Export Audio Mix Down Entire Mix: Gets loud at some passages of the song.

Last night I was finishing my mix on a song with a strict deadline and people waiting on me.
I mentioned this because, of all the things I work on, this is the time something bad starts to happen.

Anyway, I have done this a million times, throw a Maximizer on the Master BUS and Export.
When checking the mix I noticed certain parts of the song will get loud ruining the entire finished project.

This does not happen in Sonar, meaning I do not have this problem on playback, only when I export.
This has happened before but I did not pay attention to it and the problem resolved it self.

Have you experienced this issue?

The only thing I did differently, was during mix down, sometimes I'll get bored, open a browser and read some article.

I am not sure this was the fix, but the next try, I did not touch anything and it worked as expected.
Either way, this caused me to sweat in an otherwise cold room and I am curious if anyone has experience this issue before.

You export your mix and the volume is up and down.

Specs:
RME Fireface UFX PLUS: connected to (Sonnet Technologies USB3-PRO-4PM-E Allegro Usb 3.0 Pro Pcie Card 4 Controllers)
WIN Server 2012 R2
64 GB RAM
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-3820 CPU @ 3.60GHz 4 Core(s)

msmcleod
Is Windows set to use your RME as its default sound device?
Code in some browser pages could be altering the volume if that is the case.

Yes, I have the default audio card Disabled In the BIOS.
Basically everything not in use is disabled in the BIOS.

I know this issue may seem trivial but I panicked last night. :)
Because sometimes trying to fix a problem in the middle of a session gets you into a rabbit hole.

Maybe I will experiment while doing some mix down, now that the project is over and see if the browser was causing this or any other background work, like file transfer.

msmcleod
I did the same originally, but soon found that I didn't want Windows anywhere near my pro audio device.
 
I'd recommend re-enabling your onboard audio device, and setting that to the Windows default. This will solve no end of problems with Windows messing around with your RME settings on every update, as well as the sort of issues you've seen during export.
 
A simple mixer can be used so you can hear both your RME and Windows sound card (I use a Mackie Big Knob Passive so I can easily swap between the two).
 
Alternatively, you could connect the onboard output to two spare inputs on your RME.
 
Even if you don't intend to use the onboard device, enabling it is useful as you can get Windows to swap to it temporarily if you're doing stuff like exports, by clicking on the volume tray icon and selecting the onboard device.
 

Did not think of that. :)
Some days I wished we had special OS just for DAW.
Windows can sometimes be such a drag!

But thank you very much and I shall experiment to be prepared for future headaches.

scook
Listening to the master bus can be different than exporting the "Entire Mix" if some of the tracks and buses are not routed through the master bus.

So this is my set up:
Verses --> Bus (Verse) --> Master
Chorus --> Bus (Chorus) --> Master
Instruments --> Bus (Instrumental) -- Master

Bridge, Adlib and so on.

In a nutshell, the entire mix is sent to the Master Bus either directly from tracks or from other buses.
I usually use the Sub Bus approach instead of Grouping tracks.
When I tested the Mix Down specifying Master Bus, there were no noticeable audible difference.

You make an interesting point, I am not certain if this happened while I was using the Master Bus as Source or the Entire Mix, which shows the RME Main output as Source.