Vegas Pro 15 lowers imported audio by 3dB. How to fix that?

allan-felipe wrote on 3/10/2021, 9:59 PM

Hi, I realized that the imported audio in Vegas has a lower volume than the original ones. I made some measures with sine waves and could see that Vegas lowers the audio 3dB. I already turned off all the track FX (which is actually just bypassing every parameter by default). What else could be the cause of that unwanted alteration? Thanks!

Comments

rraud wrote on 3/11/2021, 9:28 AM

There are a few items to check. Right-click the audio event and choose 'Properties. Check-mark 'Normalize' then 'Recalculate' (FYI, the default (peak) normalize setting is 0.01dBFS, you can check and change this in "Options> Preferences> Audio", if so desired).
Also confirm that the event's gain is at the maximum (0.0dB), if it is attenuated, you would see a thin blue line somewhere on the audio event .. deepening on the amount of attenuation. If you wish to lower an event's gain, drag the top edge of the event downward. You can check for volume envelops as well using the 'V' key., however that would not alter an event's waveform display (same goes for the track volume).

allan-felipe wrote on 3/11/2021, 3:22 PM

After the normalize-recalculate procedure, actually the volume got even lower. It was peaking at -3dB (the test sine wave has 0dB, which is seen correctly in Pro Tools) and after the normalize it was peaking at -3.2dB. The default setting was -0.1dB. The gain line is at 0.0dB and it just can go lower, so that's ok. The track volume is in 0.0dB. Also, the blue line for Audio envelopes / volume is at 0.0dB. A manual solution would be to raise the output fader by 3dB, but I'd like to know what's going on.

rraud wrote on 3/12/2021, 9:19 AM

What format files is it. Different codecs can affect encode and decode volume levels
If the media is PCM, and both apps are reading dBFS, they should be the same.

juan_rios wrote on 3/12/2021, 10:26 AM

Check that you don't have Balance -3 dB selected in the pan slider (right click).

allan-felipe wrote on 3/12/2021, 12:39 PM

There you go!! It was in "Constant Power" which also results in -3dB in this case. Thank you.

walter-i. wrote on 3/12/2021, 1:57 PM

@juan_rios
I didn't even know about this setting option. I've learned something new again.

But what I don't find OK is that you can't see from the outside that something is set differently here.
Maybe a colour change of the pan control would be good - wouldn't it?

rraud wrote on 3/12/2021, 5:09 PM

Maybe a color change of the pan control would be good - wouldn't it?

Yes, but that would make too much sense.

juan_rios wrote on 3/13/2021, 10:52 AM

@allan-felipe @walter-i.

I am glad to help. And yes, It would be interesting if the pan slider indicates the selected mode; although, if you come from the world of audio editing, you already know it should be there usually.