Swamp, none of my tracks go direct to the Master Buss - ever!

All drums go to drums bus
All guitars go to guitar bus
All vocals.....

You get the picture

I have X1 essentials.... in the export window I use 44.1/16 and I also select the export preset called "What You Hear"... I understand not all Cake DAW's still have this option but in X1, it's there and I always use it.

The export will sound exactly like WHAT YOU HEAR in the playback.  Nothing more, nothing less. 

cj - one of the odd things Ive noticed in all of cakes sample projects is that track outputs always go to a bus then to the master. cant find a single file that shows tracks going right to the master

 
That doesn't matter at all. Maybe they wanted all instruments going to a sub buss before the master. If thats what you want, then thats fine. Maybe  you want all tracks going to a sub bus before the master. Think of it like a real hardware mixing board, because that is exactly what it is, but in software.
 
I have all tracks going to the master and then i have some or most tracks going to buses with effects on them and those buses go to the master bus. then that master goes to the main outs.

Guitarhacker


I have X1 essentials.... in the export window I use 44.1/16 and I also select the export preset called "What You Hear"... I understand not all Cake DAW's still have this option but in X1, it's there and I always use it.

The export will sound exactly like WHAT YOU HEAR in the playback.  Nothing more, nothing less. 

That's the problem. Sometimes it does. Somethimes it doesn't. Project may be corrupted some how. I'll start fresh and see what happens.

Hey Soens, here's something else to try.  I fought with the same problem - I tried everyone's suggestions here and on other threads I found, but still couldn't figure out why my export sounded terrible (and different than within Sonar).

I'm using a Win7 PC with x1d.  I just happened to look at Properties settings of the audio devices of my system (not within x1d).  Under the Enhancements tab, there was an unchecked box for "Disable all sound effects".  Once I disabled the sound effects, my exports sounded just like within x1d.  Also, under the Advanced tab, there were Exclusive Mode settings enabled to "Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device".  This might explain why my projects sounded fine with x1d running, but not when listening to the export files.

I also confirmed that the Windows Update that I just applied today enabled that sound effect setting, so I had to disable it again after the update.

Hopefully, you'll have similar settings that will help.

YES YES YES YES YESSSSSSSS
Man you njust saved me HOURS of frustration
I was contemplating buying a new sound card altogether because I could sense the problem was coming from there but you saved me alot of anger and money
It was EXACTLY the problem coming from my card's  "SRS Premium Sound" (my azzz***) feature which added lots of low freq plus a compressor
Thanks man
Just can't thank you enough
I was going nuts

fmath


Hey Soens, here's something else to try.  I fought with the same problem - I tried everyone's suggestions here and on other threads I found, but still couldn't figure out why my export sounded terrible (and different than within Sonar).

I'm using a Win7 PC with x1d.  I just happened to look at Properties settings of the audio devices of my system (not within x1d).  Under the Enhancements tab, there was an unchecked box for "Disable all sound effects".  Once I disabled the sound effects, my exports sounded just like within x1d.  Also, under the Advanced tab, there were Exclusive Mode settings enabled to "Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device".  This might explain why my projects sounded fine with x1d running, but not when listening to the export files.

I also confirmed that the Windows Update that I just applied today enabled that sound effect setting, so I had to disable it again after the update.

Hopefully, you'll have similar settings that will help.

soens


I know this, though, I had several tracks routed to the REVERB Bus and their Sends routed to the same Bus. REVERB Bus was routed to the MASTER Bus.
 
I also had Channel Tools in the MASTER FX Bin. Don't know why but it was over distorting the output signal so I took it out.
 
Not sure what was causing the trouble but it seems to be working OK now.
 
.

That could be because its getting too hot a signal. Put it back in and lower the input trim at the top of the Master Buss. See if that helps. Some plugins are sensitive to the signal's volume. Because Sonar uses a floating point mix engine it will let hot signals go through without distorting or clipping. But some plugins are not able to handle that.  

fmath


Hey Soens, here's something else to try.  I fought with the same problem - I tried everyone's suggestions here and on other threads I found, but still couldn't figure out why my export sounded terrible (and different than within Sonar).

I'm using a Win7 PC with x1d.  I just happened to look at Properties settings of the audio devices of my system (not within x1d).  Under the Enhancements tab, there was an unchecked box for "Disable all sound effects".  Once I disabled the sound effects, my exports sounded just like within x1d.  Also, under the Advanced tab, there were Exclusive Mode settings enabled to "Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device".  This might explain why my projects sounded fine with x1d running, but not when listening to the export files.

I also confirmed that the Windows Update that I just applied today enabled that sound effect setting, so I had to disable it again after the update.

Hopefully, you'll have similar settings that will help.

Thanks math, but all my enhancements have been disabled.
 
I may have an idea to try out later and will let yall know if I fix this.
 

fmath


Hey Soens, here's something else to try.  I fought with the same problem - I tried everyone's suggestions here and on other threads I found, but still couldn't figure out why my export sounded terrible (and different than within Sonar).

I'm using a Win7 PC with x1d.  I just happened to look at Properties settings of the audio devices of my system (not within x1d).  Under the Enhancements tab, there was an unchecked box for "Disable all sound effects".  Once I disabled the sound effects, my exports sounded just like within x1d.  Also, under the Advanced tab, there were Exclusive Mode settings enabled to "Allow applications to take exclusive control of this device".  This might explain why my projects sounded fine with x1d running, but not when listening to the export files.

I also confirmed that the Windows Update that I just applied today enabled that sound effect setting, so I had to disable it again after the update.

Hopefully, you'll have similar settings that will help.

I had a similar issue with my sound card about a year ago. I thought it was the way Sonar was exporting the song. I tried different dithers and checked and rechecked the export options. Finally I bounced the whole mix to a single stereo track within Sonar and compared it to the mix.


Sounded the same. That is what got me to look at the sound card on the computer. Now when ever I am in doubt I listen to the exported file through my audio interface. Not my computers Sound Card.

That's exactly what I do. But sometimes I route the soundcard through the interface which may be the culprit.