Leveling the peak, is there a software?

[killdozzer]

I didn't find a thread with software, so this goes under General AV.

Do you perhaps know of a software that automatically levels the loudness of various material?

I like to burn CD's for my car with different new tunes that enter my head. There's always the same problem; you turn the volume way up on a quiet song and then have a heart attack on the next.

I'm looking for a program that would even out the loudness and leave it that way so that when I decide to burn the material it is all equally loud on the CD.

This means it wouldn't just even it out for one listening session, but would actually permanently change the loudness on a song and save the changes so that the change would get recorded on the CD and you would end up with equal loudness for the entire CD.

killdozzer

 

[lovinthehd]

Try EAC (Exact Audio Copy), it has a normalization routine; I've not used it but believe it is what you're looking for, scroll down to Normalize http://wiki.hydrogenaud.io/index.php?title=EAC_Options

 

[BoredSysAdmin]

Not sure if EAC could apply to existing audio files, but LovingtheHD is right - Normalization is what you're looking for. You could use free audio editor - Audacity for that as well. It supports most of the major audio formats including lossy compressed ones like mp3/aac.

 

[lovinthehd]

I'd think jriver also offers such functionality.....

 

[killdozzer]

Great, thanks for the help! So there is such a function and it is usually called or referred to as 'normalization', I'll look it up. Audacity and jriver... Thanks.

 

[killdozzer]

Back with the feedback.

Perhaps there's more people like me interested in this, so here's my experience:

Once you told me the magic word - normalization - I had no problem finding few programs that do this.

I did download Audacity and I found it to be really broad and with hundreds of options and, honestly, a bit complicated for me. I went for the mp3gain which does only what I need - all songs are equally loud after being treated with this software and it is a 3-4 clicks procedure. Perfect.

One warning from me; this program changes the file and DOES NOT export it, it DOES NOT ask you to save the new version under a different name and so on. It changes the file you point it at and saves the changes 'inside' that very file.

If you have any doubts about it or think that mp3gain will change the playback quality of your file, MAKE A COPY of the file before you process it.

Other than that, I could recommend this program. It is free and I'm listening to the material as I write this, believe me, it sounds almost perfectly set at the same volume level. I deliberately used the files that use to scare me in the past with huge differences in volume.

killdozzer