...i've been recording, sequencing with sonar2.2 but after all those long hours and finally publishing the tracks into mp3s and burning it onto audio cds etc, i realised one thing: my tracks' volume levels are relatively low compared to other commercial audio cds and mp3s. i'm trying to figure out whether this problem is from sonar or my soundcard (creative Extigy)?

also, during mixing / sequencing, i know the volume levels are high enough from the meter level because the whole track touches the peak almost 90% of the time during playack. what could be wrong?

Well, for one thing - a lot of CD burning software (audio) tends to automatically take a few dbs of the level just to keep the audio from clipping. In most cases that "idiot proof" function/feature can be taken off for good.

A lot of commercial stuff, is mastered according to multimedia standard. So if you have too much bass , miids or got forbids peaking High-Mid peaking treble (6.300 - 15.000hz) on your tracks the volume can only be turned up so high before the nasty clipping kicks in.
I often run my "Final Masters" through frequency analyzers just tto make sure that there's nothing funny going on.

Napoleon Wilson


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Got a smoke on ya ?

thanx for the advice

i'm very aware of the cd-burning issue. i tend to not use the features in such softwares simply because i'm not gonna let anything foreign affect weeks of fine-tuning and painstakingly mastering my tracks. my problem occurs even pre-cd burning (ie, wav to mp3) anyway

i've yet to try out the 'nomalization' function in sonar because that's the only way i know to turn up volume levels automatically without them clipping. will let you know how it goes