Would anyone know of any audio software program for pc (WAV) or macintosh (aiff) files that has anything available for automatically synchronizing volume (signal) levels among various tracks?
Many times I create my own audio CD's from multiple sources and the variation in sound levels is annoying (although not as irritating as listening to TV broadcasts). I've manually fixed several of my recordings (by altering the loudness of individual tracks) using commercial software but it is a tedious process that I rarely can afford to do. I've discovered that the only way to get it right or satisfactory is to repeatedly listen to the tracks at very high volume while re-burning. You can't gauge just how loud something is by looking at its wave form. Is it possible for software to determine the "perceived loudness" or "overall general loudness" of one song to the next? It's obviously hard to get it right since many professional sound studio engineers have trouble. I'm not interested in any sound format other than audio cd. Thanks!

http://www.replaygain.org

Specifically, you can use wavegain - http://home.wanadoo.nl/~w.speek/wavegain.htm

The easiest way would probably be using foobar2000, which also supports replaygain. You can either diskwrite the replaygained WAVs and then feed them to your favourite burning program, or make use of the cd writing component (you'll need Nero installed for it to work, though).

And in the future, please don't hesitate to browse/search the forums before posting questions that have already been answered.

What you want is replaygain. Easiest way to get an impression what it does is probably trying foobar2000 as audio player and play with the feature (album gain, track gain). You can use its diskwriter to adjust volume of wave files - or use its audio CD burning plugin directly (nero required).

Edit: Too slow. Don't believe a single word of what Moneo wrote! (kidding)

Is there anyone working on a loudness converter plugin to popular players? Say the original performance reached 110dB SPL. I prefer to quiet it down to 90dB SPL. But my hearing frequency response is differ for any two levels. It would not be too difficult to approximate the necessary compensation for any given in/out SPL levels.

that'd be interesting... isn't that the whole fletcher-munson (sp?) equal loudness contour thing?

that could be implemented into something like shibatch's superEQ which i believe is available in several players

it'd be an interesting tool, to be sure.

I don't understand. Whatever level the original performance was, the microphone recording it has a flat response (compared to the human ear), thus the recording have a flat response too.
Then, when you play it at different level, you hear the response that your ear always had.

For example if you play it at 110 dB you'll hear the response of your ear at 110 dB and if you play it at 90 dB you'll hear the response of your ear at 90 dB, exactly as if you listened to the original performance played at 90 dB (note that listening daily at 110 dB damages hearing).

Thanks Moneo and all. I admit to taking advantage of you because I have not had the time to first do the requested reSearch in these forums before asking for your help.

I found out about this forum at www.replaygain.org (which I likewise had just encountered for the first time) but I still have the same stupid understanding I had before. If Replay Gain depends on metadata (and the wav or aiff track is unaltered) then my regular audio CD player can't play any such CD can it? I don't care about mp3, iPods, or any lossy format or device. But I am thankful that these things may have led to the creation of something like Replay Gain which at least suggests that modifying wav/aiff for this end is possible. I have been asking about "perceived loudness" transformation software for audio CD for several years - to no avail. I had sent emails to three or four authors of audio transformation software with my questions and engaged in discussions on this topic with at least two of them. But in the end, nothing seems to have come out of it. And now I stumble onto Replay Gain - which apparently relies on metadata (?) so it is not the answer (?)

I do all my CD audio work on a Macintosh even though I do have a PC which I keep isolated from any type of network (and large data transfer) connection. I really want something for the Mac but if something already exists for the PC, it is very good news.

Thanks again. And sorry for being so stupid (and time-lazy/lacking) as I have no doubt my questions expose my ignorance.

Use wavegain to change the wav's themselves or simply load the files into foobar, replaygain them and choose burn. foobar is windows only, but much easier. I think wavegain is on mac though.

Edit: Maybe wavgain isn't on OSX. At least I'm not seeing anything on the search or google. You could put VNC on the PC and just use foobar like that.

Mike, I think I read you. You are saying that one would need CD burner software that supports Replay Gain (in addition to something, which may be the same app, that calculates the gain value for each track - then if you wanted the new wav/aiff files, you could extract them from the new CD (or CD image if the app happens to have this functionality)).

The only thing I have seen for the Mac is
http://www.mani.de/en/software/macosx/ivolume/index.html
which is how I came upon www.replaygain.org and then here but this is not what I am looking for.
Thanks!

In order to level out the perceived loudness of the tracks of your mix CD, all tracks need to be scanned first, since there is no way any software can predict how loud a track is going to be before having a chance to read it through. So, if you are expecting a CD playing software that can do this for you on-the-fly, you're out of luck.
However, Replaygain does exactly what you need if you use it before burning your mix CDs. You can tell Wavgain to scan all the files you want to burn and it will modify ("gain") them so that they all match the same perceived loudness. This is not "orthodox" replaygaining, since the WAVs are being actually modified (no metadata). These WAVs can be burnt using any burning software you like.
Replaygaining from Foobar2000 and using it to burn them (choosing to apply replaygain) has the same effect. The WAVs in this case, however, are intact; so you can't just use any software to burn them.

EDIT: A few clarifications.

Thanks Dologan. Ok, so WaveGain does do exactly what I am asking for for WAV files (Windows Audio format). This is very good. (I could not tell it did this from the WaveGain page which was referenced in the first to reply to me.) So there is at least one program, so far, which does make mixing audio tracks on CD's a hundred times easier.

Does anybody have any opinions on how good a job WaveGain does - or any other program that utilizes ReplayGain in any form?

IMHO, wavgain does a great job, you might wanna read up some on dither and chose to apply the type of dither you'd like.

PIO- I know what you're saying, but you forget that some equipment (especially portables) have issues with extremely dynamic or "loud" music.

Occupational noise exposure limits are something like 8 hours at 90 dB and halving for every 3-5dB increase. That is exactly why I would like to have a loudness converter.
Please take a look at the equal loudness curves, for example at 120 dB SPL. A sound of 1kHz, played at 120 dB SPL (by definition) is 120 phons loud. But around 50Hz, the same 120 dB SPL sound is perceived only 110 phons loud.
So when a recording is replayed that mid frequencies are, for example, 60 phons loud, applying a flat 60 dB volume adjustment, a 50 Hz content will reach only 30 phon loudness. An additional 20 phones were lost because the way we hear. One will perceive similar tonal balance when replayed at the same sound pressure levels as the original.
That is why some receivers did have a loudness control when audio was more important. Some just had a simple swich on type or once I had a Yamaha amplifier, which had variable loudness control, a ring around the main volume control knowb.
Many years ago I even built a 60 stage volume control with accurate loudness compensation. But it was accurate for a 120 dB incoming original content only.
Now, like others, I listen to foobar2000 via a sound card driving a headphone. I do not use my "volume control" device, because large amplifiers are not the best way to drive headphones. Where does an accurate loudness compensation fit then? Into software!
A good loudness converter should work both ways, because not all "bands" play at 120 dB SPL.

You're confusing two completely different things that both use the decibel descriptor. A recording has no inherent spl factor. Only the amp and speakers create a spl.

As far as replaygain and a few other programs, the decibel descripter essentially stands for dynamic range.


A good (or bad example) I can take a classical recording that has a replaygain value of 76dB and during playback ramp the volume up to 130dB.

How may I tame my front row seat sound then? I would like to replay the originally 76dB SPL and the 130 dB SPL live performance at 90 dB SPL, with the ear's equal loudness correction applied to it. That's all.