This is an observation, not a moan. I've just discovered a Vegas trait that can make audio mixing/mastering a bit tricky.

I took a voice recording WAV event and applied the normalize switch to it at peak level 0.0dB.

Then I played it on it's own and I was getting -0.3dB in the master meter, which is near enough 0.0dB.

Then I applied the track compressor with the Ultimate-S male voice-over settings:

input gain 0dB
output gain 0dB
threshold -18dB
amount 2.5
attack 15ms
release 250ms
auto gain compensation ON

But the master meter was showing clipping of 2.4dB, whn I would expect the auto gain to boost peaks to 0dB. I was thinking that the auto gain compensation was OVER-compensating. However the rendered WAV dropped back on the timeline showed a peak of exactly 0dB.

I accept that there may be some inaccuracy in the pre-render stage, but that amount of difference can make it difficult to make good judgements. Is it a characteristic of Vegas I should be aware of for all audio mixing, or is that much inaccuracy only to be expected when a compressor is applied?

thanks!