Vocal recording sounding low

[Caspy]

Hello everyone. I want to start by saying I’m not an Ableton expert, however I have dabbled enough to somewhat know my way around it. For starters the equipment I am using is.

...2018 hp omen with windows 10
... MXL 3000 microphone
...Native Instruments Komplete Audio 6 Interface
...Ableton Live 9 Intro

My vocal recorded tracks are so low. You can see the wavelengths but nothing like any imported sounds or track that are dragged and dropped in. I usually end up duplicating the track in order to hear it(basically same recording stacked on top of each other). If I turn up the volume in Ableton it sounds distorted and like it has too much gain. However I can solo my recorded audio and it sounds fine. It’s like the instrumental is way to loud. I can also turn the gain up on my NI Komplete Audio 6 interface, but there comes a point on the knob, I can’t turn it any higher because it picks up every background sound possible and is clipping and sounds like I’m
Screaming into the microphone when I’m simply not. I’ve heard of phantom power and I’m assuming since I have a condenser microphone you need that. I have to turn on the (48V) button in order to get my microphone to work. I’m not sure if the Komplete Audio 6 has a preamp built into it(if anyone knows if that may be the problem.) Even when I have monitoring on so I can hear what the microphone is picking
Up(my live voice). I’ll turn the volume all the way up on the monitoring and I can barley hear myself. I usually have to turn the gain up to hear myself. I have also heard of another theory where you lower your instrumental or whatever instruments or sounds are too loud, so that the mix sounds good. Basically don’t worry about the mastering process until your done with your mixing process. So bacially lower or raise sounds for all tracks so the mix alone sounds good. Then once the mic is complete and sounding good. You export it and then pull it back into your DAW and then raise levels appropriately and then re export it again with proper mastering. But I don’t know if exporting and rendering a wave file over and over hurts sounds quality or not. Someone please help. I would greatly appreciate it if someone could give me some tips on this

[jestermgee]

Just post in 1 forum thread only. No need to cross post.

[Caspy]

Just post in 1 forum thread only. No need to cross post.

I did not realize I did that. I apologize