ABLETON EXPORTS TOO QUIET

[MonoTeksist]

This is very true, I've got a song that sounds perfectly ok with zero distortion and not too low in volume (so properly gain-staged) when exported as one master .wav file, but when I export the tracks and check them in Audacity I get volumes of -5.5dB (which is ok imo) but also -10dB ...-15dB ... -21dB(!!) ... this is ridiculous.

The -21dB stem doesn't have any noise whatsoever but that's not the point, the point being this thread's topic.
How can a -5.5dB stem and a -21dB one be properly gain-staged and sound great together but have these ridiculous differences in max dB?

Imo there are way too many settings in Live that can affect a track's volume:
- a track's volume slider
- the volume slider of the group the track's been placed in
- gain, compression and/or limiter effects put onto a track
- gain, compression and/or limiter effects put onto a track's group
- the master track's volume slider
- gain, compression and/or limiter effects put onto the master track

I can't get any sense of what I have to call a mess and also what you see on any track as the maximum volume is totally different from the volume you get when you export it.
And seeing all these different ways of possibly messing up your track volumes I'm totally not surprised what you see is definitely NOT what you get.

Also, is it just my impression that Ableton is pretty much absent on this forum and is ignoring people's tips/suggestions/complaints?