I work with mostly midi, and guitar, for my projects, and I don't really have issues like what I am now facing.
 
A guitar playing friend of mine created some truly beautiful tracks for a cover he and I are working up, and there is a problem.  He created multiple tracks of guitar parts, and each track has a whole bunch of clips where volumes are not consistent between the others on the same track, because he recorded them on different times/days.
 
So, what I need to do is get the levels of all the clips on each track to where they are all peaking at around the same value, and as I haven't faced this before, I am not sure what the best approach would be.
 
I am open to ideas - and thanks in advance for any guidance.
 
Bob Bone
 

There is only one approach. Measure the VU or rms levels of all these parts and adjust so they are all the same. Peaking to the same level is not the issue or the way to go about it.  It's all about getting rms levels the same for all these clips.
 
A decent VU meter (VST) is the best way to do it. Do not rely on what the Sonar rms readings are telling you. They are out by 3 db anyway. You need a VU meter that shows you 0 dB VU at the chosen ref level. You will need to decide what your ref level is going to be.
 
Its an old technolgoy and approach but it still works today. The Klanghelm or PSP meter will do the job very well.
 
 
 
 
 
 

I will typically normalize all clips to the same value that is in the ballpark (pre-mix levels). As long as they are close the rest will get remedied in the mixing process. The first pass is just to get them consistent with each other (as in one pseudo take).

A side issue you may be seeing is the different times/days... If anything in that setup changed, it can throw off tone that normalization alone won't fix.

Of course if the peaks themselves are the problem some clip gain automation to knock them down a bit (or turn them up if need be) is something to look at.
 
I'm guessing that you mean you have (for example) two tracks. Due to playing technique some of the accents/pickstrokes/strums on one track are louder than the other so in a panning situation the one guitar goes off balance or in a center blend situation gets buried.
 
So yeah... if that's the problem just a momentary gain boost/reduction at those spots is what I would do. Then they will hit any dynamic effects (and other stuff) more evenly giving you more control instead of having to use a comp/limiter just to nail the peaks which may or may not be as good and would require a second stage of compression to do the overall compression (which is still a decent technique but kind of annoying for only dealing with just a few rogue level spikes).
 
Hope that makes sense... and that I understood the question.
 
Cheers.

I deal with this using BlueCat's (free) Gain plugin, which I place in front of any other effects. Then I automate it with a hand-planted envelope - usually just a jump type, with a single node in front of each clip. I pick one clip to be my reference, and match the others to it. I do this by ear; objective measurements are often useless because the perceived volume changes so much depending on what else is going on in the mix from moment to moment.
 
The reason for automating gain at the top of the fx chain rather than using a volume envelope is that you want all those clips to be hitting any subsequent compressor at equal volume. The BlueCat plugin is especially handy for this because multiple instances can be slaved to one another, which is great for leveling double-tracked parts. 
 
As stated previously, peaks aren't the problem. It might be if we were talking about a piano or congas, but for guitars, peak management can usually be handled through automation, e.g. dipping a particularly loud pluck.

Thanks SO much to all who have given me guidance here.  I have to run to a couple of doctor appointments, and will dig into this when I get back later this afternoon.
 
Is there a way to see the peak levels for each audio clip in a track?  I have thus far only observed what Sonar displays for the whole track, after stopping playback.
 
Bob Bone
 

robert_e_bone
Thanks SO much to all who have given me guidance here.  I have to run to a couple of doctor appointments, and will dig into this when I get back later this afternoon.
 
Is there a way to see the peak levels for each audio clip in a track?  I have thus far only observed what Sonar displays for the whole track, after stopping playback.
 
Bob Bone
 

On the left of the Clips pane on the divider between the Clip Pane and the Track pane you'll see a "ruler" in decibels. You can compare the waveform in a clip to that to get an idea (so zoom in on the wave and line up the peaks so they are right beside the ruler).
 
The only other way I know of would be to disable all effects/PC and zero the Gain and Fader controls so the clip is playing back completely unaffected and watch the meters. I'm sure there are other ways though.
 
You could also open the clips up in a wave editor which usually have more accurate tools for something like that.
 
Cheers.
 
PS: I want to make absolutely clear that in my first post the reason I said to use the Clip Gain is because that will precede anything on the track strip and I believe anything in the clip effects bin as well. The track strip's Gain control is the same thing IF you haven't added anything to clip effects bin or screwed with the clip levels at all.
 
If you use the fader to create the peak reduction/boost the volume changes occur at the END of the signal chain (or at least after a bunch of other stuff) and that's not what you want for something like this. I'm sure you understood/knew that but just in case I thought I'd mention it.
 

I had another I idea I THINK would work and provide a real time meter on just the clip... I do NOT know if this is correct though so someone smarter would have to confirm.
 
If you put some kind of metering plugin or an effect that has input metering (like a limiter set to do NOTHING) in the clip FX bin (with nothing else ahead of it) I think the raw output from the clip should hit that input meter giving you a real time readout of what it's receiving from the clip.
 
Again I am not certain of that but if NOTHING else comes before that plugin (just the clip with NO clip level/gain/pan adjustments) then by my logic and understanding of the signal chain in Sonar that plugin meter should be accurate (if the plugin itself is accurate).
 
Just a thought.
 
Edit: If that does work as intended it means you would not have to worry about any other stuff going on on the channel strip. So you'd have, in theory, a "before and after" meter reading... the clip meter being the "before" and the track meter being the "after". In fact I kind of want to try this out now. lol

Yeah - the thing is that for a given guitar track, there may be 30-40 little clips, and I really need the info for each of the clips to be able to determine what to do with it to bring that little clip in line with the others for a more consistent peak level.  And, there are a bunch of these kinds of guitar tracks, so it seems non-trivial with regard to time and effort for me to work through this.
 
I'm hoping we don't have to redo all of that work, as it is literally covering Steve Morse's guitar parts for one of the Dixie Dreg's most iconic songs.
 
I just KNEW I shouldn't have let the guitar player be alone with Sonar - hee hee
 
Bob Bone
 

I see. Okay well I thought of a "next in the signal chain" solution. Since you aren't going to be using any clip effects or clip automation you could take the premise I suggested in my previous post and instead take the metering plugin, put it in a PC FX Chain module and put it at the very top of the PC chain so it appears IMMEDIATELY after the Input Gain.
 
In that scenario you of course would a) want your Prochannel to be Pre FX Bin/Rack and b) make sure your track's input gain is set to default (0db or whatver the default setting is). Also don't futz with the input control on the FX Chain module (so that's set to default to... just don't touch it and it won't affect the incoming level). Essentially just get that metering plug as CLOSE to the actual clip as you can in the signal chain and have absolutely NOTHING altering the audio signal until it hits the metering plug.
 
That of course is based on my theoretical premise that such a metering plug, inserted in such a way will provide an accurate readout of the clips output level.
 
I am also assuming you cannot bounce those clips together to create one long clip (likely lots of takes... ya?)
 
So this method totally bypasses the multiple clip problem. You may get little spikes at the very start/ends of clips though if they start abruptly (which can be solved with fade ins/outs or going into Preferences and setting the auto fade in/out time which is always a good idea anyway if you haven't already set that up). I HIGHLY doubt that will be a big issue for you though being the smart dude you are... and you could just ignore any meter spikes caused by abrupt clip starts.
 
There is still that little ruler between the Clips and Track Pane you could just use for a quick reference. The more you drag a track out vertically the more accurate/easier to read it becomes as well. That really is the easiest way to find max spikes in the clips. You have to do that in the Parent track though... not the take lanes because they have that dumb height restriction and I'm not even sure the ruler is on those.
 
Sorry... that's a bit of a chaotic post but I'm logged in for a while if you need me to clarify my ramblings.
 
Cheers.