Audio levels in rendered AVI file

[James Benstead]

Hi all,

Long time reader/lurker, this is my first post at this forum, so pls be gentle!

I have 3 separate .veg files which I have rendered out of Vegas 6 as DV PAL Widescreen AVI files. Each project has a couple of dialogue tracks and a music track, which I have carefully adjusted using volume envelopes and track-level EQ and a compressor to keep the audio levels somewhere in between -20db and -6dB.

I then brought the 3 AVI files into a master .veg project, added markers (for chapters) and was about to render to an MPEG2 file. But during the preview, I notice that the audio peaks up to almost 0dB. It's as if the audio in the AVI file has somehow been normalised (but when I look in the event properties, the Normalize checkbox is un-checked).

Any ideas what I could be doing wrong?

[James Benstead]

Nearly 100 views and no responses! Can anyone offer some help to this problem?

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

it would appear that you've maximized the audio at some point in the processing chain.
Why render the 3 separate avi files vs bringing in the project veg files as nested veg files?

[James Benstead]

Hi Spot,

I didn't nest the three .veg files because I didn't expect any difference in the audio level after rendering each project to AVI. I assumed that the AVI file would retain the same audio level when I brought it in to my master .veg file.

I will look at nesting the projects and see if there's a difference. Still perplexed as to why the level has gone up; is there a setting for this in the Vegas preferences that I might have accidentally enabled?

[Douglas Spotted Eagle]

You may have set compression too hot, you may have shifted your master volume, you may have inserted Wave Hammer...or maybe you've raised frequency levels in the EQ?
There are a *lot* of parameters that could/will raise audio levels on render.