Losing 3db when going from a group channel to the master buss

Cubase
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1

Hi All,

I have an issue where if I route tracks to a group and then on to the stereo buss i lose 3db of level. It initially started happening in a project i started in Cubase 11 and the issue appeared on the individual channels as well as the group and master buss. I changed the metering position from post panner to post fader and that fixed it on normal channels but the problem was still there on the master buss if the tracks are routed through a group channel. I’ve tried creating an empty project with a single audio file and set it up with a group and it was fine the meter reading matched between all channels. I then tried importing single tracks from the original project that had the problem and it was fine until i saved and restarted cubase. Now it has the same problem as before. Any ideas what is going on, seems like a pretty significant bug to me?

2

is this just the regular track meter? And what is the channel configuration on all of the tracks? Mono->Mono->Stereo? Or something else?

Generally the level you see depends on where the signal is measured (as you noted) as well as how/what you’re measuring (loudness vs. peak, complex content vs. sine wave). And then in addition you have pan law.

Screencaps could help.