Renoise Sounds so much quieter than my other DAWs

Help, Support & Bugs Beginners Questions - Renoise
1

I have a few DAWs I’ve been playing with. From these, Renoise by default sounds considerably more quiet when I load a VST or sample to play. I completed this track in Renoise:

https://soundcloud.com/luxatomic/into-the-microverse

And wasn’t satisfied with the way it turned out. The sounds seems to lackluster and dull. I’ve re-mixed and re-mastered several times with little improvement. I’m a beginner and am definitely learning the ropes, but the songs I create in other DAWs seem to have more punch to them even before any effects.

I did a little experiment and ran Renoise, Studio One and Reason with default launch settings. Loaded the Same VST synth on all three. Studio One and Renoise sounded pretty damn good, while Renoise sounded almost muffled very quiet comparatively.

I checked preferences and they all matched, and all are running through the same sound card.

Am I missing something? Out of all these DAWs I find Renoise the most creative to work with but when I export my stems they lack impact compared to Reason and Studio One.

Appreciate any feedback and help regarding this before I start another project that I’ll end up being unhappy with.

2

Just to make sure and mention, you checked that all programs matched with respect to any ‘track headroom’ applied? By default Renoise applies around -6db of track headroom Song Options - Renoise User Manual

3 Likes
3

You also then should save a song template which has 0 dB headroom. IMHO this default headroom is nonsense and should be set back to 0dB as default.

1 Like
4

It depends what you want to archive. Its easier when there is a default headroom, so you dont need to reduce the gain on each channel, only if needed. If you quick master your song like in Ozone with a target LUFS you always need to turn down the gain before, otherwise it gets too loud. Its important, when you want a specific loudness for your target platform (Spotify, Youtube and so on…).

1 Like
5

Thanks for pointing this out I missed this part. This explains it.