random music volume question Options

[Toyoca]

hey guys i plug my ipod into my headunit and because i didnt like how some songs come up way louder than others or lower and i gotta turn the nob up or down a ridiculous amount, i decided to use this program called mp3gain (heard about it in a mag) which adjusts mp3 files to the same volume. the program states that there is no loss of quality. but i feel like the songs sound "different" when i changed all the db to 89.

now i have another program that will adjust the volume of each song right until it is about to clip. i know that the individual songs will have different volumes but do you think theyll sound "better?" sry if this is kinda confused.

[j0e_p3t]

you can just adjust the volume using itunes.

[Toyoca]

how to you choose what lvl. i just see automatically adjusts to same level. does that even actually change the file? i didnt think so

[j0e_p3t]

right click on the song and click "get info" or something like that. and then just look around and what-not. not really sure cuz i don't have itunes on this comp.

[lagos]

the reason why the songs sound different after processing, is because all those apps use something called compression to squash the dynamic range of the audio, get more volume from the songs, without clipping.

in itunes they do the same thing, but they do it in real time as a DSP and the compression settings are not as high. so if u just check the box in itunes it shouldn't rewrite the files and everything should sound better because the comp settings are not as high.

btw, this is audio/volume compression, its not the same thing as file compression.