MP3 Volume Levelling on a Windows 10 PC

Technology Technology: Questions / Help
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For many years, when importing MP3s to my Acer PCs, I processed them using GoldWave Audio Editor, adjusting balance and volume. The PCs used RealTek drivers with a manager user interface. The results were always satisfactory.

Having switched to Dell PCs, I now find that MP3 volume levels occasionally vary, even though Dell use RealTek drivers.

The final link in my MP3 processing chain is the MediaMonkey player, which, I note, has Volume Levelling capability. This is a function that I have never used so, before I dabble with my 50,000 track MP3 collection, I thought I’d ask for recommendations and advice, if anyone has any … :slightly_smiling_face:

This much I know (from the MM manual):

Volume Leveling

When tracks are digitally encoded from different sources and using different encoders or encoder settings, they will invariably play back at different volumes on different players and devices. Several technologies have evolved to deal with this problem, and it’s useful to understand them so that you use the approach that best meets your needs:

Replay Gain

This is the most standardized approach to volume leveling, providing a comprehensive approach for all audio formats without impacting audio fidelity. Replay Gain implementations use a multi-phase approach: first track volumes are analyzed and the resulting coefficient is saved to the track’s tag (Track gain). Then after all tracks on an Album have been analyzed, a single coefficient is saved for all tracks on the album (Album gain). Then, during playback, the Album or Track gain tag is read and the player adjusts the volume up or down accordingly (Album gain is preferable for playing an entire Album and preserving the inter-track volume variances encoded in the original album, while Track gain is preferred for playing a playlist of tracks from various sources). This is an excellent approach for PC-based players, but is limited because many portable devices do not support Replay Gain tags, and thus when tracks are synced to a device, the volume will vary.

MediaMonkey supports Replay Gain analysis and playback (per Track and per Album via ‘Analyze Volume’ and ‘Level Playback Volume’).

MP3 Gain

This is a variation on Replay Gain, the difference being that rather than saving the analysis co-efficient to a tag, the volume of the MP3 file is actually modified based on the analysis. The benefits of this approach are that like Replay Gain there is no loss in Audio Fidelity, and the resulting MP3 files can be played at level volumes on any MP3 player. The downside is that the approach is limited to MP3.

MediaMonkey supports MP3 Gain type volume leveling via the ‘Level Volume’ command, and can even do so on-the-fly when synching to a device.

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This is something I too noticed from my Dell lappy after the last W10 and driver updates. It was okay before the updates so the problem must have arrived with one of those.

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I have always used volume levelling on MP3s I can’t remember the exact settings I used but I narrowed it a fair bit from the default so that they all fell within a range of say 95% to 98%. It makes a big difference to your listening, the volume once set never needs to be altered

It is surprising how many CDs were distributed who’s maximum volume was really low compared to the others and a very few who clipped the peaks (not that anything can be done to improve that).

These days I rarely play my MP3s as I use Spotify

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I reckon that was due to old analogue recordings being remastered to transfer to CD. Vinyl records and tapes would be volume limeted to avoid overload distortion, so the newer format of CD’s would also suffer from the clipping in the old analogue master tape.