Thanks for all of the input folks. I don't have any options for playing with the record wav levels on the soundcard. No options at all on this laptop. The computer mixer has something to be desired.
I do very little compression in my .seq tracks but do add some to some of the tracks to bring up the sound level a bit if I think it needs it. I also do normalize and reduce the track by 3db after. I try and keep compression as minimal as possible. I try to leave some headroom on my tracks.
I think that I will try as you suggest and do some further tweaking with wavelab. I have been using audacity to do that up to this point, but not proficient at the use of that program.
I understand where I need to go. I was hoping to accomplish it all within realband, but it appears that a wav editor is a good idea.