Eddie, I'm getting confused between the different threads. Somewhere you asked about why the rendering to audio was so low on some tracks and you were asking about using Gain Change. The answer to that is tricky and totally dependent on the details of your project. Basically, individual tracks need to be kept low so when they are mixed together you don't get massive clipping. Look at that Wikipedia article again and see the picture on the right named Optimum Mix Levels For Mastering. If every track in an 8 track project was recorded at -3db and you combined them together, what would you have? A complete distorted mess. But if it were only 2 tracks maybe not so bad. Why don't you hear that when you playback your project in RB? Because of automatic limiting in the software. But, and this is a big but, you as a true Audio Engineer don't want that. You don't want the software doing that for you. If you were to disable that then you would easily hear the problem. The question then becomes what's the default setting for RB rendering or generating audio tracks? How low is it? I have no idea and really neither do the developers because they have no idea how many tracks will be in anyone's individual project. It could be 1 track up to 48. If you're doing a real, traditional mix then you don't apply destructive Gain Change to a low track, you would lower all the other tracks because without the automatic limiting in effect you're going to clip.

I have the same problem with my new Kurzweil PC3 keyboard. Some patches are much louder than others and it's a problem on a gig. According to the Kurz guru's it's the exact same principle I just described. This keyboard has such a range of available layers of different sounds (16) plus twice the DSP power of the older unit they had to keep certain programs at a very low level to allow for users fattening them up and increasing the output to the point of saturation and distortion. This means users have to figure out exactly what they need for a gig, make all the appropriate adjustments and copy their setups into the user bank. Some people on that forum are not pro's and don't understand that concept and are yelling about why doesn't my Roland, Korg whatever have that problem? The answer is those other keyboards are nowhere near as deep as my Kurz is plus it has always been marketed to true pro's and pro's need and understand that capability. Sort of like someone who has a new Porsche and about dies when he's told a standard brake job costs $2,500 or so because the rotors have to be replaced every pad change. Why? Because the car is capable of going 175mph so therefore the brakes have to handle that. Never mind the average doctor in Beverly Hills will never, ever use that capability. It's there so that's it. Can't have the brakes die coming down the pass at 150, bad publicity and all that.

Even though I have a basic understanding of mixing and mastering do I actually use it? No. The basic defaults inside these programs produce results that are "good enough" and that's true of probably 95% of users. Others really do their Audio Engineering thing properly so since you asked...

Bob

Biab/RB latest build, Win 11 Pro, Ryzen 5 5600 G, 512 Gig SSD, 16 Gigs Ram, Steinberg UR22 MkII, Roland Sonic Cell, Kurzweil PC3, Hammond SK1, Korg PA3XPro, Garritan JABB, Hypercanvas, Sampletank 3, more.