Playback volume hotter than recording volume..help!

[firmflange]

Hi everybody, I could use some help. I'm running PT 12.5 on a mac.

I have all channels sent to a mixbus to my Master channel
The MixBus is sent to a Print track.
I listen to the volume using the Print track.

But..

During recording, while not hearing any distortion from the peaks, when I listen to the playback I will hear distortion from the peaking. In other words, the levels I hear while recording are different than the result upon playback.

i.e. The playback level is hotter sounding than that of the recording level.

I've tried linking the 'record' and 'play' faders, but I still have this issue.

Does anyone know how I can hear the same signal while recording than that which I hear upon playback? Any advice is appreciated.

[YYR123]

Yes when you stack audio tracks it will have a higher output than the original recorded audio track


If this isn’t what your asking, I apologize ahead of time

[firmflange]

Yes Daniel, that sounds like what is happening.

Is there anyway to hear the output in it's true level in real time then?

[The Weed]

Solo each track one at a time.

Adding tracks adds to the signal level. so you need to gain stage each track as recorded and gain stage the mix as well.

[YYR123]

So what I would do, is put a few more things inline before I output my track.

I have my sessions all split up, rhythm / keys / guitar / lead / vocals

Those all go into a two different stereo busses with different comps and settings and then those two stereo tracks output to my mains with another send to my print track.

Sounds complicated but it’s not, I can adjust the mix rather quickly if the customer (or myself) don’t like it

So then to find the problem areas in your track I would then put in a peak meter on each of the sub mixes to find out which section is peeking my levels (post compression and EQ obviously)

I once had a problem with a session once in bar 42 (or something like that) turns out my VI drum program was creating some heavy velocity hits that spiked my mix levels

Anyway you can find this stuff going through your song with a peak level meter