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Sound Check feature on iOS 5

hello,


I have discovered a problem withe the 'Sound Check' feature in the Music app on iOS 5


I always have this option turned on, and it worked perfectly on iOS 4

But now it has problems.


When i start the music player it works fine, but when i get a song that has low volume and it needs to scale up the volume, it doesn't work.

i need to go back to the Music settings, turn the Sound Check off and then back on again for it to work.

After some songs it magicly happens again, i have to go back to settings, etc.

It seems to happen when a song has low volume.


It works fine on my MacBook Pro with 10.7.2

I closed all other apps on my phone so nothing could mess things up, but nothing helps.

i use iVolume to adjust the volume on my songs.


Hope someone can help me out.

iPhone 4, iOS 5

Posted on Oct 19, 2011 1:51 AM

Reply
126 replies

Oct 19, 2011 4:08 AM in response to adtr2t

I have the same problem but, I noticed this problem is minimized by tuning on the option to convert the music to 128 bits. But, anyway, it happens sometimes but for me the volume goes too loud than the normal and if I turn the sound check off and on it goes normal.

Resuming, the problem gets worse synchronizing the music without conversion. I made some tests and I noticed that most of the musics there are no difference in turn sound check on or off, with the converted music.

I think the iTunes converted the music with the volume it has on his sound check database. This is a guess...

Try it to see if it helps. It helped me.


I hope someone in Apple listen to this. I don't find anyone complaining about this issue until now.

Oct 20, 2011 9:12 PM in response to adtr2t

adtr2t wrote:


hello,


I have discovered a problem withe the 'Sound Check' feature in the Music app on iOS 5


I always have this option turned on, and it worked perfectly on iOS 4

But now it has problems.


When i start the music player it works fine, but when i get a song that has low volume and it needs to scale up the volume, it doesn't work.

i need to go back to the Music settings, turn the Sound Check off and then back on again for it to work.

After some songs it magicly happens again, i have to go back to settings, etc.

It seems to happen when a song has low volume.


It works fine on my MacBook Pro with 10.7.2

I closed all other apps on my phone so nothing could mess things up, but nothing helps.

i use iVolume to adjust the volume on my songs.


Hope someone can help me out.


I too have this exact same problem. I thought I was doing something wrong or I was crazy. I first noticed this issue during the first beta of iOS 5. Unfortunately, I never submitted a bug report about it. I have now, hopefully other people have as well. Sound check has worked great for years until iOS 5. Sound check still works perfect on my second generation iPod touch.


I finally bought iVolume after years of thinking about it. I was thinking that maybe it would sort out volume adjustment issues, also I like the replaygain standard better than iTunes standard. Too bad iVolume doesn't really help work right now because things don't get applied to iOS 5 devices. As stated above, iTunes works fine. Also I can confirm that turning off sound check and then turning it back on can fix the problem. Very, very odd. It is incredibly irritating when driving and it's at proper volume and then suddenly a song comes on and is super loud; scares the crap out of me and leaves my ears ringing. That's not good.


A common link I've noticed is large volume adjustment changes. For instance: I listen to the vinyl rip of the Red Hot Chili Peppers album "Stadium Arcadium" and most of those songs only require a -1-2dB adjustment because of excellent mastering. In the playlist I will add some b-sides which are not available on vinyl and thus are mastered extremely loud which requires a large volume adjustment of -10 or more decibels. If I go from a vinyl song that is quiet to a b-side it will screw up sound check and not apply sound check to the loud song. So in my playlist it goes from the song "21st Century" which is a -1.7dB adjustment to the b-side "I'll be your domino" which requires a -11.1dB adjustment(!). Sound check consistently fails when transitioning from 21st century to I'll be your domino. I try to remember it's coming when I'm driving but I forget and I get blasted.


Oh how I do hope this is fixed. They haven't looked at my bug report yet. Hopefully they'll see it before the next update.

Oct 23, 2011 4:12 AM in response to adtr2t

I'm just glad am not the only one so i know it's an issue. I keep tryin to gain all my tunes cos some mixes are double quiet some MINT tune comes on and am hammerin away at the remote tryin to turn it up but gettin nothin out of it. When you go to 'view info' on the right click of the music in the iphone list and go to the volume adjust it's just grayed out and ya cant touch it. Is everyone gettin that as well!? Hope it's sorted soon noticed a few glitches since iOS 5. I get a double alert tone as well when i get 1 text and the click lock sound doesnt make a noise until after about 4 seconds of lockin me phone sometimes. Had to do a lot of messin about since the update hope they know about the errors an get em sorted soon.

Oct 24, 2011 4:33 AM in response to adtr2t

I've worked out how to adjust the gain anyway. Basically iOS 5 must have reset some settings. If you click on your phone in iTunes then scroll down to options in the main window my 'manually manage music and videos' was unchecked. I used to have it checked so i just checked it again an now the manual volume gain works again fine. Not sure if my musics any louder yet but it's solved everything else.

Oct 24, 2011 12:42 PM in response to adtr2t

Ok - I called apple support on this and they told me to restore my iphone from "New". After taking a deep breath, i backed up everything I needed, and did the restore from new. Took a long while, to get my iphone to where it was supposed to be, but.. I've been testing for 3 days in my car now, and it seems the volume check is ok now. Just as a background, my library has super varied track volume levels, and I adjust the replaygain value of each track with mp3gain, then convert that value to apple's Itunnorm field (all my songs were pre-processed that way and it has been working for years, until the ios5 upgrade). So after the nightmare of volume rollercoaster earlier, it seemed to level the volume as it should now. Still testing, but it seems it worked.

Oct 27, 2011 9:39 AM in response to adtr2t

I submitted a bug for this and got this response below. Maybe some of you could do the same so they have information from a number of devices. I got this a few days ago and have not done it yet because it is tough to reproduce all the time.


Engineering has requested the following information in order to further investigate this issue:


Could you please attach your console log to the bug report?


Console logs can be saved from the Organizer in Xcode, or from the iPhone/iPad Configuration Utility.


iPhone/iPad Configuration Utility Console Instructions:


1. Download and install the iPhone Configuration Utility from this URL:

http://www.apple.com/support/iphone/enterprise/


2. Launch the iPhone Configuration Utility (/Applications/Utilities/), then connect the device to your computer

3. Click on your device under the DEVICES section in the left column

4. Click the Console tab in the iPhone Configuration Utility's main view area

5. Reproduce the problem

6. Click the Save Console As button to save the log to a text file


Please attach the console text file to the bug report

Sound Check feature on iOS 5

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