Balancing Multiple Files ?

Audacity Help Forum Windows
1

I have about 100 MP3 files on a card for my MP3 player. Is there any (easy) way to balance all of these files so that their output levels are consistent, without having to do multiple joins and splits?

I’m using version 2.1.2.

Thanks for any help.

2

Depending on your MP3 player, either “Reply Gain” or “Sound Check” if your player supports them.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ReplayGain
(“Sound Check” is the Apple version, as found on iPods and iTunes)

3

Or, [u]MP3Gain[/u]. MP3Gain “permanently” changes the volume of the actual file (without decoding/re-encoding the MP3) so it’s compatible with any player.

Note that many songs, including quiet sounding songs already have normalized (“maximized”) peaks. That means you often can’t boost the quiet songs without distorting and the only way to match volumes is to reduce the louder songs. After applying MP3Gain (or ReplayGain, etc.) you may find that many/most of your songs are quieter and you may have to turn up the playback volume a bit.

4

Thank you for your replies.

I’ll give MP3Gain a try and see what it does. This might be exactly what I was looking for.

You’re right, I may have to adjust the playback volume, but probably not as often once the files are normalized.

5

I gave MP3Gain a try and decided to use Audacity to balance the files. I did this, file by file, by using the Effects / Amplify option with a new peak amplitude of 0.

Now here’s my question: each album that I imported had the album cover art loaded, but after amplifying and then exporting, the resulting files do not have the cover art. Is there a way to get Audacity to retain this part of the file?

6

Unfortunately not. Audacity does not support cover art - it’s a feature request.

7

Thanks for the reply.

Carrying through the cover art (and any other items in the original file) would be a great addition. I look forward to the Audacity team’s work on this.

I’ve used Mp3tag or Media Tagger to load in the album covers, one file at a time. Does anyone know of a better way to do this, perhaps a way to use commands in a batch file to load the cover art? I’m not planning to have to do this again, but one never knows.

8

I recorded your “vote” for this.

Gale