Because ASIO bypasses those, but the Windows Direct sound will use whatever is set there. If it sounds identical to the project (not too loud or distorted) it means you have some effects or EQ enabled on your audio device. Disable Fruity Limiter on the master track and press play. What happens if you listen to your exported track in FL Studio, rather than other media players? Start a new project. I attached some pictures of the master track and my rendering settings down below, although I don't see how they could be the problem. I'm thinking of switching to Ableton, it's not worth wasting my time and energy on a sh**ty program like this.

I've never had this problem before, it used to work perfectly fine (It never actually worked perfectly fine, just that this is the first time I'm facing THIS particular problem). I've spent several hours trying to find a solution and I finally gave up. It's pis**ng me off so bad, it brought me to the point where I smashed my keyboard out of frustration. In fact, I don't use any I tried applying a limiter on the master and that didn't help either.

It's got nothing to do with the effects on the master track. No, it's not my audio interface or the media player that I use whenever I export a track, no matter what plugins I use, or whether I use plugins, what my rendering settings are, or whether I export to mp3 or WAV - no matter what I do, it always sounds louder and distorted, like I just turned the master volume all the way up in the actual project.

I'm honestly fed up with FL Studio and all the bugs and errors this program has.

Mytracks broken