Some mp3s play louder than others
 

Hi

I've noticed that some of my mp3 files play louder than others. I remember reading once about some script or program that could go through all your files and make them so you don't need to adjust the volume on your speakers for every new song. I can't find anything like that now, does anyone know of something that will do this job?

Thanks

Slackware comes with 'normalize'. I know it levels sound for burning, but I'm not sure how it would work in general - not in Slack right now, so I can't read the man page. ;)

There is a normalizer plug-in for XMMS. Check that out.


Also out of curiousity, is there a tool to manually change the volume/amplitude in actual MP3/OGG files? That would be nice to have... :D

You're not going to like the answer - you need to re-encode the audio file. Audacity would do a great job of it but it's a bit overkill for what you're asking. Personally I recommend not normalizing the MP3 files, but using the player's normalization feature because when you are in a quiet listening environment, you want to retain the original dynamic range.

Hmmm, well that sucks. I've used the XMMS normalizer before but I didn't really like it. I can't remember, but I think the first second of the song played at regular volume and then was normalized after that. Also the normilzation (I think) made the music come out at a lower quality, but like I said it's been a while since I used it.

mp3gain anyone?

Quick, painless, and works.

Whoa, for a while there I thought this was going to be one of those questions that never gets a reply, now everyone's got something to say ;)

cry0x, mp3gain is exactly what I was looking for.

From the mp3gain website:
"Tired of reaching for your volume knob every time your mp3 player changes to a new song?
MP3Gain analyzes and adjusts mp3 files so that they have the same volume."

Pretty much answers my original question perfectly, thanks.

No problem.


Just a suggestion while using mp3gain.


If you have a whole album, normalize that album, by itself, using the "album gain" feature.

If there's two songs, where the end of one song leads into the start of the next song, like a smooth transition, you need to use album gain. If you use song gain, for the whole album, then the volumes won't match during that transition and it will sound bad :(

How exactly do you get mp3gain settings to be recognised? As far as I can tell libmpg123 doesn't recognise them. libvorbis uses vorbisgain settings, so my oggs sound great, but some mp3s are much too high which forces me to lower the overall volume and this makes the oggs too quiet.