Disclaimer: This has probably already been asked and answered, but I wasn’t sure how to search for it, so any previous threads would be most appreciated. Also, I am not an audiophile, so forgive my lame description of the problem.
When my wife and I get MP3s off various sites, then convert them to WAVs for putting them on CD-Rs that we can play in normal CD players, we are forever having this problem. That is, the songs are at all kinds of different levels of natural volume, primarily because they were ripped from different sources. As a consequence, one has to constantly readjust the volume knob for this. As many of these are compilations, it is annoying to turn up a song that seems to have been ripped at a low volume, only to be blasted out by the next song which was recorded at a higher volume.
Is there some kind of a free tool (or is it included with one of the CD burning programs) that allows you to somehow adjust the levels so they are roughly the same across the whole CD (like they would be if you bought the CD legally at the store). Are they easy to use/ understand for someone who is pretty new to the whole CD burning thing?
The whole reason I started burning CDs was because my wife has a shopping problem when it comes to music, which I was effectively able to eliminate with this technology. Now, all of the sudden I find out she bought two full price new CDs at the store because she was complaining that the ones I make for her have this volume problem which she finds annoying…
What you want to do is called “normalizing.” The difference in sound levels comes from not only different recording levels on the original discs, but also in the way the MP3s were ripped and the hardware that does it.
I use Real Jukebox and the only option for adjusting volume of the rip is when recording in analog mode. I sometimes have to use this on a damaged CD. When doing straight digital rips I don’t think there is a volume option when doing digital rips.
Not all music is recorded at the same average volume level. The dynamic limit of digital recordings is absolute and harsh. If you exceed it you get square wave clipping which is extremely nasty and has big pointy teeth and… Sorry. Typical thumpa-thumpa rock and hip-hop can be recorded at higher average levels but something with a lot of dynamic peaks and valleys like say Steely Dan will overall be softer but percussive sounds will often sound louder than other music.
CDex is a freeware program that has a normalization feature. I use it mainly to normalize .wav files when I’m ripping them from CDs to make compilations, but it can normalize when you’re converting from .mp3 to .wav.
Be prepared to fiddle with the settings a bit to get the best results though. It isn’t that complicated, but it’s not just a black box with a red button on it either.