New 5.1 mix too loud, weirdly balanced?

[thebutcher]

Hey guys. I've been previewing my 5.1 mix on my home theater and, while the results are satisfying, I've been noticing that all the tracks seem too loud. I compared with the original audio from the source DVD and the levels seem more balanced, the rears especially.

For example purposes, when I preview my mix, I have to keep my amp volume around 29-31, but when I try the original audio on the DVD, I put it closer to 40.

Any ideas what the problem is, or how to fix it? Thanks! (Hope that made sense!)

[TV's Frink]

What program are you using for your editing?

[thebutcher]

I split the 5.1 mix into 6 mono WAVs with Hypercube and I've been editing them on Vegas 8.0.

[TV's Frink]

A screenshot of your Vegas project may be helpful.

I'm using Vegas Studio 9.0, so I'm not sure if the settings are different from Pro 8.0 (or Studio 8.0, for that matter, not sure which you are using). In my program, there is a master volume panel (I think it's called sound mixer or something) that can change volume of each track. There's also a slider to change each track at the far left side of the timeline. Did you change anything in either one of these at any point?

[thebutcher]

I'm using Vegas Pro 8.0. Every original track is still at 0.0db on both their master volume slider (far left) and their volume envelope bar (in the timeline).

[TV's Frink]

Then I am out of ideas (being fairly new to this myself). Hopefully a more experienced member can help. Good luck.

[thebutcher]

Thanks anyway! Like I said, it's not really a "problem" per se. My mix is still listenable, just louder and more of a "keep the volume remote close" kind of thing. I'm just curious as to why it's not the same as the original DVD. If it's easily fixable, I'll do it, if not, it'll stay that way.

[TV's Frink]

Theoretically you could adjust all the channels down to try and match the original, and then change the rears separately to try and get the balance right.

[Captain Khajiit]

@the op

You might be encoding your audio without setting dialnorm. That could very well explain why your mix sounds louder than the mix on the DVD -- assuming it was Dolby Digital, of course.

[thebutcher]

What is this process and how do I go about doing this? I'm encoding my audio with Dolby Digital AC-3 Studio (.ac3) in the Vegas render options BTW.