Volume leveling does not work when burning a CD

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Giarc
Posts: 76
Joined: Thu Jul 28, 2005 10:31 pm
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah

Volume leveling does not work when burning a CD

Post by Giarc »

I have tried to burn an audio CD twice now, but the tracks are not being volume leveled. The "Level volume" option was checked and MM went through a long process of preparing each track before it burned the disk, yet the tracks are definitely not being leveled. Is there some trick to this? Does this only work in MediaMonkey Gold?

I'm using v2.5.1.934 and the "Target Volume Level for Burning Audio CDs" is set to 89dB. I don't know what else I can do. The tracks were previously analyzed so the volume would be leveled by the player, and that works great. Could that cause a problem when burning a disk?
Lowlander
Posts: 59153
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2003 5:53 pm

Post by Lowlander »

How do you know the songs aren't levelled? In other words how did you detect this?
Giarc
Posts: 76
Joined: Thu Jul 28, 2005 10:31 pm
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah

Post by Giarc »

Lowlander wrote:How do you know the songs aren't levelled? In other words how did you detect this?
I used my ears. The tracks I'm burning vary greatly in volume (over 8 dB) so it's very obvious. When I play the CD there is a big change in volume between certain tracks. When I listen to the tracks in MM with "Level Playback Volume" checked, the volume is nice and even. If this option is not checked, it sounds just like the CD I burned. Believe me when I say the tracks are NOT leveled.

I'm wondering if this feature simply does not work, and no one has noticed it.
Giarc
Posts: 76
Joined: Thu Jul 28, 2005 10:31 pm
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah

Post by Giarc »

Just a quick observation. I tried converting some of the tracks from MP3 files to WAV (with "Level Track Volume" checked), and it worked great. The volume was properly leveled. So it's only a problem when burning an audio CD. When playing or converting files the leveling works fine.

I also noticed when converting the tracks, the processing was done very quickly. When burning a CD, it takes much longer to "prepare" each track - probably at least 5 times as long. This seems strange since the processing should be pretty much the same (decode MP3 into WAV, level volume).
Lowlander
Posts: 59153
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2003 5:53 pm

Post by Lowlander »

I'm not sure what to say. Because I have used it and it seems that it does level, but maybe not really as well as in the player. I do perceive some difference in levels between tracks. Maybe it is a bug.
Giarc
Posts: 76
Joined: Thu Jul 28, 2005 10:31 pm
Location: Salt Lake City, Utah

Post by Giarc »

Thanks Lowlander. I'll have to report this as a bug. It's not changing the levels at all.

I tried burning a CD again with "Level volume" checked, then ripped a couple tracks back off to WAV files, and then compared these WAV files to the original MP3 files in a wave editor program (GoldWave). The levels were virtually identical, so the volume leveling is simply not working at all. I even tried registering MediaMonkey to see if that would help, but still no change.
Lowlander
Posts: 59153
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2003 5:53 pm

Post by Lowlander »

I shall have to try to rip my CD I burned with MediaMonkey and see if it reports the same volume level (should require 0 adjustment) or not. My guess is that they aren't the same.
jiri
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Joined: Tue Aug 14, 2001 7:00 pm
Location: Czech Republic
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Post by jiri »

You are right, there was a bug. Check out MM 2.5.2 RC-1, it's fixed there.

Thanks,
Jiri
Lowlander
Posts: 59153
Joined: Sat Sep 06, 2003 5:53 pm

Post by Lowlander »

That makes me really happy. I thought it was the way the music was. Thanks Giarc for reporting it.
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