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Monitoring volume in Pro Tools/FL Studio/etc. doesn't match computer volume


Drakken
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When using Pro Tools (my main DAW), the playback volume is always nice and loud. When I bounce a project to a .wav file and play it back (in any media player), the song is much quieter. Same goes for listening to .wav files in T-Racks standalone. With both of these programs, adjusting the main computer volume in the lower right of the screen has no effect. Same goes for FL Studio, actually. It's like these programs have their own monitoring volume, independent of my main volume control. I'm not sure why this is. I looked through the different sliders in my sound card's control panel, hoping there might be a slider there that allowed me to change the monitoring volume in PT/FL/T-Racks, but to no avail.

This is really frustrating, as when mixing I want to hear exactly how it's gonna sound when bounced. In order to get the levels louder when bounced, I end up having to mix super loud, and that's no good for my ears or for the final product.

For reference, my sound card is an Audiophile 2496 and I have a pair of KRK Rokit 6s hooked up to it with RCA cables. No mixer or anything.

EDIT: Running Windows 7 SP1 in case that matters.

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Open the volume control mixer panel in windows (right click the little speaker at the bottom of the screen) and see if your main windows volumes are turned down. Windows 7 lets different applications run at different volume levels, so turning up/down the master volume fader wont help if the internal windows mixer has things set at different volumes.

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Open the volume control mixer panel in windows (right click the little speaker at the bottom of the screen) and see if your main windows volumes are turned down. Windows 7 lets different applications run at different volume levels, so turning up/down the master volume fader wont help if the internal windows mixer has things set at different volumes.

I generally have my main Windows volume at around 50%, which makes for a nice and loud but comfortable listening volume when it comes to regular music in iTunes, and gives me some flexibility to turn it up or down for soft or loud sources.

My issue is that the volume level of Pro Tools, FL, and T-Racks is way higher than when I bounce my project to a .wav file and listen to it. This isn't just 'cause I have the sliders turned up really high or something - sticking a regular .wav in a blank Pro Tools project or in T-Racks and simply playing it back, it's much louder than playing that .wav in Audacity/iTunes/WMP/Winamp/etc. I want to get it so I can mix something in Pro Tools with the master fader at 0 and have it be at about my normal listening level. The other day I was messing around with some minor compression/limiting in one of my projects to try to raise the volume to compare a bit more with regular songs, and it was too loud to the point where it was hard on my ears.

EDIT: I've now lowered the overall sound card output volume and raised the Windows volume. This should enable me to mix at lower, more comfortable levels in Pro Tools while retaining a comfortably loud listening level when playing music in iTunes. Dunno if that's the best solution, but it'll work for now I guess.

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