I use MIDIs on stage, and of course there is an audible count at the start of every song, using a drum stick sound.
 
When I play the song from SONAR itself, everything's perfect.  But after exporting to MP3 or WAV, the count is very loud, it sounds like full volume!  The rest of the song is fine; only the count is loud.
 
Is there a way to fix that?

Find the count in on the drum midi track and lower the velocity. 

Cactus Music
Find the count in on the drum midi track and lower the velocity. 

Right, but that would mean doing the same for 200 songs.  Plus, why should I need to? It's fine otherwise.  Something about the export process is changing only that.  Was hoping someone would know why, and how to fix it.
 
FYI, the velocity is already down to 40.  That's low enough that it shouldn't be heard  like 127.

Well 40 You should not be able to even hear it. What is it using for the count in.. the metronome? 
That might be what is happening. If you have Sonar set to count in it's possible the metronome is part of your export. If so then un checking that will be global to all songs. 
 
Because I master all my backing tracks in Wave Lab that is one of my tasks. I cut the song to 1 beat ahead of the first tick and I run a quick check of the level. I set all of mine close to the same at -30db RMS. 
I find a hi hat is less annoying if the audience is going to be hearing it. 
 

Cactus Music
Well 40 You should not be able to even hear it. What is it using for the count in.. the metronome? 
That might be what is happening. If you have Sonar set to count in it's possible the metronome is part of your export. If so then un checking that will be global to all songs. 
 
Because I master all my backing tracks in Wave Lab that is one of my tasks. I cut the song to 1 beat ahead of the first tick and I run a quick check of the level. I set all of mine close to the same at -30db RMS. 
I find a hi hat is less annoying if the audience is going to be hearing it. 

40 is quite low, but audible enough for me to hear thru the monitor on stage, and not bother the audience.  Hi-hats are lost to my ears in a noisy place.
 
The count-in is simply drum sticks (on a MIDI kit), no metronome involved during playback.  
 
Edit:  As a test, I deleted the count-in (the four stick hits); not the measure, not the CCs or anything, just the notes (G2 x4). Exported it to WAV, and it played with no volume fluctuation.  I half expected the first few beats to be super loud, but no, it was fine.  When I put those notes back in, the problem comes back.
 
So again... why would those first 4 notes be at 127 when exporting?  I can see no settings that would cause such a thing to happen.

This is still an issue.  Anyone?

What I do is place a 4 count beat wave file in the song at the beginning at a low volume at measure1 and start the song at measure 5 and export the entire project to MP3 or wave.
 
Works every time.


Just record a 4 count audio beat via a Mic, and export as wave and save it.  Now import it into your project at measure 1 and move your project back to Measure 5, bounce down the midi to audio just before exporting the entire project and you are set.
 
Another light bulb moment.
 
 
 
 

Jesse G
What I do is <snip>
 

Good suggestions, but very time consuming to go through 200 songs and do it.  I'm just wondering why it happens at all, and if there's a fix for it.  Maybe there isn't....

The best workaround I found for now is to change CC7 to a lower volume for the count-in, then put it back up for the rest of the song.  Still need to re-edit 200+ songs, but it's a faster edit than adding measures and all that.
 
Still... it's a complete mystery as to why only the count-in is exported full velocity.

No solution to perform on 200 songs at once, that would be a miracle.