What is the high level summary of actions items for bouncing, rendering, burning to CD?
 
I am confused. How does your interface play into this?
 
I thought you selected bounce to track, select Master Buss, click the necessary settings for 16Bit etc. and that is it.
 
Am I missing something...probably, as I could only follow half of what was discussed over a year ago.
 
 

The answer using Sonar X3 Producer is mentioned earlier. Export at (min.) 24 bit. 16 bit does not give you any volume control of the WAVs. Cheers

And another resurrection!!
 
Also, export bit depth will NOT determine overall level. Never has, never will.

I've tried all of these suggestions and variations and get exactly the same results each time, a lower volume WAV or FLAC than when I listen to the mix directly in Sonar X3.  
When Sonar plays my mix, I am mastered so that the Master Output is peaking at -5.2db, occasionally seeing a bit of red.

maxweltd
@rickgn I had the same issue. You are going to kick yourself.... wait for it... On your master bus, check the mains out. Guarantee that is the problem, they are set too low.

That was it for me...feel stupid, thanks man

I found another possible solution. This exact thing was bugging me. Sounded nice and loud in Sonar but when I played it back in my music program (Mediamonkey) it was about 13-14db quieter.
 
I downloaded an ASIO driver for my music player (Mediamonkey) and it fixed the problem.
 
Because before, Sonar was using the ASIO driver and the music player was using the basic Windows driver.\

Sorry to restart this this particular thread, but I am having the same issue. I have checked all outputs, all routing etc. I can play a track as loud as I can get it in Sonar, but the exported wav file is ridiculously quiet. For example - in X3, my Master bus is on 0, and my hardware output is on 0, and my UR22 with headphones plugged in is on about 1/4. I export the file, then to get any decent volume on playback I have to turn my UR22 up to about 3/4, and even then it's still quieter than when it was playing back in Sonar. I have tried a bunch of different media players, and they are all the same. I end up having to take the track into Audacity and apply a volume boost to make it acceptable. If I put the track onto my phone, and play it back in the car, it is still too quiet. The really odd thing is that if I then import the exported file back into Sonar, its nice and loud. I feel that this should be pointing me to a possible solution somehow.....
 
This is really starting to get me down.....so much so that I feel it's time to start experimenting with different DAWs, although I don't really want to - I have too much money invested in Sonar to dump it, but it is starting to look like the only option.....but it looks like Sonar doesn't like me thinking about that - I tried exporting all my tracks as individual files so I could import them into something else and see what happens with the volume when I export it from my chosen something else, but every time I try exporting the tracks, I get 24 separate wav files, all EXACTLY the same size, and all of them TOTALLY SILENT. I tried using the 'audible bounce' option, and I can indeed hear the song playing while it is exporting, but I still end up with 24 tracks of nothing........arrrrgggh!
 
If I had hair I'd be tearing it out about now. I've found lots of questions about this exact 'low volume' problem, and it seems the usual solution is when someone realises that they haven't turned up the hardware output before mixdown, but as I said, mine is OK, so that doesn't seem to be the issue.
 
If anyone can assist, I will be forever grateful.....even if that assistance shows that I have forgotten something basic and I end up looking like an idiot (wouldn't be the first time!)....just help me please!
 
UPDATE - OK......I said I'd end up looking like an idiot....but at least I have solved the 24 tracks of silence problem. Turning off Fast Bounce solved that part of my problem. I'm guessing that there's probably something in the manual that would have told me that, so, as expected, the fault is mine. D'Oh! But I still have the 'exported track is too quiet' problem. I might now try turning off Fast Bounce and try exporting the whole mix again
 
Another Update - turning Fast Bounce off slightly improved the volume of the exported full mix.

Come on, it's not Sonar, otherwise there would be countless threads complaining about it!
 
There is something you've not got set correctly or neglected when trying to compare apples to apples.
 
Forget trying it out on different media players, you need to verify that your export is correct INSIDE Sonar before anything else.
 
1 - Perform an export @ 32 bit, use Main Outs in the Export dialog with NO dithering.
2 - import this back into the same project into an empty track
3 - Route the output directly to your interface, BYPASSING your Master buss, otherwise any Fx on there will be doubled up
 
Your reimported export should sounds EXACTLY the same as your project, both qualitatively and quantitatively.
 
If it doesn't, there's a screw up with your routing somewhere.
 
Let us know how you get on with this before we go any further.
 

Thanks for the reply. I exported the mix as you suggested, it was still quieter than it was when playing the mix in Sonar, by quite a bit. I then imported it back into my project, routed it as suggested, and in Sonar it was getting close to the volume of the mix, but it was still noticably quieter..
 
I have every track routed to a bus (drums, bass, guitars, vocals and backing vocals, and all those busses are routed to the Master bus, and the master bus goes to the hardware output.

This is strange Gerry.
 
You've definitely got you Master buss and Hardware outputs set to 0dB yes? What about the input gains at the top of the strips. Are they also at 0dB?