I'm still pretty new to the SONAR game. I have some songs roughly recorded and they are mixed down pretty well but they just don't sound great when I export. Mostly it's the volume that I have issue with. I have to crank the volume half way up just to hear anything it seems. I've tried LANDR and it made my tracks sound great or at least way better than I was going for with these recordings. The problem is that I'd like to know how to do it myself if possible with the included tools within SONAR Platinum. Is there an easy few steps that anyone can walk me through?

Thanks!

Modern mastering pushes beyond the analogue limitatiobs. Therefore -18dBFS is very dynamic although lacks the punch required to gel in with modern digital mastering.

Even though analogue is still used the boost volume in some situations. The digital limitations of distortion after 0dB is the problem.

You need to use Adaptive limiter or something similar like anaximiser to create the extra volume whilst avoiding unwanted clipping (harmonic distortion).

there are a lot of things do to make recordings sound sweet in the final mix. There is no simple formula.
 
The FX that come with Sonar can do a nice job.
 
Different types of music can sound good using different things.
 
So, there  are a couple of things to think about...
1. Can you hear the interesting things as they happen?
2. Are there nice changes in the song's feel that you can shine a light on?
 
Basically, what I do comes down to a few ideas...
Work with the song and the sound to target an average volume... I pick the volume then work the compression and limiting around that average volume.
 
With EQ and other tools, I try to get a fairly smooth slope from the bass down to the right into the treble. What that slope is depends on the music but the smoothness of it is pretty predictably a target.
 
Little things to try...
Play with the multi-band limiter.
set the compression ration low and the threshold low and listen to the song.
play with raising the levels of different bands.
Put a second multiband after the first one with much higher ratios.
 
Don't lean on the limiter too hard. Adjust volumes and levels in the mix to reduce how aggressive you need to be on the master bus.

LANDR is pretty useless and can't do anything that you can't do in Sonar. 
 
Some things to get you started. Think of mixing and mastering as being like a paint job on a good guitar. The mix is the wood stain - that lovely sun burst. It looks great and you could just leave it at that. Mastering is the clear coat and the final buffing to make it shine. It's important to remember that if you don't get that sun burst just right with the colours blended just as you want them, then no application of clear coat or buffing will fix it.
 
Think of mixing and mastering as being like a paint job on a good guitar. The mix is the wood stain - that lovely sun burst. It looks great and you could just leave it at that. Mastering is the clear coat and the final buffing to make it shine. It's important to remember that if you don't get that sun burst just right with the colours blended just as you want them, then no application of clear coat or buffing will fix it. You can't polish a turd, so mixing should be a pretty long and laborious process to get the mix just right before you even think of mastering.
 
Mastering should generally involve doing as little as possible and unlike mixing where you may make huge adjustments in EQ and compression, to get that final gloss in the master should involve small, incremental changes. A big mistake a lot of people make is to use all their mastering plugins in the chain just because they have them. If you added compression on your mix, you may not need any more on the master. You only need a multi-band compressor if you have an issue that needs it etc.
 
When you export your mix leave plenty of headroom -6db is good. The first step in your mastering is to add a good limiter to set the level and loudness - don't just crank it up to get it sounding as loud as possible! Use a loudness meter - Youlean Loudness Meter is free! You want the true peak at about -0.1 to -0.2db with between -11 and -12LUFS (integrated) but this all varies according to what media format your music will be played on. So spend a bit of time researching that. You can use Sonar's Adaptive Limiter. My favourite limiter is DMG's Limitless. Your master will now sound louder and fuller. Note although I mention the limiter first because it's so important and usually the first thing you add, it should be the last thing (other than meters/analysers) in your master chain. Everything else should be before it.
 
Next, try a good mix/mastering compressor just to see if it adds a bit of lift/glue - you don't want to hear compression. You're really looking for tone and clarity at this point. Bypass the compressor for before and after comparison. If it doesn't improve anything once setup, don't use it!
 
If something doesn't quite sit right or it sounds a bit muddy on the low end etc, add a multi band compressor using just one band set to the frequency range where the problem is. If that kick drum is a bit too prominent for example, you can fix it with this tool. Sonar's LP MB can be used for this.
 
EQ can now be added to adjust the overall sound, add a bit of sparkle and thump and balance things out. My favourite type of EQs for this are analogue style passive EQs. These can really make the sound come alive and add warmth and brilliance, but don't go over the top.
 
After this there are lots of other things you could do. The most important of which is to check the stereo field. You can also widen the stereo field, add exciters and much more.
 
There are no rules really. This is just a guide, but one rule that you should definitely try when mixing or mastering is the rule of thirds. That is, if you make an adjustment anywhere, back it off one-third. This is because we often over compensate with our ears and that can introduce other problems. If you find you are having to do too much in the mastering phase, you should probably scrap it and go back and mix it again!
 
Lastly, read up on dithering as this is also very important to understand when it comes to mastering as you will inevitably be exporting to a lower bitrate which will introduce quantization errors. Also read up on loudness standards and how that can affect your level on different media such as CD, MP3, ITunes, Spotify, Youtube etc. Over loud masters can now be a disadvantage on the last three platforms and into the future.
 
I hope this helps. With just a few steps you can really make your music come alive and sound so much more professional which to most people's ears also makes it sound better. Before you mix or master a track always calibrate your ears by listening to one or more commercial tracks of a similar genre and use that as a reference for your sound.

Sorry about my last answer. Spell correct gone mad.
 
I think most things are covered here in the previous post however one thing is missing from there I can see is getting the balance right and A/B the results before and after. You can press E to toggle all fx at the same time.
 
Another thing I started to do is setup my levels before I start using any other effects. In other words, making everything peak at 100% and adjust the fader against a pink noise  (mainly because I don't have a treated studio) . If you have a treated studio then all this calibration will most likely be done. The target usually is -20dB RMS pink noise C weighted measuring around 80dB SPL (83dB SPL stereo) which will peak around -3dB or just over due to the random nature of it. This reference point means the loudness coming from your speakers should be universally comparable with other rooms and environments. That's not a given though.
 
Something that gets overlooked is increasing perceived harmonics, so if you have 220Hz prominent then increasing this will enhance 440Hz, 880Hz and so forth until the pitch diminishes. This sometimes will mean the difference between boosting 3dB overall and just adding a psycho-acoustic tweak to your brain into thinking it's louder.
 
www.digido.com have test tones and explanations.
 
Anyway I do hope my small brain fart has helped you a little.
 
I do realise some of this stuff is puzzling however if you don't understand how to control the sound, you might as well try to learn the hard path so what seems unnecessarily difficult becomes second nature. Me, I'm no mastering engineer just have an interest in this sort of thing.

Here a link about a video how to master in 10 minutes,
not bad , but not going deep:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0Jx2h-lQkA

If you have to turn the volume way up to hear the recording on a standard playback device, the most likely reason is that you mixed it with the volume turned way up when playing back in SONAR, and used your ears to set the signal power. That is different than the problem of having the peaks so high that you cannot hear the quiet parts, for which compression may be the answer. Before you get into the fine points of mastering check that the saturation of the overall mix is adequate prior to exporting. 

For very quick results you could demo the Waves Greg Wells MixCentric and followed by (for example) the Waves L1 limiter. I appreciate they are not included in Sonar, and this is no substitute for the doing a real mastering job, but I think you'll love the difference these will make to your sound.

Sonar's own Pro Channel has a few Mastering presets that are OK.  At least they are a start.
 

There is no simple way around it. to mix and especially master tracks with precision and create a product worthy of listening to, it takes a lot of time, effort and studying.
 
There are many helpful videos on You tube. Problem is, there are also amateur ones that will lead you in the wrong direction. totally  bizarre, back aswards ways of working.
Find good sources and watch, learn and most importantly, listen.
Most important is levels and frequency's.
 
Most people will tell you to trust your ears and they are correct. but if there is any flaws in your monitor set up, then your ears will be lying like a rug. Trust your eyes first.