I run tons of VSTs on a six year old processor. Proper busing and use of good microphone technique will help make you track LOUD. With a u.

try this:
http://www.vloud.com

Good Luck.
You might want to consider paying someone though after you hear that.

It's not guaranteed.
Other things need looked at - for example, getting your audio off the drive Windows is on.

What you want to do about loudness is compress or limit - just find a plugin and use it.
(Use less, btw)
(Much much less)

Use a limiter to clip off the stray peaks. This sometimes helps anyway.

lowder...when does it end :)

arrrrrrrrrrrr

hi guys thanks for you thoughts, ive used the limiter and this has helped me great deal, im still having problems running lots of vsts though, my pc is not connected to the net, all my audio is saved to a separate hard drive and my pc has plenty of memory on it, the only thing i use this pc for is cubase and only cubase so i dont know what else i can do, i use 8 to 10 tracks to record drums and once ive compressed / added effects etc on the drums thats all it will let me use before the things slows down, stops playing. Any other ideas, thaanks for your help, lee

Bus the drum track to a seperate track with reverb

If you're relatively happy with particular tracks, bounce them (just that track, with effects) and then disable the effects and use the bounced track.

Why do you want it loud?

Admittedly I like things a little loud so I don't need to faff around with my volume controls - but I'm happy to have things at -20dB on a VU as opposed to my louder dance tracks which peak at -9dB on the VU.

I think the OP meant lower. As in "Low ... ride ... er drives a little slower" I think Cubase has a tempo map that can accomplish that.

Codemonkey,

You have been around long enough to know the right answer is "You want it louder? That's what the volume knob on your stereo is for."

But seriously. If by louder, or "lowder" you mean devoid of any dynamics and equal spectral distribution, then a multi band compressor such as reaXcomp from Cockos should do it. Just slap that on the master bus and crank it down.

Well, certainly.
Very easy to adjust volume on the PC.

My mp3 player is hellish though. Usually I don't keep it in an accessible pocket.
It also plays OGG files about 5dB quieter to begin with.

I don't crush anything, but a few extra dB helped a few tracks stay in line with everything else.

Obviously though, an acoustic recording of a ceilidh band isn't going to match up to drum'n'bass...