I have a song that I thought I had a pretty good mix in the studio......converted it to a Wave file and played it back through my system and I noticed it was low in the volume. During the file convert I had the main levels too low so I deleted and re converted the song at a higher volume. Should I just set the main output to 0 db to get max volume when converting?

Also, once burnt to a cd, it was a whole new mix on my car stereo. Highs were too high......vocals were thinner. Should I do a "save as" and remix to compensate for the fidelity difference in the vehicle? It almost sounded squashed. All that time spent on mixing in my studio just to have it lacking on a real environment stereo. Advice please. This has been something I've been dealing with for a long time and I need to get to the bottom of this once and fore all. Thank you! Ken

Conventional wisdom is to always leave your Main Outs at "0".
 
If you have a Master Bus you can adjust the level of that accordingly.
 
I like to use a Master bus and use SONAR's bus waveform preview feature (go look that up) as that gives you a great idea of what your export will be like, especially if you leave your MAIN OUT at "0".
 
 
 
 
As far as the experience of taking your mix out to the car? That's a common challenge. You can continue to gain experience with the goal of learning to anticipate the difference between your monitors and your entertainment systems. You can get better monitors. You can learn about room treatment for your monitor position. You may want to buy IK MUltimedia's ARC and learn to use it. You may want to use a combination of these ideas. You just have to work at getting good at it.
 
 
Good luck.

So it is possible to get a mix that would sound equally impressive on both studio and "in the car" systems. Hmmmm, back to the drawing board I guess. I mean mixing board.

This sounds like a monitoring issue. Sounds great in the monitors, sounds bad in the car. Arc2 helped me a ton in my non-treated studio. As far as the level goes what is the Average RMS level? I shoot for -12 to -14 myself. Most pro stuff is around -6 to -9.

Monitors are paramount. But no matter which you end up with one need to "learn " them. I think a lot of monitors are way to bass heavy and therefore people under mix the bass. These bass heavy monitors appeal to people mixing modern electronic music with lots of sub bass going on etc. But I personally could not live with that. I have a sub hooked up I kick in for clients who are worried about bass.. they all of a sudden see it's plenty loud enough. 
 
I think I got to the point were all my mixes translate to the real world every time very quickly because I chose the NSM 10's 25 years ago. They are certainly one of the best for that reason alone. It's why they are still on a lot of meter bridges around the world. The new version HS80M will be what I would certainly choose if I was in the market. 
 
Once you finally get a mix that works on all systems, Listen to it on your monitors carefully and remember that sound,,where is the bass, the kick the piano the vocals, how much reverb are you hearing .. then every mix will work too. 
 
I used to have a cheap getto blaster wired to my console to A/B mixes through. I stopped bothering once I learned to trust my monitors. 
 
The room is important, you certainly shouldn't mix in the wrong room, but myself I have had my studio in dozens of different locations and each space was totally different. But my monitors remained the same. I'm sitting less than 3 feet away from the monitors so for me the room has never interfered with what I'm hearing,, I think I tune the room out.. I always make sure the room is optimized as best as I can. Mostly a bit dead. I have so much gear around so that is my sound baffles :? 

I don't want to sound snarky, but this is why mastering engineers were invented.  Mixing and mastering are very different processes, even though they can seem similar superficially. And in fact, it is possible to mix in such a way that you can use the mix itself as your final master, but after mastering hundreds of tracks, all I can say is I never met a track that couldn't be improved by artistically sympathetic and technically correct mastering.
 
The acoustics are a huge deal. Rockit 6 speakers are not the most expensive speakers in the world, but you can mix over them accurately if a) the bass and treble trims are set properly, and b) more importantly, your room acoustics allow for decent mixing.
 
The fact is that most rooms people mix in are smaller that the wavelength of bass waves. You can really shock yourself by running sine waves through your speakers. You will likely hear that some bass frequencies aren't just "a little lower," but actually cancel. As to the highs, moving your head just a few inches can make the difference between hearing and not hearing certain frequencies. 
 
If you mix to compensate for these issues, then your mix will sound totally wrong on systems that don't have these issues. In extreme cases (e.g., when I'm forced to mix in a hotel room on the road), I use headphones but recommend this ONLY if you're aware of all the issues involved with mixing on headphones (e.g., if you mix on Beatz, your music won't translate well over anything except other Beatz headphones). You have "learn" your headphones inside and out, be aware that they exaggerate the stereo field, and often have a sort of proximity effect.
 
Long story short: Run some sine waves through your speakers, become shocked at what happens, then start looking into ways to treat your room. Even a little bit of acoustical treatment (e.g., bass traps in the corners) is better than nothing. Also the distance your ears are from your monitors, the level at which you monitor, and the location of the monitors are all extremely important. As just one example, I have two LED displays located in between two KRK VXT 6 speakers. If the speakers are 2 inches in front of the monitors, the sound is many times more accurate than if they're an inch behind the monitors. Also, I am very careful about controlling reflections from the monitors off the V-Studio control surface. 
 
Acoustics are a big deal...good luck!!!! The object is to mix over as flat a system as possible so your music sounds equally wrong over all playback systems, just wrong in different ways 

My monitors are KRK 6's with a KRK 10" sub for a slight bass enhancement. I don't go heavy on the sub so I don't rattle the family. The bottom end on my cd was not bad.. The highs were hissy and there wasn't as much width in the overall mix compared to the board mix.

keneds
The bottom end on my cd was not bad.

Okay, I was keying in to where you said "Also, once burnt to a cd, it was a whole new mix on my car stereo. Highs were too high......vocals were thinner." That could be that the highs were higher, but that could also be that the bass was lower by comparison...which could happen if the bass was in a range where the waveforms were adding together instead of subtracting.
 
I've had to master acoustic recordings that were done in studios that lacked sufficient treatment for recording. Below about 120Hz, the spectral distribution looked like the Alps with all the peaks and troughs. Or the stock market the past couple weeks 
 
If what you hear from your board mix is different from what you hear in your car, there are really only four options I can think of...
 

• For some reason, the mix is not translating properly to the CD. We're dealing with digital, so if the levels were close to zero not on your master bus but on your hardware interface output bus, they should be close to zero on your CD.
• The monitoring has a problem.
• The car's response has a problem.
• Some combination of these is the problem.

 
The reason why I mentioned mastering is you can hand over your mix and the engineer will polish it. However, if the problem is happening in the process of creating a mixed file, then that issue needs to be squared away first.
 
Hope this helps...

Sounds like you have a good setup. As I said...If your in a spare un-treated room I highly suggest you read up on ARC2. It helps with every possible problem that has been mentioned in this thread. I have nothing at stake here...just trying to help. It has been the best $150 (I got it on sell) I've ever spent. If you have the budget and a dedicated space, by all means sound treatment is the way to go.

Appreciate the input from all. And let it be known, my room has zero treatment. A carpeted room, acoustical ceilings, tucked in the corner. I will try to post a picture for better understanding.

I looked into the ARC2 system and will probably bite. I spend a lot of quality time enjoying my novice labors in my little studio I've created and when it's all done... I want to be able to show off a decent sounding tune. That's why we're all here, right? 😊 it's a vicious cycle.