MIDI e-drum tracks clipping during playback but not during recording

[Jordan]

I'm very new to home recording and I'm trying to record some drum tracks with an e-drum kit (Simmons Titan 70) + EZDrummer 3 via an interface (PreSonus Studio24c).

When I'm recording the drums, it sounds great (maybe a little quiet) and there's no clipping on any of the tracks. But then when I play back what I just recorded (immediately with no adjustments made anywhere), suddenly nearly every drum track is clipping.

I can avoid the clipping by lowering the master fader in EZDrummer by a lot (~18dB), but this makes it barely audible in the mix. Other tracks I've recorded/programmed (temp guitars, some synths that came with Cakewalk) are much louder but don't clip.

Any ideas how to fix this?

[Promidi]

Are you saying that all tracks are louder - but the e-drum kit is the only track that clips?

This sounds like an over all project issue rather than just confined to the e-drum kit.....

Sounds like there is a double up somewhere or maybe there is a gain staging issue....

[Amberwolf]

are the drum tracks being recorded as midi, or as audio, or both?

 

if they are being recorded as both, if hte midi is still playing back the drum synth while the audio tracks of the recording of the drum synth is also playing, it would potentially double the output

[Jordan]

13 hours ago, Promidi said:

Are you saying that all tracks are louder - but the e-drum kit is the only track that clips?

This sounds like an over all project issue rather than just confined to the e-drum kit.....

Sounds like there is a double up somewhere or maybe there is a gain staging issue....

My bad, I worded that last part poorly. Right after recording, the other tracks sounds like they're all about the same volume or louder than the drums, but the drum tracks are the only ones that clip. If I lower the drum track levels with the master fader in EZDrummer to stop the clipping, the drums end up being too quiet. The other (guitar/synth) tracks stay at a listenable volume, but don't clip.

I hadn't done any gain staging at the time I made my initial post, but I did try reducing the input gain on each individual drum track to put the peaks between -6 and -12dB in the loudest part of the song. This caused the same problem of making the drums too quiet.

[Jordan]

12 hours ago, Amberwolf said:

are the drum tracks being recorded as midi, or as audio, or both?

 

if they are being recorded as both, if hte midi is still playing back the drum synth while the audio tracks of the recording of the drum synth is also playing, it would potentially double the output

They're virtual instrument tracks, so I think both? MIDI is definitely being recorded as that's what's displayed in the track (see attached), but I'm not sure if it's recording audio too or if EZDrummer simply plays the recorded MIDI events.

I also suspected it might be a double output issue exactly like you describe, but I'm not sure how I would go about identifying that as the cause.

[Promidi]

I would go through soloing and muting tracks to help troubleshoot.....

[Jordan]

The other odd thing I've noticed is that if I solo one of the drum tracks (for example, the kick), it won't clip by itself. But then if I unmute the snare and hi-hat, the kick starts clipping again. The individual drum tracks (not the drum bus) all seem to get quieter when the other tracks are muted and get louder with each track that gets unmuted. Are the tracks supposed to interact like this?