Volume too low on CD

[photoshoppro]

I need some professional assistance -- The WAV CD that I cut has to be cranked up on my Bose Cd player to twice the volume of professionally recorded CDs.

I've done everything I know of to record at a high level, to the point where the recording on my computer, when heard through my earphones, is so loud I can't listen to it at over half-volume.

I'm already recording at a high volume: on my Samson 24-bit mixer/amp I have turned the gain up to 25 (maximum setting without undue noise); if I turn it up any higher, the waves on Audacity get clipped. My recording volume on the Samson is cranked up to maximum (10); I have gone into apple preferences/sound and turned sound input levels up to maximum. When I record, the sound waves on Audacity are very large, just short of being clipped.

Neither 'effects -Normalize nor Amplify' make my waves larger, as the wave sizes are already as large as can fit into the Audacity screen.

Any suggestions on how to make the recording loud enough to create a proper CD?

[kozikowski]

<<<twice the volume of professionally recorded CDs.>>>

Such as? I have Dance Mix CDs that live at zero. The music, the voice, everything is compressed and jammed up so far that the sound meter never comes down at all. My Tammy Wynette CDs were recorded at the then standard average of -17dB. There is a stunning difference between those two.

You might be able to make good use of Chris's Compressor.

http://pdf23ds.net/software/dynamic-compressor/

I push the compression value from 0.5 to 0.77 and it does a terrific job of simulating the transmitter compressors at the local radio station.

Koz