Is there a way to reset sound check information...

...without having to reimport all my mp3s and lose all play count data and playlists? ... I went through my entire mp3 collection with a tag editor and removed the iTunNORM tag, but apparently the information is stored in the iTunes music library too.

You're halfway there.

Unfortunately, no, you have to reimport the files. However, there is a solution to your dilemma.

Step 1: Export your playlists as XML files. Save these somewhere. After you clear the library and reimport all the files, you can import these as well and get your playlists back. It works.

Step 2: Use my rating save utility. Download it here: http://ottodestruct.com/itunes/SaveRatings.zip. It's an HTA script. Double click to run it while iTunes is running. Hit the "Save Ratings" button. It'll read and save the ratings, playcount, and last played time information to a file called ratings.xml. After you clear and reimport your library, run the HTA again and hit the "Restore Ratings" button to restore all that information back. It works fairly well. The songs it can't find it will display and you can rerate them manually (there's always a few stragglers for some reason).

Hi,

I had started a thread with the same question so I'll join in this one if that's ok.

Can you explain where I can find the iTunNorm TAG?
I am using TAGSCANNER 4.9 (build 497) but even in extended TAG editor mode this field doesnot show up.

I am also a little afraid to do as explained (deletete the library) because I destroyed my library once before and had to rip from the iPod to restore all mp3's (it worked but very circumstantial)

Thanks for any help.

Hi Alain,

Thanks, I thought so, the hex codes that show up there.
Yeah clearing them is probably the one and only way.
Then still hope that the mp3 encoder in iTunes does not do anything to the files sound level.

Thanks again. Hans.

Did you ever experience that?

Nope. Works okay for me.

anyway, if I can't put the right time in, is it possible to erase the last played information?

You could edit the script to reset it to blank or something, but like I said, it works fine for me. I'd suggest looking in the ratings.xml file and seeing what dates you have in that file to understand why it's putting weird last played time info there.

Could the problem be related to the date format we use here?

Possibly, yes. But I let the Javascript handle the date transformations in both directions, so you think it would at least be symmetrical in writing and reading those dates.

But hey, that seems likely, because I've never seen that date format before, so it might not have seen it either.

I'm somewhat concerned about this myself. I have a vast number of mp3s (over 300GB) spread over several large drives on my home network. When I set iTunes onto soundcheck it started altering the files. I'm assuming it just added a tag that iTunes or your iPod uses to adjust the playbacl volume, but checking the tags in Tag&Rename shows nothing. I know something has been done to the files, because they now all fail the md5 check I use to check for corruption if I move them. I'm going to be incredibly upset if it's actually permanently altered the sound of the files. Please tell me it's just added a tag somewhere I can't find in Tag&Rename.

Please tell me it's just added a tag somewhere I can't find in Tag&Rename.

It added a tag you can't see in Tag&Rename.

If you feel like looking at the file with a hex editor, look for "iTunNorm" and you'll see the hidden comment tag.

The audio itself is unchanged. The tag merely contains volume information, and this info is used to alter the audio at the time of playback, if sound check is turned on.

Thanks, I was pretty sure that was it. I checked some mp3s I made from CDs that I knew had wildly differing volume levels in a player without any form of volume balancer & they didn't seem to be any different. Nice to have confirmation though.