I know this has been covered before-I searched the forums but could find it.
I use preset-"What you hear" select entire mix
And it is does not render a file with the same volume as my mix.
Does it attenuate the overall volume for some reason.
I have tried EVERY possible option-no love

Check your routing. Make sure everything's going through the master bus by muting it and verifying the whole project goes silent. Only the master bus should be routed to the main outputs. This will guarantee that what you export is the same data you've been listening to.

If you have a master buss and you run all your audio threw it use it as the source when you export. 

Thanks, I route all my tracks to busses- all my busses to Master-Master to sound card stereo out.....I think I'm doing it right-still its attenuated by 4-6db (by my ears anyway)

You said that you use what you hear and you select all tracks. 


What I am saying is just use the master buss. Nothing else. But be sure that all audio is going through the master buss. 

Hi Ralph, what program are you using to play the exported tracks?

The reason I ask is because I had the same issue using WinAmp as my default music player, it played everything back a lot quieter than it should. It drove me mad trying to figure out what was happening until I opened a few exported projects in Windows Media Player and they were at exactly the same level as in SONAR.

Another thought - are you exporting wave files or mp3s?

And to check out if the export really is at a lower level, you could try re-importing an exported mix back into its original project and then A-B-ing the imported file against the project itself.

Thanks Bit, John, and Steve
Steve, I played the solo'd bounce stereo track in Sonar and A/B'd it with the multitrack mix, there is definitely a major drop in volume. 
My multitrack mix is loud-6db-to right under 0db.
When I bring the stereo mix into Sound Forge for mastering it is falls within -12 to-6db
...I'm going to check out Johns suggestion when I get back to the studio. 

Also-all Wav files not MP3

I'll  be honest, the only Presets I use in the Export dialog are those I created myself so I've no idea what parameters the "What you Hear" preset uses, or any of the other built in ones.

I also used to to use the "Entire Mix" setting from the Source Category, but this can potentially introduce a problem if you have more than one set of hardware outputs enabled via your bussing structure.

Every additional pair will add 6dB to your Export when using Entire Mix and for this reason, I only ever use Main Outs as a Source Category.

But you seem to have the opposite problem, with a reduction of 6dB upon export, which is slightly baffling.

Are your master faders set to 0dB? Is there anything on your master buss which could be doing something weird?

Don't forget, if you're reimporting the export into Sonar, you should make sure anything on your master Buss is bypassed otherwise their effect will be "doubled up"

The only think I can think of is whatever's on your master buss is REDUCING the level of your final mix and when you reimport it and go through the MB again, the levels will drop.

Check your bussing structure & routing thoroughly - this must be something simple

i've found that fast bounce doesn't always give expected results. sometimes i get choppy, buzzy sounds, as if some electrical noise got printed by mistake.

so i use audible bounce, seems to be rock solid, and exactly what i expect, volume-wise.