Normalize MP3s.

[SlowwHand]

256? What are you, a dog?

Too much space expended.

[BustaMike]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. When stuff is encoded at 128 it sounds like crap and you can hear the compression. Sometimes it's ok at 192 and sometimes you can still hear it. I encode at 256 so I know it sounds good with no treble distortion.

And space... nah, I've got hundreds of gigs to kill . I'm only at about 20 for music right now. I don't anticipate running out anytime soon.

[ixnay]

Everything above 128 sounds the same to me. I can hear the compression if it gets lower than that, though.

[SlowwHand]

Hundreds? Hundreds?? What a hog.

[SlowwHand]

A hog dog!

[Bereta_Eder]

bustamike, there is also a window option which asks to which % it should normalize. Where should that setting be in your opinion?

and thanks.

[optimus2861]

Originally posted by ixnay
Everything above 128 sounds the same to me. I can hear the compression if it gets lower than that, though.

Out of curiosity, what sound card/speakers do you have? I never used to notice the difference between 128/192 either, until I got a nice new set of speakers about a year ago, and ever since all my 128 MP3s sound a little bit "poppy", some more than others. I've taken to encoding at 192 ever since.

[raghar]

why not use OGG vorbis? It has better quality than MP3 and is free. MP3 has cutoff at 16 OGG has cutoff at around 18. I might use AAC if Dolby used different policy for its using. So my format isn't designed. Well OGG is currently best choice.

http://dspguru.doom9.net/

IIRC Nero burning ROM had normalise option.

Ogg -q6 to -q10 has nice sound. BTW I have listeneble files encoded at 72 kHz and reasonably nice are at 92 kHz.

[Q Classic]

until recently, ogg vorbis wasn't as widely accepted as a standard as mp3 was... hence, most people have either not heard of it or just not used it.

it's nice, i admit-- i like it. but most websites where musicians upload music accept only mp3s, not ogg, and quite a few portable devices made before this year don't have ogg capability.

[BustaMike]

Originally posted by paiktis22
bustamike, there is also a window option which asks to which % it should normalize. Where should that setting be in your opinion?

and thanks.

Probably 97 or 98. It's really not terribly important. I don't use it when I encode anymore. It's only an option in the first place because some CD's (mostly older stuff) are noticeably lower in volume than some other CD's.

A hog dog!

Is that good or bad?

I've noticed that it is much harder to tell the difference in compression on crappy speakers, but that's cause everything sounds bad on crappy speakers. Currently I have a Soundblaster Audigy 2 Platinum plugged into a relatively powerful amp with 5.1 speakers so my setup is pretty choice.

[Bereta_Eder]

ok bustamike, thank you very much

[Bereta_Eder]

BUMP!

Bustamike, I normalized with audiocatalyst using the option to normalize if outside the 91%-99% range. Some of the songs were still noticeably lower in volume than the others


This time I will try to normalize all of them at say, 95% or 100% to see if I get better results.


Also I read somewhere that there is some degradation of the audiofiles if you normalize them (since they are re-encoded). Is that so much as to be of concern?


Again thanks

[SpencerH]

Does anyone know of a program to normalize already existing MP3's prior to burning a digital CD. I've found that some of the MP3's from my CD's are at different levels (some are quite low for listening with headphones). Since I didnt change any controls I'm kinda at a loss to explain it. I'd like to just normalize a batch prior to burning the disc. It sound like audiocatalyst might do it but its a "Real" product and I'm boycotting them (they dont seem to have noticed though) .

EDIT: I should mention that I have all the software to normalize them by converting them back to wavs first. I found a freeware program that said it would do what I want so we'll see. So has anyone tried this.

[Bereta_Eder]

Spencer, good question I have the same question too.

Now I tried to normalize MP3s using Nero's option but the result was dissapointing: the MP3s actually got louder (as I wanted them too) but the quality was reduced by half. (from 160 to 86 or so)

[Bereta_Eder]

Oh and audiocatalyst does not normalize MP3s. You have to convert them to WAV first. (And BTW winamp I think is one of the best programs to do that for you).