MP3 Level

Is there anything in SONAR Platinum or a plug-in that can take the guesswork out of creating an mp3 that has a volume level that is equal to commercial products?  For example; I create an mp3 of my work, play the piece in my car, ipod, etc.  and I have to adjust the volume level.  Nothing like listening to some of your work early in the morning and when your track has completed the next track starts and practically blows out your speakers :)

Yes, the level of the mix is going to carry over to any converted audio. Usually, the process of mastering is when the final loudness of the track will be set, along with other finalizing details. But you can adjust the loudness of a single track by adding a limiter to the master bus. Fair warning, a single limiter will likely not get you as loud as you want to go without ruining the sound of your mix. Generally, this is done in stages using a combination of compression and limiting, never pushing any single plugin more than 3db or so to raise the overall level. It takes a lot of practice to do this so that the results are transparent.
 
Regards,
Dan

Generally you need to have something measuring the average loudness rather than the peak loudness. So, set your bus metering to show RMS instead of Peak (or have it show both - the smaller value will be the RMS), and to be on a commercial level, that needs to be somewhere in the -20 to -10 zone.
 
The general rule I follow for in-the-box mixing (i.e. no external hardware) is to try and keep all tracks and buses peaking somewhere above -10 but never going above 0. I tend to pull tracks down so that when they're summed in a bus, the total peak is still low enough, but some people might prefer to do that by pulling down the input gain on the bus instead. Just make sure that you're not going above 0 into your FX chain or out of your fader and you should be ok.

I usually mix so the loudest peak is to -0.1.

I use A limiter but usually never trim more than 1 or 2 db with the limiter.

I measure average loudness with an EBU128 meter. I use a compressor to ensure the limiter doesn't have to trim too much. If I need more loudness on the EBU meter,

I might push the compression, raise the gain into the limiter, keeping the amount limited equivalent but pushing up the average volume.

I might back off compression if my average loudness is causing me not to limit at all and leaving unused headroom.

In the mix, up try to accent the essential and leave the obvious vague. I try to make sure the listener can entrain to the most interesting aspects of the song.

rg... 
 
I have a slew of limiters, including Pro-L... but still could never get the levels I desired...  then I met "Stealth"... and everything changed...
 
I think you can acquire your wet dream of loudness with clarity with this one simple purchase...  I am remastering every song over time as it handles intersample modulation perfectly and achieves the cleanest, openest and loudest levels I've seen... it really is amazing. And VERY easy to use...
 
You can check it out here...  vids here...  You can download the custom shop and try it for many days for free... it won't take you long...
 
I said after Pro-L I'd never buy another Limiter...but still struggled to get impactive mp3/wave levels... My songs would just not be loud enough to enjoy from my mobile rig, given background... and did NOT reflect commercial levels despite all my efforts... It only took one evening to convince me this thing is miraculous and it's simplicity of operation is appreciated.
 
After checking out the above, download and try it... you needn't look any further.

gswitz
I usually mix so the loudest peak is to -0.1.

According to several posts on the forum that's too loud for MP3s. The conversion makes the MP3 clip
if the original wav is that loud. The recommended level seems to be about -0.3. I have no experience as I've never made an MP3 version. Just repeating what I've read here.

In theory the technique for exporting MP3 is exactly the same as as exporting WAV. I'm not aware levels need to be different from wav, or anything else needs to be watched out for especially... News to me anyway..?

I think if you want to optimize for MP3, make sure your music has more samey and simpler waveforms. Make it repeatative. Make it house music. So anybody who exports classic or dynamic rock music to wav, should probably do housy housy version especially for mp3 exports...

Doktor Avalanche
In theory the technique for exporting MP3 is exactly the same as as exporting WAV. I'm not aware levels need to be different from wav, or anything else needs to be watched out for especially... News to me anyway..?

There is actually quite a bit of informed commentary available that the process of transcoding from wave to MP3 can introduce clipping if the wave gets too close to 0db. Most recently reiterated by Mr Anderton here:
 
http://forum.cakewalk.com/FindPost/3294962