Bounced tracks result in increased volume/gain.

Hi,
    I have some tracks of recorded audio that need to be bounced down to a single track.
  When I playback the tracks as is there is plenty of headroom and no issues.
   
    Following a bounce (Realtime Audio - What You Hear) the resulting track is generally louder and actually clips in places.
 
    There are no Fx or Automation on any of the tracks/buses.  The source tracks are routed to a single bus and that bus is soloed during the bounce operation.
 
    Odd thing (for me) is that this only seems to happen with certain tracks.  I have done this same operation with other tracks and the resulting track is purely a blend of the source tracks (as expected).
 
    What am I missing here?  Is there something else I should be looking at on the tracks before doing the bounce?
 
Thanks,
-Dennis
 

Not sure what to say, don't have that issue...maybe choose main outputs instead of entire mix...but also try using Fast Bounce. It offers some advantages over real-time bounce. 

Yep.  I've been playing around with different source selections and routing.  Had the tracks routed directly to main outs, etc.  No Fx/Plug-ins on any track/bus/etc.  Bouncing mono to mono.  Fully centered Pan.  Still getting added gain somewhere in the bounce.
 
Playback on the source tracks shows peak meter at -0.8Db for both tracks.   Bounced tracks clips in places with meter going to +1.4Db in spots.
 
Yet, I bounced some other tracks and they came out fine...  Frustrating!
 
FWIW:  I am (simply) trying to comp some guitar takes into a single cohesive track.  Should be one of the easiest tasks to get done.  :P
 
Thanks for any/all feedback!
-Dennis
 
 

AkronPark
FWIW:  I am (simply) trying to comp some guitar takes into a single cohesive track.  Should be one of the easiest tasks to get done.

That is a HUGE clue. Remember, when comping there's only supposed to be one track playing at a time. If you're bouncing additional clips, you will likely get distortion.
 
This is most noticeable when using Take Lanes like the way you used to do Layers. For example if you record 10 Take Lanes of voices that you want to bounce into a choir, you need to normalize those Take Lanes to 10% of 0. Then when summed, they will reach full headroom.

No overlaps.  Nothing expect raw audio on the tracks.
 
Basically I have the main/primary track and then a second track that was used for punch-ins.
 
The primary track is split at the punch-in points and cross-fade used to blend in the punches.
 
The gain issue does not occur at any of the punch-in points though.  It happens in places where only the main track has audio data.
 
I would understand if it was summing across the two tracks or some Fx routing, etc.  But there is none of that.
 
 
 

Yes.  Bouncing to mono.  I'll try switching the pan law and see how that goes.
 
I've just started using track lanes too.  Good to know about the Flatten Comp function!

brundlefly
Are you bouncing to a mono track? If you bounce mono tracks through a stereo bus to a mono track, you'll get a 3dB increase unless your pan law has a -3dB center. Normally you'd want to preserve whatever panning is on the tracks, so you'd bounce to stereo. But since you're just bouncing down a comp, I'm guessing there's no panning. In that case, try setting your pan law to use a -3dB center.
 
In the future, if you do our comping with the lanes of one track, you can bounce directly to a mono track without going through a stereo bus, and avoid the problem. Or use the Flatten Comp function to create the bounce as a new lane of the same track.
 

Hi. I'm having this same issue, bouncing a raw, mono voice-over track. Track source is mono, so in the master source, I'm choosing mono as well. Sure enough, the master is a stereo bus and the bounce is adding 3 db. What is a "pan law" and how do I adjust it? Thanks! 

Anderton
I highly recommended choosing a Stereo track source when bouncing mono tracks. If you absolutely must have a mono track after bouncing, use the DSP Gain function to delete one of the channels, then choose Convert Stereo to Mono.

I highly recommended choosing a Stereo track source when bouncing mono tracks. [the source track IS a mono track. I'm trying to keep the file size in check on a narrated streaming video I'm doing. If I choose "stereo track source," does creating a stereo track from a mono track essentially double the size of the audio file?]