I am looking for Automatic Gain Control software. I want to set a limit on both the minimum as well as max volume when I watch a movie on my computer. I'm a real novice so please speak slowly and clearly. Thanks

Well, the replies from volunteers here are all typed, not spoken....

You could check out the app store for the software you are looking for.

This might or might not be helpful to you;

http://www.nch.com.au/wavepad/index.html

Interesting - and that works on the currently playing audio of a movie?

Well, I'm not sure. I don't use it. I just found it while looking for an answer to your question.

You might communicate with the distributor and ask about it's application.

Thanks for the explanation (although I am not the OP or looking for this type of software - just asked out of curiosity).

Oops! I wasn't paying attention. Sorry about that babowa.

It is indeed interesting looking software. I'm sure it does more than

I would ever need.

Also, take a look in the App Store for Smart Gain. It might be just the thing.

I don't understand the reason for this request. Minimum volume would be "off", maximum would be whatever you set the maximum volume in the player.

All the stuff mentioned above are either audio editors or audio players. They don't allow you to pass the output from a separate sound generating utility (e.g., like a movie player) directly into them.

As far as I know there are no AGC apps for mac probably for the reason I just said at the beginning (i.e., volume goes from level 0 to a max setting you set).

On the other hand there are utilities that do affect the sound played on your mac by modifying all the sound output. The one I am thinking of is Hear. It allows you to apply an equalizer and special effects to shape the output sound. Tools like this will affect the sound output from a movie player and all other sound generating tools on the system.

AGC (Automatic Gain Control) also Dynamic Range Compression (DRC) is a means to keep the volume of a signal between two set points a lower threshold and an upper threshold.

So volume below the low threshold is boosted and volume above the upper threshold is cut.

Smart Gain sounds like the type of program the OP is looking for. Though it is hard to tell from the write-up if the program works in real time.

Frank Caggiano wrote:

AGC (Automatic Gain Control) also Dynamic Range Compression (DRC) is a means to keep the volume of a signal between two set points a lower threshold and an upper threshold.

So volume below the low threshold is boosted and volume above the upper threshold is cut.

Yes, and I see no point in doing this to a movie. I would think you would want to hear the movie as it is intended to be heard. To each his (or her) own I guess/

Smart Gain sounds like the type of program the OP is looking for. Though it is hard to tell from the write-up if the program works in real time.

And as I said I know of no program that will allow a movie player's audio output as its own input. Smart Gain is no exception.

Like all other audio editing programs it wants the audio file as its input.

If an AGC is going to be done it has to be done at all maybe it could be from a "audio unit" (.au) but I don't know how these work.

AGC is done for many reasons. If you're in a noisy environment and you need to boost the lows to hear them, if your watching a movie late at night and don't want the explosions waking the neighbors.

And there are many was of patching the audio on a Mac. Soundflower being one of the more popular choices.

Back in the pre-Leopard days of Mac OS X there was a Plantronics iTunes add-on called Volume Logic that did exactly what you are looking for. The add-on dynamically held the volume gain to a desired level of loudness for any program material played through iTunes, be that music, video, TV shows, or movies. This add-on only worked within iTunes so that same program material was unaffected by it when played using outside apps, such as QuickTime player or what have you.

In the days of Leopard and beyond, the iTunes architecture changed enough that made this add-on no longer functional. Apple seems to have taken great strides in plugging the "holes" in their program interfaces that allowed apps like Volume Logic to work. That doesn't mean it can't be done, but to achieve the same result workarounds involving a few additional pieces of software need to be used.

My workaround is to use Rogue Amoeba's "Audio Hi-Jack Pro" (a third-party extra cost app) in combination with a multi-band dynamic compressor plug-in (like Apple's AUDynamicsProcessor or AUMultibandCompressor audio units, both of which are included with Mac OS X) to regulate the sound from any app, service, or device.

The very simplified method is to:

1. Add an app, service, or device to Audio Hi-Jack Pro's (AHJP) source list
2. Edit the configuration for that newly added source to include any real-time processing to be done via audio plug-ins (AU, VST, LADSPA supported)
3. Tweak the plug-ins for desired effect
4. Play the source with AHJP running in the background

It works, but only to the degree with which you are willing to learn how to set up an audio signal chain, choosing and using the appropriate plug-ins, and tweaking the performance of the entire process while balancing out the desired effect with processor load across the computer as a whole. Real-time audio signal processing can be a bear to learn and a CPU-hog for mid to lower powered computers. The current crop of i3/5/7 processors should have no problems at all and even Core 2 Duo processors should be unaffected. Processors older than that, though, may be limited to only processing lower resolution audio signals.

This may not be an approach used by those seeking a simplified method of automatic gain control (AGC). I'm not sure what the issue is with bringing such technology to the masses but I've not seen anything that processes audio in real-time at the consumer level since the end of Volume Logic.