Is it possible to adjust volume for burning cds?

Question

Is it possible to adjust volume for burning cds?

Hi there,

I made a mix of different songs from different artists for one of my playlists in iTunes. Obviously, being from different sources the songs have different built-in volume levels. I know I can click on each song individually and adjust the volume for playing back on iTunes and for listening on my iPod. However, when I burn a normal cd of that playlist, the volume changes I made to the songs don't seem to take effect. (So in essence, the same mix has different volume levels when I listen to it on my iPod then when I listen to a cd version of it.)

Is this the way it's supposed to be or am I doing something wrong/not doing something right here? It would be great to have an actual cd I can listen to in my car of the mix I made with the same volume levels I hear when listening to it on my iPod.

Thanks!
Rick

Dell, Windows XP

Posted on Jul 2, 2007 10:18 AM

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Answer 1

NoName

Level 6

12,831 points

Jul 13, 2007 1:24 AM in response to anglophile0710

For the best results, I would suggest using ReplayGain to modify the files of your audio CD burning project. To do this without altering the files in your iTunes library, create a new folder on your Desktop and drag the files from the playlist there to copy them to the folder. Close iTunes.

Now, if you haven't already got foobar2000 installed, download it here. After installing the program, drag and drop the folder from your Desktop on the main player window, select all the tracks, right-click and go to ReplayGain > Scan Per-File Track gain. Once the scanning has finished and you've updated the files' tags with the ReplayGain information, select all of the tracks again, right-click and go to Convert > Convert to Same Directory. From the Encoding Preset drop-down menu, select WAV, then check the ReplayGain Processing box. Click the (...) button in the same area to access the ReplayGain - Converter window. From the Source mode drop-down list, select "track." From the Processing drop-down list, select "apply gain and prevent clipping according to peak." Then click OK to return to the Converter Setup window. Click OK to begin the conversion.

Once the conversion has completed, quit foobar2000 and open iTunes. Create a new playlist for the audio CD burning project, and drag your new WAV files from the folder on your Desktop to the playlist. You can proceed to burn the audio CD as usual, but be sure to go to Edit > Preferences > Advanced > Burning and make sure that Use Sound Check is not enabled.

Following these instructions should give you much better results than Sound Check or any other "normalization" process would. Please let me know how this works out for you.

Cheers!

P.S. Once you've successfully burned your audio CD, you can safely delete the playlist with the new WAV files from your iTunes library and send them to the trash. You can also safely delete the folder you created on your Desktop, since it only contains these WAV files and copies of the original files from your iTunes Music folder.

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Answer 2

Jul 12, 2007 11:13 PM in response to anglophile0710

If the problem is that some songs are too soft or too loud when playing back the audio CD, this might help:

Open the iTunes Preferences pane (sometimes the settings called Preferences by Mac software is named Options on PCs). Click the the Advanced icon, then go to the Burning tab. If you check the box "Use sound check" then iTunes should adjust the softest and loudest volume tracks so they are more similar.

Quicksilver G4, was 867MHz, now 1.47 GHz (FastMac CPU) Mac OS X (10.4.9) 1 GB RAM, SeriTek 1S2 SATA PCI card, Adaptec 2930** SCSI card

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