Muff's Modules & More

[skipperdean]

i've been hard at work on a new batch of music, and now all of a sudden, ALL of my tracks are too hot in playback via iTunes or quicktime. i've spent the last couple of weeks really fine tuning everything so this is a pretty big bummer. i'm using my ears and my apollo's meter to see red. i've tried cycling on/off sound check and sound enhancer in iTunes to no avail. i was hoping it was some weird glitch and a restart might fix the bug: no. what happened?! there is no clipping when played within the daw it was written, but everything is too hot once out. i'm not dithering, or doing anything different or weird when bouncing or exporting.


what gives?!!?!?! its like all my tracks magically gained 3dB, i didn't update iTunes but if somehow i did and they added some gain, i could understand this, for now, i'm lost.

[CJ Miller]

I trust meters as only approximate. Have you zoomed in on these files to see if the waveforms really are clipped? This would indicate whether the problem lies with encoding or playback. I don't understand how an update to iTunes could cause your files to be clipped. Did you check all of your preferences for mixdown functions like normalize or bounce which could account for the extra gain?

What are you using to bounce and encode your tracks?

[e-grad]

The level meter of my DAW has a mode that shows the level of the original track i.e. without any plug ins. The track is a lot hotter when bounced since the FXs often add to the volume. I've to reduce the plug ins inputs and/or the original tracks to avoid clipping.

[skipperdean]