How can I increase gain on multiple mp3 files?

sofasurfer · 05-18-2021, 07:27 PM

Many years ago I installed something that put a gain increase option on the context menu of audio files. It worked fine but I don't think it worked on more than one file at a time. And I don't know what it was.

Anywho, I want to increase the volume on all of my daily mp3 downloads since I can not get enough volume out of them. I want tp increase on all of them at once otherwise it will take all day to go through the process.

Is there a simple and painless way to do this?

frankbell · 05-18-2021, 07:45 PM

You might take a look at ffmpeg or mencoder.

I've never attacked this particular issue, but they are both command line tools that come highly recommended for these types of tasks.

shruggy · 05-19-2021, 12:37 PM

The venerable MP3Gain is also an option.

teckk · 05-19-2021, 01:33 PM

You want to play them with an increase, or reencode them?

Some examples:

Increase the high end volume with equalizer:

Code:

mplayer -af equalizer=0:0:0:0:0:5:5:5:5:5 file.mp3
mpv −−af=equalizer=0:0:0:0:0:5:5:5:5:5 file.mp3
ffplay -af "equalizer=f=100:width_type=o:width=20:g=15" file.mp3

Reencode with volume increase example:

Code:

ffmpeg -i file.mp3 -vn -c:a libmp3lame -b:a 192k -af volume=2 Out.mp3

Loop through files

Code:

for i in *.mp3: do
    <something>
done

ondoho · 05-20-2021, 01:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sofasurfer

Many years ago I installed something that put a gain increase option on the context menu of audio files. It worked fine but I don't think it worked on more than one file at a time. And I don't know what it was.

Anywho, I want to increase the volume on all of my daily mp3 downloads since I can not get enough volume out of them. I want tp increase on all of them at once otherwise it will take all day to go through the process.

Is there a simple and painless way to do this?

Unfortunately "gain" can basically mean two different things in this context:

a metadata setting that tells the media player to raise the volume by this amount. Not all media players understand it though. Search for "ReplayGain"
Actually physically re-encoding the sound file to be louder - with all the computing power & loss in quality that entails

Personally, I wouldn't do the latter, and do the former only if I'm 100% sure my media player(s) support(s) it.

I might consider doing the latter while transcoding form lossless to lossy, and I would use ffmpeg for it (but usually people moan that they want a fancyGUI instead).

Not all of my music collection is mp3, even the lossy ones. Is yours?