Track volume is lower after editing a track and rendered as audio

[DennisHuiberts]

Hi guys,

I'm encountering something which I can't really get my head around. I'm editing a few tracks in Ableton. After I'm done I make sure that my levels are as loud as possible, without clipping the master signal (no compressors/limiters are used). When rendering to audio I have normalize set to off. When I load both the original track and the edited track into Traktor, I can see that the original track is much louder (bigger waveform) than the edited track. Why is this and how can I resolve this?

Thanks in advance.

[patient 267]

Im definately not a pro in these situations, not in any way. But when thinking about it I think you will have to add a compressor. When the original track is completed, it goes through the compressor to make it as loud as possible.

Although when you take that original track and put it back into Ableton, the loudness goes down a bit to fit the DAW originally since it would probably clip in the DAW if it was played in it's full, already compressed strength.

But as I said, I don't know this, it's just a theory.

[DennisHuiberts]

Yeah, I understand what you're saying, but this is more the case with tracks produced from the ground up. I'm working with tracks here that are already mastered (the originals), so you don't want to mess around too much with things like compressors and limiters.

The thing I find stupid is that when you load an original in Ableton and have the volume of the audio track and the master track at 0 dB gain (so no amplification whatsoever), the signal is constantly too hot. To make sure that you're not clipping, you'll have to decrease the signal strength of the original track with about 4.4 dB in my case, which is a lot...

[photojojo]

What quality are you saving the track at?

[DennisHuiberts]

Original is 16b44.1kHz wave, and so is the edit.

[patient 267]

Can't you just turn the gain up on the lower track in traktor?

[Tarekith]

Just turning on warping in Live will sometimes cause the audio to clip, even though it is not when warping is turned off. Just one of the side effects of the time stretching algorithm being applied. I'd recommend setting the Live tempo to be exactly the same as the original song, and then you don't need to use warping. Do your edits, then export, and it should be the same volume.

Definitely do not want to compress the mastered a track again.

[DennisHuiberts]

Ahh, thanks Tarekith! Thanks to that I went from a -4.4 dB gain to a -2 dB gain, so it should be more workable now.

[DennisHuiberts]

I've just compared the waveforms in Traktor; what a difference! Now you can actually see the transitions .