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" <kbouchard@adelphia.net> wrote in message
news:M4u%a.11126$2Y6.3030295@news2.news.adelphia.n 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.

[Girth]

"Ken Bouchard" <kbouchard@adelphia.net> 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.

Do it by ear. Sequence your tracks, then drop into each track at a
random position for a listen. Adjust level if necessary, repeat until
you are happy. Balance each track against each other, but use one
selected track for reference.


--
S i g n a l @ l i n e o n e . n e t

[Scott Dorsey]

Ken Bouchard <kbouchard@adelphia.net> 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."

[Sparky]

Since no one has said the "m" word yet - I will.
It's part of the Mastering process. A good mastering engineer will get the
levels of all your tunes to the appropriate level. He/she will use a
combination of eq, compression, limiting & whatever other tricks he/she like
s to use to achieve the final result.

Good Luck,

Sparky
"CJT" <cheljuba@prodigy.net> wrote in message
news:3F3EA8CE.5030504@prodigy.net...
> 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



> > Since no one has said the "m" word yet - I will.
It's part of the Mastering process. A good mastering engineer will get the
levels of all your tunes to the appropriate level. He/she will use a
combination of eq, compression, limiting & whatever other tricks he/she
likes to use to achieve the final result.

Good Luck,

Sparky

>

[Geoff Wood]

"Ken Bouchard" <kbouchard@adelphia.net> wrote in message
news:M4u%a.11126$2Y6.3030295@news2.news.adelphia.n 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" <geoff@paf.co.nz-nospam> wrote in message
news:y%Y%a.12148$9f7.1398713@news02.tsnz.net...
>
> "Ken Bouchard" <kbouchard@adelphia.net> wrote in message
> news:M4u%a.11126$2Y6.3030295@news2.news.adelphia.n 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
>
>

[Andy Eng]

On Sat, 16 Aug 2003 17:45:16 GMT, "Ken Bouchard"
<kbouchard@adelphia.net> 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

Ken,

I cheat and use Volume Balancer:

http://www.delback.co.uk/volbal/

It doesn't go by the peaks but assesses the sound energy (?) of the
piece. What I like about it is that it will process batches of files
(nice time to take a break) and creates new normalized files (doesn't
overwrite the source WAV).

Best,
Andy

>1st Class Restoration
>"Put your old music on CD"
>www.dvbaudiorestoration.com
>
>
>
>

[P Stamler]

The best way is to use your ears. Go through and figure out what the highest
peak is on each track. Pick a track that's your reference, hopefully similar to
many of the others, then adjust each track to match it, by ear, when you play
them back. CoolEdit does this very nicely. Save each track as a new file, so
you have the original still available.

You check the peaks at the beginning to make sure ahead of time that you won't
boost a track 4.5dB when the highest peak is -3dBFS.

Peace,
Paul