This is probably a dumb question, but...

[booglez]

Okay, so loading up a couple of songs into traktor. One songs sound waves are Large filling up the space without clipping, IE maybe a knife party song. Then I load up one of my tracks, for example, and the sound waves are not nearly as big. I know this may sound stupid, but I don't know a lot about this stuff so I figured someone here would know. What's the cause of this? Specifically, does the size of the sound waves in relation to traktor mean anything?

[Sexual_Chocolate]

are your tunes mastered?

[Sonika]

Larger sound waves = louder

[wormcode]

Larger sound waves = louder

Not necessarily. When looking at waveforms, a track with smaller waveforms can actually be louder than or equal loudness to one with larger waveforms. Various things play into this... perceived volume, RMS/peak, dynamics, frequency content, and of course differences of mastering. A lot of music released in the 80s-90s doesn't 'look' as loud as current music, but it sounds comparable even though it may only visually peak at around -10dB or so for example.

[Lectric]

Dynamics and volume basically. I assume any artist with the name Knife Party is probably a part of the loudness war.

[AxeD]

Larger sound waves = louder

Not necessarily. When looking at waveforms, a track with smaller waveforms can actually be louder than or equal loudness to one with larger waveforms. Various things play into this... perceived volume, RMS/peak, dynamics, frequency content, and of course differences of mastering. A lot of music released in the 80s-90s doesn't 'look' as loud as current music, but it sounds comparable even though it may only visually peak at around -10dB or so for example.

Hm that's odd.

When I load up a finished track it's always a low output level too, but yea it's probably because it should be mastered.
Never trust myself to mix it too a high volume.

[Electric_Head]

I turn up my amp but produce tracks at lower volumes.
If I bounce my track it will sound softer until the volume is turned up.
It maintains more life this way due to the left over headroom.

[blinx]

just turn the gain knob up on your tracks to match "percieved" loudness.

[AxeD]

I turn up my amp but produce tracks at lower volumes.
If I bounce my track it will sound softer until the volume is turned up.
It maintains more life this way due to the left over headroom.

This is what I do too, but you'll need a higher output level if you want it to be dj friendly right?
Otherwise people will turn up the gain in Traktor for example and that would probably mean
loss in sound quality. I think most tracks are mixed to reach the highest possible level without distorting.

[Sexual_Chocolate]

I turn up my amp but produce tracks at lower volumes.
If I bounce my track it will sound softer until the volume is turned up.
It maintains more life this way due to the left over headroom.

This is what I do too, but you'll need a higher output level if you want it to be dj friendly right?
Otherwise people will turn up the gain in Traktor for example and that would probably mean
loss in sound quality. I think most tracks are mixed to reach the highest possible level without distorting.

THIS! its annoying to have to add gain in serato so i dont have to manually add it everytime i want to mix

and you are right, it makes the sound abit lossy in terms of quality, not by much but enough to make you want to headbutt your laptop

[AxeD]

Yea I get what you mean. Traktor automatically adjusts the gain for me but it isn't always accurate.