Equalize MP3 Volumes

[SIGMA__7]

the PMA has the following limitations on gain control:

1. in many cases, the headroom you have to adjust the gain does not allow "soft" songs to ever match up to a loud track playing at 0 gain in the EQ menu. sometimes the volumes won't even match up if you max gain on a soft track and minimize gain on the loud track via the EQ.

2. when you adjust gain, there is no visual indicator to show you how close you are to matching the volume levels on two tracks when mixing (on a mixer, it would be the channel gain LEDs) - the only visual indicator available is the waveform, and it does not transform to represent or compare what is happening with/between the two channels when EQ or FX are adjusted.

I just downloaded the freeware app called MP3gain - you just set the target volume, analyze and then apply the track volume you are looking for, and it will batch process an entire folder to get all tracks within 1.5db

and voila, babysitting and guesswork on the EQ gain adjustments in PMA are rarely required - just make sure you put all new tracks through the same process so your whole library matches.

also keep original copies if you are paranoid, the software overwrites the original when processing.

[fazz]

Doesn't the pacemaker normalize tracks on its own?

But yeh I have noticed the fact that gain control does nothing on some tracks.

[SIGMA__7]

PMA does not normalize. trust me, use MP3Gain - it is free and it is fast - it will take a day to do an entire collection of reasonable size (ie 3000 songs).

once done, the only gain you'll ever worry about is very fine tuning.

if anyone is interested in using the MP3gain, let me know. I don't mind writing a mini how-to here on using mp3gain, but only if it will go to good use.

[NickJemis]

I prefer MP3Gain, I'm fully satisfied with speed and quality of how it normalizes tracks. Thanks for your kind offer about how-to, sigma_7, I know how to use it .

[charliehgate]

I thought the pmd was supposed to normalise....but know that it really doesn't lol. I tried audacity while ripping vinyl but it really downgrades the quality. I've since gone to wav over mp3. It looks like mpgain don't do wavs? Any recomendations for wavs?