MP3 Library - Track Volume

[Sam]

Hi all - I have about 900 mp3 songs, from over 50 artists that I have
accumulated on my hard drive. Sometimes I have one track from an
artist that I downloaded. Sometimes I have 3 or 4 CD's worth. 80% of
the tracks come from my own CD collection - the other 20% only exist
on my HDD - downloaded (mostly) from MusicMatch (pre Yahoo). All that
variety has left me with a substantial problem - the volume from track
to track can vary greatly. Within a given album there usually is no
problem. In a mixed play list - or on my MusicKeg (mp3's in the car)
it get's ugly to the point of turning it off rather than the constant
up and down with the volume control.

I've Googled for utilities that can normalize the volume of MP3 files
and there are a number of them, but I have some concerns about running
such a thing with no way out. Also - what's the impact on licensed
music? Does anyone have a solid recommendation? It's been a lot of
work developing the library over time and I'd really hate to
(unrecoverably) mess it up.

Thanks.
Sam

 

[Insight]

Hi all - I have about 900 mp3 songs, from over 50 artists that I have
accumulated on my hard drive. Sometimes I have one track from an
artist that I downloaded. Sometimes I have 3 or 4 CD's worth. 80% of
the tracks come from my own CD collection - the other 20% only exist
on my HDD - downloaded (mostly) from MusicMatch (pre Yahoo). All that
variety has left me with a substantial problem - the volume from track
to track can vary greatly. Within a given album there usually is no
problem. In a mixed play list - or on my MusicKeg (mp3's in the car)
it get's ugly to the point of turning it off rather than the constant
up and down with the volume control.

I've Googled for utilities that can normalize the volume of MP3 files
and there are a number of them, but I have some concerns about running
such a thing with no way out. Also - what's the impact on licensed
music? Does anyone have a solid recommendation? It's been a lot of
work developing the library over time and I'd really hate to
(unrecoverably) mess it up.

Thanks.
Sam

I highly recommend this program:

http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/

I've used it on my 12,503 song oldies collection (all obtained legally, I
might add). In four years, I've never had a problem.

Good luck finding the right program.

insight

--
"Well, I wasn't going to let the thing chomp us," she said. "What's the
use of going on a quest if you just get eaten?"

Sorceress Iris

Geis Of The Gargoyle
by Piers Anthony

 

[Jim]

I highly recommend this program:

http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/

Seconded. Works great.

 

[Sam]

I highly recommend this program:

http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/

I've used it on my 12,503 song oldies collection (all obtained legally, I
might add). In four years, I've never had a problem.

Good luck finding the right program.

insight

Thanks - I'll give it a shot and report back.

OBTW - I did figure out that I can run a tool against the MP3's loaded
on the MusicKeg directly. Turns out the file structure of the device
is FAT32. A little finagleing and voila - it looks like a drive.
I'll try it that way first. BBS

Sam

 

[Chrissy Cruiser]

I've used it on my 12,503 song oldies collection (all obtained legally,

You have paid $12,503 for mp3s?

 

[Sam]

[snip]

I've Googled for utilities that can normalize the volume of MP3 files
and there are a number of them, but I have some concerns about running
such a thing with no way out. Also - what's the impact on licensed
music? Does anyone have a solid recommendation? It's been a lot of
work developing the library over time and I'd really hate to
(unrecoverably) mess it up.

Thanks.
Sam

I highly recommend this program:

http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/

I've used it on my 12,503 song oldies collection (all obtained legally, I
might add). In four years, I've never had a problem.

Good luck finding the right program.

insight

A little feedback to the group -
1 - MP3Gain works great. It took about 3 hours to run the analysis
and about 3 hours to run the changes.
2 - You can back out a change without destroying content (as
advertised). I tried on copies of a few songs and it worked just
fine.
3 - I chickened out on my newer licensed MP3's. I only have about 50
tracks and then I have to convert about 80 WMA's (which I planned to
do anyway).

Thanks for the recommendation.

Sam