Sonar X1 endless volume issues ...

COMPLETELY IGNORES the volume sliders on the Windows Mixer

First off, Windows doenst control sonars volume. Imthinking you overlooked somehting, if your having issues with volume. 
SEcond, you do not use MME driver mode. Use ASIO or WDM
Is your maudio card set up in sonar?
Do you have the correct, most up to date drivers installed for the maudio?
 
You do not use the windows mixer for Sonar. you use sonard track and console view for mixing volume levels
 
CJ
 

Once you get it set up correctly the volume you get in Sonar should be favorable to other apps in the computer. 

On my DAW I use my external interface to play several other music players, and the levels are just about the same. No difference..... of course there are volume  controls in them ....

and yeah the windows mixer is not even in the loop for Sonar. 

None this explains why everything I export from Sonar is a million times quiter than the rest of the music/sounds on my PC.

Ya, you may want to go by RMS. VU meters don't lie. What is your peak level on this project?

@bit

I think I speak for a lot of people. We appreciate you around here. Nice of you to stop and help the OP out much better than I could have. 

You need to learn about dynamic control processing. There is no simple solution. If you learn how to use the tools, like compression and limiting, along side some complimentary EQ techniques, there is no reason why you cant get your volume up. Its done all th etime like that.

CJ

RockerAlex
 
The responders above seem to be making some assumptions about what you know about X1.  Possibly the first question is just how much quieter are your recordings than what you were expecting.  That you were looking in the Windows mixer to get more control tells me that you might want to specifically set up your signal chain and take a close look at the levels at each point.
 
Second question - do you use busses?  My recommendation is that you send all of the audio outputs from all of your tracks to a bus or two.  Then, if you are using more than one bus, send the output from the sub busses to a master bus.  I would recommend only having one master bus and it should be the only point in the output that actually sends its output to your speakers (sound card, M-Audio whatever).  This then becomes a master volume control for the project.  This only works if everything eventually goes to this bus as the last step to going to the speakers.
 
Now you have one place that you can evaluate the total output volume of your mix.  I would recommend turning on the Waveform Preview of the bus so that you can get a visual reference of the project output levels.
 
If turning the volume slider all the way up on the master bus does not drive the project volume level up to near -0db then you probably need to figure out how to add more gain to your tracks (without driving them to distortion).  It may also indicate that you are recording at too low level.
 
Now you should be able to throw Boost 11 on like Bitflipper recommended and punch the tune to as loud as any other source that you can play.
 
So what are the output levels on your master bus?
 
Glen
 
 

I think I'm beginning to understand better now, thanks guys.

I can only assume that everything is going through my M Audio Fast Track seeing as it's the only thing plugged into my PC atm ...