Question about exporting

What are you playing the  file back in?

I doubt your car stereo or home stereo can play 48 kHz / 24 bit, so propably it's just a typo?

How's the waveform of the exported audio? What are it's levels?

What do you mean by "inside the project it's loud". How have you defined the loudness?

If you have routed everything to Master Bus and inserted Ozone4 there, and use it's limiter (or maybe one of the presets) to raise the level you can make a track as loud as any. Of course the mix has to be in a rather good balance to go for "ultimate loudness".

Not knowing the details of your workflow it's hard to say what you're doing wrong.

well, it is certainly possible to hear some resolution loss which can be percieved as a slight volume loss when going from 24/48 to 16/44.1, but a 50% reduction as you say makes no sense. The volume doesn't change when you go form a higher sample rate to a lower one, just the resolution which some people often percieve as  reduction in volume, but again, if you're hearing a massive drop in volume something ain't right. 98dB at 24/48 is 98db at 16/44.1.

Frequency loss is another story. There's more data present in higher sample rates so the sound can be percieved as being louder when in fact you're really just hearing a more accurate representation of the source recording... the sound is fuller, if that make any sense, hehe? I can't for the life of me figure out though why you should hear such a dramatic loss in volume.
 
It's got to be your export/mix settings or some heretofore uncharted crazy snafu/bug. Double check your settings or better yet post a screenshot. If I remember correctly this happened to me in S5 PE and  the problem lay within my export settings. I don't see how it can be anything other than some weird bug or an incorrect export/mix enable.

Have you tried re-importing your exported Wav back into Sonar and see how that plays?

Remember not to direct the re-import to your master bus, or you'll double up on your master bus processing. Direct it straight to your soundcard. Obviously you'll need to solo just this track.

Tip - when you've done this, solo the imported track, and add it to a group. Now add all your other tracks to the SAME group.
 
If you're using track folders you can just add each folder's Solo button to the group, rather than all the tracks.

Now you can switch between the 2 - your original tracks & your export/import just by clicking any of the Solo buttons that have been grouped.

kjs00333


The only issue I am talking about is volume after the export. Levels are fine, everything looks good as far as tracks go. Inside the project (meaning my project is open and I am hitting play to listen the mix) the sound is amazing. Loud, clear and just ...sounds good.  I export it, and the volume is cut by about 50% when playing it back as a wav file using any forms of media players (except Sonar of course).  I don't know why and what am I doing wrong during this export.

Everything is routed to the master buss and Ozone 4 is on that bus. Like I mentioned, when inside my project and listening back it sounds great.  Also, when I said I was listening back in my car or home stereo, I meant listening back is the same volume reduction. I'm not even sure what bit rate a car or home stereo plays back at lol.


I have also exported directly to MP3 with no luck either.

Any other possibilities?

Do you realise you did not answer any of the questions I and the others asked?

It does not mean anything how loud the project sounds in SONAR, you need to give us exact values of the levels.
How it sounds is just a matter of volume slider position. A quiet track played with levels up sounds loud, of course, and vice versa.

How have you set the limiter of Ozone4?  What is Ozone4 showing as the exported level? Are you exporting at level - 0.3 dB or -3 dB or - 6 dB?

You said you've exported 24 bit / 48 kHz but such audio files can not be played by a CD player nor a MP3 player.
You must export at 16 bit/44,1 kHz.

Here are a few screenshots of the levels.
The first is my levels within ozone4 and loudness maximizer settings

http://i1110.photobucket....42/Kjs00333/ozone4.jpg

Here are project master levels

http://i1110.photobucket....00333/masterlevels.jpg


And here is the export

http://i1110.photobucket....42/Kjs00333/export.jpg

Route your master bus to a different out in your sound card before you export, and if you're not using any of bus or track mute/solo uncheck them. No sense having them checked if you're not utilizing them... is that a return send I see listed in the Master bus out? Not familar with your interface and software mixer.

I don't understand how activating the returns in your soft mixer allows you to pan within X1? That makes no sense. You can't pan at all in X!?

your master buss is set to -3.1dB,.. change it to 0dB
[link=http://i1110.photobucket.com/albums/h442/Kjs00333/masterlevels.jpg]http://i1110.photobucket....00333/masterlevels.jpg[/link]

you are exporting to a software return..

Route your master bus to a different out in your sound card before you export

!!
I have no idea whats up with that "software return", it might just give you some kind of parallel compression and loudness that will be only available when you play through that configuration..
re-route to a standard output of your soundcard (OUTS 1&2), disable those returns!

I can't disable the returns, but in the settings tab above, I have everything canceled that the system will allow me to do.
If I disable all returns (which the panel wont let me do) I get no audio at all. Not just from sonar, but anything.

As far as the panning goes, if I lay down a guitar track and keep it at the center, it plays from both speakers..however if I pan it to the right, there's not sound at all, if I pan left, sound comes out of the left speaker. So by making 2 returns in the M-audio mixer, it seemed to have corrected that issue.

I have called M-audio about this and opened a ticket and they are absolutely ZERO help. They know nothing and the people that answer the phone read off a script card and if your problem isn't on the "approved solutions" card, then they cant help you.  I asked them if there is a way I can just bypass the software mixer because it's causing nothing but problems, and they didn't even get back to me on it. Using the fast track pro was so much easier because you didn't have to deal with the mixer.

 

And I also finally noticed, as Frank Haas correctly pointed out, you've got your nmaster bus volume set at -3.1 .... Jesus, I need a cup of coffee....

Zuma


And I also finally noticed, as Frank Haas correctly pointed out, you've got your nmaster bus volume set at -3.1 .... Jesus, I need a cup of coffee....

There's your first problem, OP
 
And I can see several others, as noted above with regards this "software return"
 
You are NOT comparing like with like when evaluating your export.
 
Until you get this side of things sorted out, well, let's just say it'll be a bit of a minefield for you.
 
Set your master fader at 0db.
 
If it starts to clip at this level then you'll need to start lowering your track/bus volumes to compensate.

@ Frank
You are correct, the -3.1db is the guitar buss. Maybe it's better to just get a hardware mixer to avoid this aggravation??
I wish there was an option to not use the software mixer that the product uses. 8 analog in, 8 analog out..simple, at least I wish it was that simple.

Zuma

No, the panning was my confusion... that's why I edited my other post. I was thinking you had the input and output pans in your Master bus at odds with each other but I see now you had them both centered... my mistake there.  As for the other... hhhhmmmmmmm. Strange mixer MAudio has... I'm used to EMU's patchmix. One other thing I wanted to ask, why you had the fader in your sound card mixer(strip 1) pull all the way down, and do you have anything routed through that strip?

At anyrate I'm beginning to see this is a routing problem...
 
Edit: Can you bring up a screenshot of the router itself? You've got the settings tab up but i'd like to see the router and how you've got it set up... I think that's where your problem lies.
whoops... my mistake again, lol. It's all in the tab hehe.

The first input is Analog 1 in, and the volume is all the way down on that one because that controls the input monitoring, not the actual levels of the instrument. The line in levels are controlled on the interface itself.

Couple things. Let's say, for the sake of argument, you have to have the send/return enabled in both the settings and the strip in your soft mixer... I don't see why MAudio would do that but who knows. It could be that you just need them enabled in the settings dialogue but not necessarily in the mixer strip button itself.... at anyrate, you need to change the routing in your Pro Fire's router so that the strip you are using for your master bus output reads "mixer output". The way you have it set up now, you are returning the stereo output of the master bus back into Sonar and thus you are getting an inaccurate representation of the actual volume output you are exporting at... throw into that another -3.1 dB. You can't disable the returns in your settings because you are utilizing them, so it's locked. But try just turning off the button in your strip and make sure that strip in your router is set to "Mixer Output", otherwise you're sending the signal right back into X!, which is screwing up your perception of the true, overall volume output...
 
As pointed out already, leave your Master bus's fader set to 0 and adjust all the other faders you have feeding into the master bus, so that the Master bus doesn't overload and clip. your problem is one of improper routing within your sound cards mixer.