Volume problem when mastering

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steev93

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Hi, Im currently using an alesis studio 32 mixer going into adat lx20 and getting some real nice sounds. To master the recording im using an emu 0404 pci card into a pc with Cubase which also produces a good sound. However...when i actually play back the mixed down audio its extremlely quiet.
Ive firstly saved the 20bit file to my external hard drive and played the recording on various other systems and the volume is about 50% of what i heard from cubase before mixdown.
The master db meter on cubase is just under clipping and im going from 20bit to 20bit.
Cant find a solution, any help would be appreciated.
Steve
 
More info on your monitoring signal path is needed to diagnose the problem.

Have you opened your mixes in an audio editor and looked at the RMS levels?
 
Ive firstly saved the 20bit file to my external hard drive and played the recording on various other systems and the volume is about 50% of what i heard from cubase before mixdown.
Its either a settings your not selecting in the mixdown or your just listening to it louder in cubase.
I mean in order to see if its actually lower, you need to re-import the audio file into cubase and see if its actually lower.
Each sound system has volume controls and this includes cubase.
Im thinking its your RMS level, beacuse im thinking you do not know about RMs and im thinking you just think having it under -0.1dB peak is good enough

Saying sometihng is 50% lower in another playback sysytem is incorrect, since the 2 systems are not calibrated. There is no context to your 50% lower. so import it back into Cubase to see if its actually lower. Yuo may just not be mastering it to a good RMS level
The master db meter on cubase is just under clipping
That means notihng! Peak level is not what your shotting for. You need your RMS level to be beween -14 to -10dB.

Peak is the highest dB point of a continuous audio signal and RMS meaning root mean square, is the average dB level of an continuous audio signal. The Peak is usually twice the amount of the RMS.




CJ
 
Your right im not really aware of RMS. This sounds like a promising solution to the problem, Thanks for the replies.
Steve
 
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