Bouncing audio from SD3 low very low dB

[Michael Maynard]

Hello,

I am bouncing the tracks from superior drummer 3 into the DAW so that I can use the plugs in the DAW. When I bounce the audio files from SD3 the files that are created are low volume  (average 15.5 dB) for some reason. Some are as low at 30 dB. This is when the fader is at 0. Is this how it is supposed to be or are the tracks supposed to be at a higher volume?

Also any other tips for bouncing audio from SD3 would be great because when I bounce the audio I get like 32 files of overhead mains and stuff.

If you can help I would really appreciate it thank you.

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.1.4
Operating system: macOS Catalina (10.15)

Topic

[John]

Hi,

without having your Project with the MIDI, it is hard to say if anything’s wrong or not but if you are talking about the loudness value in general, it doesn’t seem that low for the raw files from the microphones.

If you have the ‘Force Enable All Bleed’ ticked on the Advanced tab when you Bounce, you might want to check that ‘Exclude ambience channels with no bleed enabled’ is also ticked.

If you have OH or AMB channels in the mixer that have the volume turned all the way down, it’s better to Disable all bleed in them, to make sure they do not get Bounced.

BR,
John

John Rammelt - Toontrack
Technical Advisor

[Bear-Faced Cow]

As far as the volume goes on your tracks, it is fine for raw tracks. You want as much allowable headroom as possible, and you don’t want the initial transients squashed or clipped and remain as dynamic as possible. Considering that you’re working with plug-ins within your DAW, you’ll probably be levelling off the dynamics and taming the transients, with  the variables if and how much depending on your genre of music, and making it sit within your song. Always keep in mind that it is far easier and less work to remove dynamics than it is to re-add them.

As for anything else, it really depends on your genre of music. All I can add at this point is know where you want to go within the context of your entire mix. Going for that killer drum sound may accomplish just that: kill everything else in the mix.

jord

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Jordan L. Chilcott

Web Site: https://jordanchilcottmusic.com/

• This post was modified 5 years, 8 months ago by Bear-Faced Cow.

[HodSaridDrums]

hi guys ! i have the same problem… nothing I do seems to solve this issue – when the plugin is open I get a very nice output my raw mix, but when I bounce the track the bounced channels seem to be in a very low gain, and I don’t want to destroy them by pushing extra gain to it, it seems like an “unhealthy” gain, so what am I doing wrong ? tnx

Superior Drummer 3 version: 3.1.7
Operating system: macOS Mojave (10.14)

[Bear-Faced Cow]

There could be a lot of factors affecting this, including how are you balanced your channels to how loud the rest of your mix is. It’s hard to tell without any real details.

jord

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Jordan L. Chilcott

Web Site: https://jordanchilcottmusic.com/

[Author]

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