Audio Leveling Software Recommendation?


Hi all, I'm new to the forum and tried searching the archives with no luck. I am using a Squeezebox 3/PC based music server, ripping lots of CDs and LPs that I am converting to digital.

Are there any recommendations you have for audio leveling software? You know the problem - different tracks/albums are all mastered differently, some quite hot and I'd like to avoid having to adjust the volume on the preamp (up or down) from one track to the next. I'm not averse to paying for some sw either if it solves the problem.

Thanks in advance!
John
olderbrothergert

Showing 2 responses by almarg

I do audio editing with a Windows-based professionally oriented program called Sony Sound Forge Pro, which is very powerful, very stable, and very easy to use (and also expensive). I suspect that its consumer oriented counterpart, Sound Forge Audio Studio ($55) would do fine for your purposes:

http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/soundforgesoftware

These programs were originally developed by a USA company called Sonic Foundry, which was bought by Sony several years ago.

Good luck!
-- Al
One important point to be aware of. The trial version of Sound Forge (at least for the Pro version, that I am familiar with) puts intermittent beeps into any file that it is used to save.

If the trial version of Audio Studio is similar in that respect, then whenever you open one of your music files with it, the first thing you should then do is to use the "File/Save As" menu selection to save it as a different file name. That way you will assure that you won't inadvertently put the beeps into your original file.

The purchased version of the software won't have that issue, of course.

Re leveling the volume of your different tracks, the function you would want to use is called (on the Pro version, at least) "Normalize" (under the "Process" menu at the top). The "Normalize" function allows you to select any desired peak level, from "0 db" to "-60db," and it will apply a uniform gain to the entire file such that the peak value becomes the specified number. It will NOT apply any compression, or alter the music in any way other than gain, although other functions are available that can do those kinds of things, should you wish to use them.

Good luck!
-- Al