Adjusting Relative Track Volumes To Same Levels

rob_c · Guest

Howdy.

When you rip tracks off different albums to make up compilations, there can be large differences in the relative volumes.

I'm trying to find is some "Compression" (which flattens peaks)and "Automatic Gain" (like radio stations use to boost softer sections) software to work on the ripped WAV files.

I've tried "Audiograbber" but it can get fooled with music that has large amounts of loud & soft sections.

To prove the point :
1) I recorded a sine wave at 30% RMS volume, and another at 90% ;
2) I then joined these two files together and told "Audiograbber" to adust the file to 60% and to use it's built-in compression routine ;
3) The result was that it didn't change the file at all, as the overall average was already 60%.

So, what I'm looking for is any more sophisticated software that could overcome this problem and help to "flatten" the sound.

I realize that over-compressing and auto-gaining music isn't great, but it's a necessity when you are combining tracks from various sources.

Brien · Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2005 1:22 pm Post subject:

I use Mackie Tracktion software as a final on anything I record. It pulls the lows in and brings the transient highs down. It is perfect for what your application is and will produce a level over-all sound from track-to-track. Of course bringing a low volumne recorded piece up may produce undesirable hiss and other unwanted noise, it will do what you need.

Did you say free...sorry, it is no longer free but it is worth the 149.oo if you do this type of thing often.

sedation · Groupie Joined: 15 Oct 2005 Posts: 11

You could just use Audacity. Just highlight the entire song and use the Equalizer. That'd probably be the easiest way to change everything at once (for free).

Brien · Posted: Sun Oct 16, 2005 1:29 pm Post subject:

That wouldn't hurt but it wouldn't correct the issue of different levels.

rob_c · Guest

Thanks for your ideas.

It's not an Equalization problem (though that IS another issue that I'll conveniently ignore for this exercise Very Happy

), it's a Volume issue.

The software you mentioned sounds like what I want . . . but a bit steep at $150 . . . considering all I need is the one function.

And yes, I do realize that applying Compression and Gain will lower the quality of the music, but the reason I'm doing this is for use as background music . . . so the quality issue is less important than getting the volumes even, both within each track and also across the different tracks.

I guess what I'm hoping to find is either :

1) a VST or similar Plug-in for Soundforge or Audacity ; or
2) a simple DOS BASIC Batch Utility : you run the utility, it asks for :
. . a) the base level (default -12db) ;
. . b) how much compression (default 2:1) ;
. . c) how much Gain (default 2:1) ;
. . d) the level at which to stop the Gain (default -24db)

Can't be too hard to write a FOR / NEXT loop to act on every sample in a file ?

It won't need a Graphic Front End . . . you simply drop the utility into the folder where the Wav's are, run it, and it processes all the files in that folder.

Then I'd convert the files to MP3 and run the freeware "MP3Gain" to do a final adjustment of the relative volumes, before burning them to CD's.

Again, thanks for your ideas.

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