card I can look at the control panel and know that I'm peaking even though the volume on the player is low. When I crank up the volume, it peaks into the red but never clips.

Other than that, check all your faders in the program as mentioned above.
 
shadow5606 said:
Allow me to show my ignorance here but when you talk about the master bus do you just mean the volume slider on each track?

I trypically mix that way and then once I mixdown to a final track I set the volume slider as high as it can go w/o cliping.
Click to expand...
No, if you look at the console veiw ( to make it easy) on the right if you expand it out there will more faders. One is the master bus.
 
ah, I'm with you, I generally don't use the console view. The master bus was set to 0db in the console view so I should be good there, eh?
 
yes I would say. Now how are you listening to the audio? What sound card? What is your setup?
Jim
 
Shit I just noticed you said 25% less louder than a commercial cd. They wont be as loud until they are mastered. This may be the issue.
 
In addition, getting the mix loud is or has been the BIG issue for a long time and subject of much debate.
 
yeah, about 25% less loud than commercial stuff. None of it's professionaly mastered.

What goes on behind those mystical mastering doors? :)
 
This probobly isnt the best thing to do but I do it anyway, once you've exported the file to .wav format reopen the the .wav file in sonar as a whole and then work on it from there i.e. using equilizers and cranking up the volume as much as you want, seems to work for me
 
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