Volume level on ripped mp3s

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BlizzofOZ

Limp Gawd
Joined
Aug 5, 2004
Messages
166
I used EAC with LAME to encode a cd to the mp3 format, at 320 VBR.

I've got an mp3 player and downloaded these mp3s to it. With the volume at max, it just doesn't seem to get loud enough. I have other mp3s that I got thru *ahem*, other means, and they are 320 VBR and seem much louder.

Anything that I can do make them louder?
 
Most audio rippers have a NORMALIZE function. Depends alot on what encoder your using. Use EAC and link it to the LAME encoder it is by far the best and will give you the best sounding files possible with this technology. IMO;)
 
BlizzofOZ said:
I used EAC with LAME to encode a cd to the mp3 format, at 320 VBR.

I've got an mp3 player and downloaded these mp3s to it. With the volume at max, it just doesn't seem to get loud enough. I have other mp3s that I got thru *ahem*, other means, and they are 320 VBR and seem much louder.

Anything that I can do make them louder?
Click to expand...

You can increase the volume in the song, but there will be clipping. Best solution would be to buy a portable amp.
 
Or uncompress, compress/limit the tracks and then re-encode. Normalizing does typically next to nothing.

Sounds like you're trying to drive high impedance headphones, while your MP3 player is intended to drive low impedance headphones.
 
Normalizing does next to nothing? News to me. You can set and normalize a track to -0.3 or -0.6 to allow for peaking. If he is not familiar with compressors he may get rid of the clipping but he might possibly ruin his tracks. There is quite a few different ways to do this task. Do some research on the subject of digital clipping and compressors.
 
You all even reading his post? He says some MP3s are normal volume while the ones he rips are to low, there for an Amp wont help as when he goes from a ripped MP3 to a normal when he is going to blow out his ears. Same goes for the headphones suggestion!!!
Damn people, read the entire post before making yourself look stupid by putting out a bunch of useless info!
 
Audioguy said:
Normalizing does next to nothing? News to me.
Click to expand...
Shouldn't be. The typical track these days hits -0.1 dBFS or -0.01 dBFS (or in some cases, 0 dBFS), so a normalizer will pass through the track and determine that it won't apply any normalization unless said normalizer has the capability to also perform limiting. An early, poorly mastered CD track may peak at -1.5dBFS, which means that a normalizer can, at maximum, apply 1.5 dB of gain, which might be sufficient. I severely doubt all of the tracks he's ripped aren't peaking at at least -0.5 dBFS. The odds are greater that the tracks he's ripping would be minimally affected by a normalizer or not affected at all.

Diablo2K said:
Damn people, read the entire post before making yourself look stupid by putting out a bunch of useless info!
Click to expand...
Perhaps we could just read the "entire post" and offer no suggestions at all as you have done, but I would imagine that wouldn't be too terribly helpful, would it?

The likelihood is far greater that he's trying to push the amp in his MP3 player too hard than the likelihood that he has somehow mis-configured EAC (which you can't really do) or LAME. He didn't mention what volume level he sets for the MP3s that he downloaded illegally, so I assume that it has to be fairly high for those as well. Thusly, he is nearly deaf, he's trying to push headphones that he shouldn't be trying to push or there is some obscure setting in LAME that halves the average volume of the source. Figure the odds.
 
Actually, now that you said that I think I may be thinking of a limiter. I just remember this app I used to use for ripping MP3 and it would provide "auto normalization" -that prevented overly low volume and clipping. Must be getting confused with something else..thx for clearing it up.
@Diablo2K, funny you make a usless post about others useless posts. Perthaps it's something within his chosen ripper app that is not set properly. I would just say go over your settings again.
 
After Gooling "auto-normalization", it does seem like the term is used for what equates to a real-time limiter and normalizer in one shot. I guess the single pass examines both peaks and RMS and determines if it needs to perform normalization and/or limiting.

So, there's that anyway.
 
Granted my hearing is not what it used to be and my headphones are not the best, I just notice a considerable difference between the songs I ripped and converted to mp3s and other songs that I have that I did not rip/convert.

I was hoping someone could point to a setting in EAC that I may have missed.

Does anyone have a EAC/LAME setup list or a link to one?
 
I'm pretty familiar with EAC, and I don't believe any setting will negatively affect the volume of ripped tracks. My suspicion is with LAME at this point. Try ripping to a WAV, set your CD and Wave levels to 100%, then set your software playback level to 100% and audition the WAV and the track on the CD. The levels should be very close if not identical.

EDIT: Oh, and you'll only need to set the CD playback volume if you're using a cable connection. Otherwise, you're all ready to go.
 
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