Why are my vocals distorting when I export my song?

Hi everyone,

Any idea why the peaks of my vocal are distorting when I export the song/audio? 

In Sonar (5) I don't detect any real-time distortion during playback; I have good monitor speakers and have also checked the lead vocal using my monitor headphones but the vocal just doesn't distort druing playback? 

I've tweaked the compressor by increasing the threshold so that the compressor doesn't compress as much and that doesn't seem to have any effect either.  My sliders on the vocal tracks and vocal buses, including the master, aren't peaking either. 

My writing partner reckons my compressor, the sonitus fx compressor that comes with Sonar 5, and the exporting process are somehow conflicting, could this be the cause of this distortion?  If so, why am I not hearing the distortion during playback?  It just doesn't make sense.  Personally, I suspect it's an export issue but I have no idea how to resolve this or tweak my export settings. 

Can someone please help? 

Your help would be greatly appreciated.

D from London

Thank you so much for replying.  All the buses are routed to the master but you're right, every track's output is set to the soundcard.  Forgive me here but are the sends overriding that?  And why the distortion?  In an attempt to remedy the problem, I ditched the sonitus fx compressor for the Vintage Channel VC-64 and that seems to working better but not perfectly, once I've changed all the outputs I'll let you know for sure.  I added a final mix compressor to the master and it was peaking, I lowered the input gain, was that the right thing to do?

Thanks a million for replying; you're very kind.  It's 3am here in London, England and I'm blessed to have someone in Texas(?!) helping me out.  Thank you.

D from London

Just changed all the outputs and attempted a mix-down.  The compressor I added to the master bus needed severe tweaking because the volume of everything increased on changing the outputs!  Just listened to the mixdown and it's even worse in terms of distortion but I think it's me not knowing what to tweak on the compressor.   Any ideas? 

I like the Antress Modern Limiter (free)

bit's right about sonitus for the master bus - I do use it there, but only if I put a limiter after it.

but it's decent for bass and vocals for a basic compressor on the track or parallel on a bus.

Hi Beagle, thank you too for replying.  Re bass and drums and compression.  I'm not compressing the drums but should I be?  Regarding the bass, I'll use sonitus on its track but is there a particular preset (specification) I should be using? 

Your advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you too.

D from London

For now, don't put anything on the master bus except Ozone. Later, when you've gotten a handle on Ozone, you can try putting another compressor in front of it. But for now just Ozone.

Play your song and watch Ozone's INPUT meter, noting peak values going into the plugin. If they go above about -10db for more than a few moments, turn the input level control down until they rarely exceed -10db. Turn the input level down if it hits or even gets near the red, even for a moment.

(-10db is a reasonable target for most rock 'n roll, but if it's a delicate ballad, jazz or acoustical music you'll want to be more conservative, perhaps peaking no higher than -14 or even -16db. The difference between this and your "Margin" setting will determine your overall dynamic range.)

Select the Loudness Maximizer section and click the Mode button until it reads "Intelligent II".  Leave the "Character" slider at the default for now. Don't click the "prevent intersample clipping" box yet. Pull the "Margin" slider down to -2db.

Now play back your song while slowly lowering the threshold. You'll hear the song get louder as you do, but don't be seduced into overdoing it. Watch the gain reduction meter and note the largest numbers you see in it.

How much gain reduction is OK depends on the song, the genre, and your goals. For my own stuff I keep it below 3db. For more aggressive genres, 6-8db may be fine. Just beware the effect known as "loudness bias", where you think it's sounding better but it's really just getting louder. Note how the small details of your mix, especially transients like cymbal bell hits and tambourines, start to fade away as you lower the threshold.

Yes, the input slider is the vertical blue slider on the left side of the meter display.

And no, that wasn't a typo - I meant 2 decibels (2.0), not 0.2. The latter number would be more typical for commercial products, but leaving 1 or 2db peak headroom is better advice for us amateurs.

Given your musical genre, I'd suggest trying to lower the input level until it's peaking around -10 to -12db. Then start lowering the threshold until you see compression of 2 to 3db. Experiment from there with the threshold and season to taste. Just be careful of volume bias when comparing two different compression intensities.