iTunes question

[Brandon Burke]

a friend of mine told me that a mix i made her plays quieter than her other CDs. this was confirmed when another mix i made for someone went on at a party last weekend and was definitely quieter then whatever was on prior.

is there a gain control for burning CDs in iTunes? i looked everywhere but couldn't find anything.

thanks folks,

Brandon

[Brandon Burke]

yeah, the 'sound check' function is supposed to act as some kind of automatic mastering mechanism...but really only does so much.

as we all know, if there's a loud pop on something (a LP burn, for example), that *pop* becomes the loudest peak on that particular file. consequently, you never get a true median level to be compared with the others in your library. that i understand. one hopes that leaving it on wouldn't bring your entire output level down wholesale though, y'know...

the 'sound enhancer' fucntion is still something of a mystery to me. mostly because i never looked up what it meant. (my fault.)

i'll try posting on some geeky Apple boards to see what others say. will report back here with whatever i find out...

thanks guys,

Brandon

[Man with the Golden Arm]

man i'd love to know the solution to this as it is truly the missing feature in iTunes.

in iTunes Preferences, you can go to Advanced/Burning and under Audio CDcheck to see if Use Sound Check is checked.

This is supposed to make all of the songs play at the same volume level,

but I'm not sure what volume level that is -

in the Preferences under Playback you can put a check in the Sound Check there too.

Rod

i've had the same issues with burning out mixes of stuff from various sources - ie: mp3s, mpeg4, aac etc and aiffs when tossed all together in a salad of varied source files. sometimes you bump the cuts up against another source and the levels of the burnt product are quite varied that it is almost worth winging the disc out the window.

the "Sound Check" however and unfortunately does nothing to the file. i don't think it can! it only checks the sound to an averaged level when playing out of the Mac or onto an iPod. it does not impart that sound to the file that is copied to a cdr.

the only way i think it can be done is burning a playlist to cdr and then converting it all to a wav file on the way back in via importing again and then through some other software you can level all from there.

i don't think Mac will ever allow such a feature within their OS cause it's all about selling widgets now rather than a fully featured product. ie: "gee this sound from the nano is much more enjoyable in it's compressed to hell state that i think that valentine's day cd mix you laboriously made from all them RVG, TOCJ, JVCK2, SACD and MFSL cuts sux big time!"

edit to say this is only layman rationalization... i just wish there were a big knob w/ a nice old VU meter on the machine!

Edited March 13, 2006 by Man with the Golden Arm

[Brandon Burke]

Yes, the loud *pop* becoming the loudest is what happens when

you try to normalize the audio,

but this doesn't seem to be what the sound check

function does.

okay, it seems i was confusing sound check with normalization. on the other hand, when you say that the sound check fucntion is "supposed to make all of the songs play at the same volume level," isn't that sorta what normalization is for..?

just want to make sure i'm understanding you correctly...

thanks again,

Brandon

[Daniel A]

okay, it seems i was confusing sound check with normalization. on the other hand, when you say that the sound check fucntion is "supposed to make all of the songs play at the same volume level," isn't that sorta what normalization is for..?

just want to make sure i'm understanding you correctly...

It could be that the sound check function works a bit like ReplayGain, which means it uses some RMS related calculation rather than normalization, like rostasi said. The information is stored the file header and does not alter the actual data, it's just affecting playback.

A quick Google search for RMS didn't come up with anything more meaty, but a short and not too deep explanation of Root Mean Square can be found at the RaplayGain site:

http://replaygain.hydrogenaudio.org/calculating_rg.html

[couw]

RMS looks like a different way of saying compression.

Or am I wrong?

[Brandon Burke]

the RMS v normalization thing makes sense. no prob there.

should mention that, before i started this reply, i was capturing open reel feeds in WaveLab; so i'm no stranger to these concepts. when it comes to iTunes, however, i tend to get their proprietary (i.e made up) half-assed plug-ins confused. seems that, in an attempt to keep things "simple", iTunes designers avoided the very terminology that would have otherwise explained what those fuctions are meant to accomplish.

simple indeed...

anyway, i'll try messing with sound check in the burning preferences to see what happens. if that doesn't work, i'll prob just cave in and get Toast w/ Jam. (i'm possibly expecting a little too much from our friend, iTunes, anyway...)

thanks,

Brandon