Master Volume Problem

I posted this in the Sonar forum but didn't get a response. Perhaps somebody here can help.

I am conducting an experiment in an effort to get as much volume as possible in my project. I know, I know... It's just something I'm doing as an experiment so bear with me. <g>

The strangest thing is happening and I can't seem to figure this one out.

I have two vocal tracks routed to a bus. I have inserted some effects and a compressor into this bus. I have also routed this bus to the Master bus. Now.... I have soloed this bus so that only the audio from this bus is going to the Master bus. No other audio from the project is playing and there is nothing inserted into the effects bin of the Master bus.

The input slider of the Master bus is set at 0. The output slider of the Master bus is also set at 0. The output slider of the the soloed bus is set at 0 as well. I do not have any Sends set up in any of the tracks or busses.

Now here's the weird part: The output meter peak reading for the soloed bus is -7.2 but the output meter peak reading for the Master bus is +0.4

How can this be?

No, I inserted the compressor directly into the effects bin and not into a Send. And there are no effects in the Master bus.

However, I set up a new bus and assigned it as the Master and now everything is OK. Just one of those weird things that happens occassionally for no apparent reason I suppose. But assigning everything to a new Master bus did the trick.

Thanks for replying though. It was driving me mad and I spent hours trying to figure it out.

I'm using the same method of compression that you described in your above post. But not getting the volume of commercial CD's and I'm trying different things to see if I can match the volume. I'm using a Hootie CD as a reference. I'm noticing that the Hootie CD has a lot of distortion that goes unnoticed because of the type of music that's somewhat distorted anyway. I'm thinking that they actually allowed thier music to clip in order to achieve the volume levels.