CD volume

[Ken Bouchard]

how does one go about making all the songs one burns onto a CD-R the same
volume on playback? I sometimes use the "amplify" feature of Cool Edit to
get the amplitude of waveforms up around 0 dB
but after those songs are burned, there sometimes is a noticeable difference
in playback volume. Is this phenomenon just something you have to live with
because of the "non-linear" nature of human hearing? I've noticed that of
two songs recorded on CD at the same amplitude, the one with only piano at
the beginning, comes out on playback as lots louder.

thanks, ken
--
1st Class Restoration
"Put your old music on CD"
www.dvbaudiorestoration.com

[CJT]

Ken Bouchard wrote:

> how does one go about making all the songs one burns onto a CD-R the same
> volume on playback? I sometimes use the "amplify" feature of Cool Edit to
> get the amplitude of waveforms up around 0 dB
> but after those songs are burned, there sometimes is a noticeable difference
> in playback volume. Is this phenomenon just something you have to live with
> because of the "non-linear" nature of human hearing? I've noticed that of
> two songs recorded on CD at the same amplitude, the one with only piano at
> the beginning, comes out on playback as lots louder.
>
> thanks, ken
> --
> 1st Class Restoration
> "Put your old music on CD"
> www.dvbaudiorestoration.com
>
>
>
>
I've used "normalize" functions to do that. Whether your particular
software has such a thing is something you'll need to discover on your
own. There still can be apparent variations because of non-linearities
to which you refer, but I'm not that fussy as long as the levels aren't
too out of line.

[M. Smith]

"Ken Bouchard" > wrote in message
et...
> how does one go about making all the songs one burns onto a CD-R the same
> volume on playback? I sometimes use the "amplify" feature of Cool Edit to
> get the amplitude of waveforms up around 0 dB
> but after those songs are burned, there sometimes is a noticeable
difference
> in playback volume. Is this phenomenon just something you have to live
with
> because of the "non-linear" nature of human hearing? I've noticed that of
> two songs recorded on CD at the same amplitude, the one with only piano at
> the beginning, comes out on playback as lots louder.
>

Probably no really easy way. You are at the mercy of how the individual
songs were mixed in the first place. The catch is they can appear to have
the same maximum volume in a program like Cool Edit but if one song is more
highly compressed than another it'll sound louder. The frequency
distribution and other factors will also impact the apparent loudness of a
recording.

So when you are mixing songs from various sources onto a single CDR you are
going to inevitably have some volume differences from cut to cut. It is
possible to edit and adjust, but I've never found it worth the trouble.

[CJT]

M. Smith wrote:

> "Ken Bouchard" > wrote in message
> et...
>
>>how does one go about making all the songs one burns onto a CD-R the same
>>volume on playback? I sometimes use the "amplify" feature of Cool Edit to
>>get the amplitude of waveforms up around 0 dB
>>but after those songs are burned, there sometimes is a noticeable
>
> difference
>
>>in playback volume. Is this phenomenon just something you have to live
>
> with
>
>>because of the "non-linear" nature of human hearing? I've noticed that of
>>two songs recorded on CD at the same amplitude, the one with only piano at
>>the beginning, comes out on playback as lots louder.
>>
>
>
> Probably no really easy way. You are at the mercy of how the individual
> songs were mixed in the first place.

I kinda thought they were songs he had recorded himself. Of course
doctoring like compression can alter the landscape and make some songs
sound louder (that's why it's done!).

FWIW, I think the ideal is to preserve the dynamics of the original
work. Soft songs SHOULD sound softer than loud songs. That said,
I've normalized things that I judged should be similar. And I'm
more concerned with classical than rock 'n roll.


The catch is they can appear to have
> the same maximum volume in a program like Cool Edit but if one song is more
> highly compressed than another it'll sound louder. The frequency
> distribution and other factors will also impact the apparent loudness of a
> recording.
>
> So when you are mixing songs from various sources onto a single CDR you are
> going to inevitably have some volume differences from cut to cut. It is
> possible to edit and adjust, but I've never found it worth the trouble.
>
>

[Moi]

On Sat, 16 Aug 2003 17:45:16 GMT, "Ken Bouchard"
> wrote in
>:

>how does one go about making all the songs one burns onto a CD-R the same
>volume on playback? I sometimes use the "amplify" feature of Cool Edit to
>get the amplitude of waveforms up around 0 dB
>but after those songs are burned, there sometimes is a noticeable difference
>in playback volume. Is this phenomenon just something you have to live with
>because of the "non-linear" nature of human hearing? I've noticed that of
>two songs recorded on CD at the same amplitude, the one with only piano at
>the beginning, comes out on playback as lots louder.
>
>thanks, ken

Check out Wavegain, based on the new proposed Replaygain standard:

http://home.wanadoo.nl/~w.speek/wavegain.htm

BTW, you might want to drop by www.replaygain.org while you're at
it...

[Scott Dorsey]

Ken Bouchard > wrote:
>how does one go about making all the songs one burns onto a CD-R the same
>volume on playback?

You adjust them by hand.

I sometimes use the "amplify" feature of Cool Edit to
>get the amplitude of waveforms up around 0 dB
>but after those songs are burned, there sometimes is a noticeable difference
>in playback volume.

Perceived volume has nothing to do with peak level. A VU meter (rather than
a peak meter) will tend to give you some notion of perceived volume level.
It stll won't be perfect, but it will give you some idea how much to drop
the level on various tracks so that they match.

Is this phenomenon just something you have to live with
>because of the "non-linear" nature of human hearing? I've noticed that of
>two songs recorded on CD at the same amplitude, the one with only piano at
>the beginning, comes out on playback as lots louder.

Yup, because it has a much higher average-to-peak ratio.
--scott
--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[Geoff Wood]

"Ken Bouchard" > wrote in message
et...
> how does one go about making all the songs one burns onto a CD-R the same
> volume on playback? I sometimes use the "amplify" feature of Cool Edit to
> get the amplitude of waveforms up around 0 dB

Vanilla (peak) normalisation will bring the loudest pount of any track (if
done on a per-track basis) to the same loudness. However different sytles
of music have very different distributions of energy, and may sound very
different in apparent level.

Using RMS normalisation to a given value 9say, -14dB) will make everything
sound pretty much as loud as everything else, but you need to watch for
clipping if your nrmalise tool doesn't check in advance and scale the whole
thing. A loudnes maximiser plugin (like Waves L1,2 or Sonic Foundry
WaveHammer, and others) pretty much does the whole caboodle.

However there are artistc reasons why all music shouldn't be 'blanded' to
the same average level, which may not concern you ....

geoff

[area242]

Everyone's making good points, but you're all addressing the volume of it
while it's in the digital realm. When audio is played through a sound
system and you're hearing it through speakers there will still be a
perceived volume change per song. You can test this theory by taking a few
songs that are all normalized to 0dB and transer them to a cassette tape.
Set the record level on the cassette tape as hot as you can get it, using
the parts of the file that are hitting 0dB. Now, hit record and transfer
all songs without adjusting the record volume on the cassette tape. You
will have areas that record louder than you set it it. Some of this is
because certain frequencies are perceived lounder than others. Bass
frequencies move more air. So, songs with more bass register as "louder" to
the computer and the song will be normalized accordingly. If you have a
song with no bass and normalize it, it will seem much louder then the one
with heavy bass.

"Geoff Wood" -nospam> wrote in message
...
>
> "Ken Bouchard" > wrote in message
> et...
> > how does one go about making all the songs one burns onto a CD-R the
same
> > volume on playback? I sometimes use the "amplify" feature of Cool Edit
to
> > get the amplitude of waveforms up around 0 dB
>
> Vanilla (peak) normalisation will bring the loudest pount of any track (if
> done on a per-track basis) to the same loudness. However different sytles
> of music have very different distributions of energy, and may sound very
> different in apparent level.
>
> Using RMS normalisation to a given value 9say, -14dB) will make everything
> sound pretty much as loud as everything else, but you need to watch for
> clipping if your nrmalise tool doesn't check in advance and scale the
whole
> thing. A loudnes maximiser plugin (like Waves L1,2 or Sonic Foundry
> WaveHammer, and others) pretty much does the whole caboodle.
>
> However there are artistc reasons why all music shouldn't be 'blanded' to
> the same average level, which may not concern you ....
>
> geoff
>
>