i use EAC and Lame to rip old cds i made from downloads

everything is working great except i would like to make all the volume levels the same

from what i understand this is also known as "normalizing"?
if i am correct how can i use EAC to normalize, or should i use another program such as mp3 gain ( i hear that was a good one) to make all the volume levels the same.

thanks for the help

manic

Normalizing will not make the volumes the same. What you are looking for is a program called MP3Gain. It will set all tracks to 89dB by default, which is completely different from normalizing. Normalizing will boost soundwaves to their maximum without letting the sound clip

edit: oh you mentioned MP3Gain already anyways, you still have your answer

thank you

is there a guide on how to use this program...and how much quality will i lose

i have like 100s of mp3s i would like to make all the same volume

also what is normalizing? and clipping? lol i cant figure all this out

questions are in order of importance

thanks again

manic

Using the program isnt that hard. its a matter of importing some MP3s, scan for their dB, and then adjusting it to 89dB: Open - Click button 1 (Scan) - Wait - Click button 2 (adjust volume) - Wait. I've only used it a couple of times, so this is all i know. afaik it only adjusts the volume. it doesnt decode and encode. I don't think it will make the quality drop, but again: i'm not really into MP3Gain.

Search the board for normalizing and clipping. I'm sure it has already been explained, and i don't think i'm the right person to explain it to you

ps: MP3Gain only handles MP3s and not WAV files, which you should use if you rip your own CDs only to burn them away as audio-cd's again (Hence the name )

ok thanks for the help

do you think there is a difference between just ripping and encoding with eac and then using mp3 gain

or should i use the normalization option in eac? or both?

Normalization is eeeevil. Avoid it like the plague. Just use mp3gain, and you'll be happy.

whyyyyyyyyyyy

explanations for answers!! =) im a sponge for knowledge

Read the help file included with MP3gain, it explains the difference between peak normalization (which is what EAC does) and volume normalization (which is what MP3gain does).

Isn't EAC's 'normalization' actually just volume adjustment/scaling?

There is one thing to keep in mind about Mp3Gain, that is often overlooked. Mp3Gain just writes a "volume offset" value to each frame of the mp3 file. Its the job of the "player software" to be able to read, and subsequently adjust the volume based on this value.

The point is, if you process all your mp3's with Mp3Gain, and then play them someplace other than your computer, as in a car player, or portable, they won't be "equalized" as few, if any, of these hardware devices can read that data.

Please correct me if I'm wrong about this, but thats my understanding of how Mp3Gain works, and what I've experienced with my own usage.

Nitpick: The term "89 dB" has no relevance in the realm of digital audio. What you are referring to is an SPL measurement, or sound level in the real world. Since we are talking about digital audio, it is more appropriate to talk about the sound level relative to full digital scale, in this case, -20 dB RMS.

Hey analogy; Sorry if I "nitpick" your nitpick, but you're quite incorrect.

SPL is only one application out of a million that can be quantified using db's.
db's are simply a ratio of one power level to another. In the case of SPL's, (sound pressure level), it's referenced to the average human ear. 0db being the threshold of hearing, 120db being the threshold of pain.

Generally, db's are used to measure the ratio of input to output in a system. Consequently, they're very relevant to digital systems. The number of bits in a computer "sound system" define the theoretical dynamic range, or db, that that "system" can handle. Each additional "bit" in a digital scheme effectively doubles the dynamic range of that system. In theory.

I believe, that Mp3Gain uses "16-bit" as a reference level in establishing the db measurements that it reports.

I don't want to go any farther in depth at this moment than this, 'cause I'm talking off the top of my head, and don't want to confuse the issue.

Not true, my mp3gain'd files play correctly everywhere.

I never said dB wasn't a relevant measurement, in fact, in the sentence you quoted, I quite specifically state that dB under full-scale is the relevant measurement for digital audio. I said that dB SPL (which the 89 dB figure is) is irrelevant in digital audio, since it can be varied by so many things (DSP, equalization, *the volume knob*) that it is useless until the sound actually hits your ears.



In other words, you have no idea what you're talking about. How does the term "16-bit" establish a reference point of 0dB? You could say that 0dB could be defined as the "noise floor." Great, define the noise floor for me. The quietest sound that can be reproduced with 1 bit? But thanks to noise shaping, we can actually hear sound *under* this noise floor. So now what?

The *only* practical measurement for digital audio is relative to full digital scale.

http://replaygain.hydrogenaudio.org/

That doesn't make it not true . . . it simply means that you have some piece of hardware that can read the volume-offset value within an mp3 frame. My Alpine car stereo cannot. Thus, for some hardware, it is true. It's just something that the original poster should be aware of.

Actually, I do know what I'm talking about, but I may have stated it in a way as to sound condescending. Sorry about that analogy. I didn't mean it that way.



You could make 0 db any reference point. That is its fundamental meaning. I simply meant, that I believe that Mp3Gain uses "full volume" as its zero db reference. On an "ordinary" computer sound card, thats 16-bit. Your initial post, unless I misinterpereted it, implies that db is only relevant to SPL measurements.
Thats all I meant.

I thought support for that was required for the mp3 standard. Yuck. I'd return that hardware if I were you.

mp3gain modifies the global gain field in each frame. ANY decoder had to be able to read this field as it is part of the mp3 specification, and if any decoder didn't it would have no idea how loud to make each frame. Oh, and my Alpine plays mp3gained files fine.

Hmmm . . . perhaps analogy was correct, and I don't know what I'm talking about.

I'll have to try this experiment again. I have a fairly new Alpine CDA-9807, and it doesn't seem to recognize the Mp3Gain'ed files.

I'll put together a new collection of songs, that I know have different volume levels, and "wash" them through Mp3Gain. Then I'll burn them to a CD and try this again.

I'll report back when this is done, and see how it turns out. (I'm out-of-town at the moment.)

If my original post wasn't clear enough, I'll clarify now:

Replaygain and MP3Gain claim that they gain files down to a certain SPL level (usually 89 dB), but the term SPL has no meaning inside a computer, *only* in the physical world, where it describes the actual amount of motion of air molecules in response to an impulse.



I am quite aware that 0dB can be anything, that is why a qualifier such as "SPL" or "full scale" is important when you are talking in dB, so whoever you're talking to knows what reference point you're talking about.

If MP3Gain used "full volume" (in other words, full digital scale) as its 0dB reference, its target volume would be negative, since all digital samples should be under full scale (and yes, I am aware that some MP3 samples can be above full scale, but that is an artifact of the lossy encoding process). Since the target volume is stated as being 89dB, it obviously isn't using full scale as its reference.

You're wrong. MP3Gain'd files have played correctly on EVERY piece of hardware I own. That includes JVC, Iriver, Frontier Labs, and various others. Now ReplayGain tags, that's a different matter entirely.

Doesn't the MP3gained files play at all? Could it be the APE tags that MP3gain adds that makes the Alpine not recognize them for some reason?