Burn CD volume issues

Question

Burn CD volume issues

In my iTunes library, I have a variety of songs imported from various sources - Uploaded CD's, downloads, digitized through Toast Titanium/ CD Spin Doctor.

They all seem to sound alright when played through my iMac.

However, when I burn them to disc (usually from a playlist), their volumes vary dramatically. Most obvious are the digitized songs, they are way too low a volume compared to downloaded songs.

Anyways, I adjusted the volumes in 'Get Info' and re-burnt them. Same issue. ??

Checked through the forum here and notice something about 'sound check' helping, but that was from 2006.

Is there any way I can 'level' the songs volume for a decent burn to CD? or am I SOL?

iMac, Mac OS X (10.7.5)

Posted on Feb 20, 2015 9:48 AM

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Answer 1

Limnos

Level 10

411,193 points

Feb 20, 2015 11:26 AM in response to Woodlandtripper

This document is relatively recent and suggests Sound Check is still there. I don't use a new iTunes so I can't tell you exactly where.

iTunes: About Sound Check - http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2425

The question is, does it only affect playback volume or does it do burning too (doesn't say and I haven't ever burned a CD with it on)?

I think a lot of new music (and remastered releases of old recordings) has audio compression applied which irons out extremes and squeezes audio into a smaller volume range. To prevent overtaxing speakers iTunes scales everything to the top volume which means with newer recordings there isn't as much difference between loud and quiet and and most of an average track is fairly loud. Older music may have a lot of quiet spots with an occasional really loud part. The volume gets limited at the top peak and much of the track ends up in the low to mid volume range.

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Answer 2

ed2345

Level 9

62,486 points

Feb 20, 2015 3:10 PM in response to Woodlandtripper

First the good news. As Limnos notes, Sound Check is still there. Sound Check for burning is a different setting than Sound Check for playback; simply check "Use Sound Check" when you get the burn dialog, as shown below.

Now for the bad news. iTunes Sound Check works poorly. In my experience, it is much inferior to the volume leveling in dedicated burning programs ( e.g. Roxio).

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Answer 3

Feb 21, 2015 5:37 AM in response to ed2345

Thanks for your replies. I will attempt Sound Check (from burn settings) when burning my next CD and check back in here.

(can't be any worse, right?)

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