App to normalise Music?

[steve62388]

I'm trying to find an app that will normalise the audio level of my Music. Paid or not, I don't care.

It needs a few features:

1) Does not modify the underlying file.
2) Works on AAC and MP3 files.
3) Writes to the Sound Check field. Without this it is useless for the iOS and macOS Music apps (they don't read replayGAIN tags).
4) Is compatible with the Catalina Music Library.

I am fairly sure one doesn't exist (a gap in the market), but I could have missed something. iVolume used to meet criteria 1 through 3, but it is not compatible with the Music App in Catalina because it uses the iTunes XML file which no longer exists. I have contacted the developer of iVolume to see if they are working on anything but they never responded so I'm looking for an alternative.

 

[matt_and_187_like_this]

Is the sound adjustment in the Music app not working for you? (preferences, playback, sound check)

 

[steve62388]

Is the sound adjustment in the Music app not working for you? (preferences, playback, sound check)

I'm forever mucking around with my Library. I need something that can do the job after it's been first added to the Library. I don't want to go through the massive job of removing all my songs and re-adding them every time I make changes (and lose all my play counts etc, I use them to generate Smart Playlists).

If the Music app could rescan an existing Library to modify Sound Check then that would work. But I’m not aware of a way to force that (excluding the unacceptable solution above).

 

[matt_and_187_like_this]

I'm forever mucking around with my Library. I need something that can do the job after it's been first added to the Library. I don't want to go through the massive job of removing all my songs and re-adding them every time I make changes (and lose all my play counts etc, I use them to generate Smart Playlists).

If the Music app could rescan an existing Library to modify Sound Check then that would work. But I’m not aware of a way to force that (excluding the unacceptable solution above).

Are you sure that's how it works? I always expected it to adjust the volume on the fly not when adding music.

 

[ApfelKuchen]

Sound Check (Preferences > Playback > Sound Check) is an on-the-fly adjustment. It does not change the setting in [song] > Info > Options > Volume Adjust. Volume Adjust is a manual adjustment. You'd need a third-party app to make an automated, permanent adjustment to that. Since most third-party apps have yet to be modified to use the new Music app's library... just wait and see.

 

[steve62388]

Not sure where you’re getting your info from but the check is done when it’s added to the library and written to the tag. It’s not ‘on the fly’.

iTunes - Official Apple Support

Learn how to sync your devices, update to the latest version of iTunes, and resolve iTunes errors.

support.apple.com

 

[Partron22]

the check is done when it’s added to the library and written to the tag. It’s not ‘on the fly’.

Well criminy, that makes it useless for my large and old library. Every once in a while I get irritated enough to pull a song or album out and normalize it using Audacity. Then put it back in iTunes. I wrote an AppleScript to change playcount in various ways:

-- BP Jan 2014
-- SetPlayCountofTrackorPlaylistSelectedTracks
(*
Will modify playcount of single track, all selected tracks, or all tracks in a playlist.

Beware, the single track version, as it looks for that trackname in the entire music library, and
changes the first instance it finds. -That may not be the one you want.

DoSelectedOnly value takes precedence over DoEntirePlaylist, which takes precedence over DoSingleTrack
*)

set DoSelectedOnly to 1 -- 0 is no, 1 is yes
set DoEntirePlaylist to 0 -- 0 is no, 1 is yes
set DoSingleTrack to 0 -- 0 is no, 1 is yes
set TheName to "" -- Either the track name or the name of the playlist
set ThePlayCount to 8 -- can also use the script to set enabled to true or false
---------------------------------

tell application "myTunes"
    activate
    if DoSelectedOnly is greater than 0 then
        if selection is not {} then
            set tracklst to selection
            set trackcount to number of items in tracklst
            repeat with n from 1 to trackcount
                set played count of (item n of tracklst) to ThePlayCount
                --set enabled of (item n of tracklst) to false
            end repeat
        end if
    else if DoEntirePlaylist is greater than 0 then
        -- Do a whole playlist:   
        set tracklst to every track of playlist TheName
        -- The last member of a "never played" smart list WILL be skipped
        -- I can set it by name, but not via reffing it's place in a playlist that's about to be emptied. Probably Apple kludgery.       
        set trackcount to number of items in tracklst
        repeat with n from 1 to trackcount
            set played count of (item n of tracklst) to ThePlayCount
        end repeat
        
    else if DoSingleTrack is greater than 0 then
        set played count of track named TheName to ThePlayCount
    end if
end tell

Write down the playcount before you start messing around.

AFAIK, there's no way to trigger an "adjust playback volume" for your entire library once it's put into iTunes.

 

[Powerbooky]

In my experience is that the gain value in iTunes never is spot on. So many tracks that are way off, including the ones directly from the iTunes Store or Apple Music.

For this fact a used this plugin for iTunes called VolumeLogic, a little plugin that could normalise and restrict dynamics at playback. Setup with cross-fade switched on, iTunes sounded like a normal radio station with each and every song at the same volume. It completely replaced my radio receiver back then - no more DJ blahblah, no more commercials, just continuous music at one volume.

A couple of years ago I found a reasonable iOS app that could do about the same kind of processing: LouderLogic. Unfortunately it did not work properly with the "iTunes" database on iOS, problems with dynamic playlists, iCloud and Apple Music. Now it no longer works in iOS12, 13 and 14 at all; it simply hangs at startup.

I'm still looking for alternatives for both MacOS and iOS. I anyone has a suggestion?

What is kind of strange though, on AppleTV (tvOS) there is a system wide loudness control (without dynamic limiting), but not found in iOS or MacOS.

 

[steve62388]

In my experience is that the gain value in iTunes never is spot on. So many tracks that are way off, including the ones directly from the iTunes Store or Apple Music.

For this fact a used this plugin for iTunes called VolumeLogic, a little plugin that could normalise and restrict dynamics at playback. Setup with cross-fade switched on, iTunes sounded like a normal radio station with each and every song at the same volume. It completely replaced my radio receiver back then - no more DJ blahblah, no more commercials, just continuous music at one volume.

A couple of years ago I found a reasonable iOS app that could do about the same kind of processing: LouderLogic. Unfortunately it did not work properly with the "iTunes" database on iOS, problems with dynamic playlists, iCloud and Apple Music. Now it no longer works in iOS12, 13 and 14 at all; it simply hangs at startup.

I'm still looking for alternatives for both MacOS and iOS. I anyone has a suggestion?

What is kind of strange though, on AppleTV (tvOS) there is a system wide loudness control (without dynamic limiting), but not found in iOS or MacOS.

iVolume has since been updated for compatibility with Music. So it will work for what you want, then just enable Sound Check on iOS.

 

[mikzn]

iVolume used to meet criteria 1 through 3, but it is not compatible with the Music App in Catalina because it uses the iTunes XML file which no longer exists.

for the XML file - you can still export it manually in Music ( Catalina and Big Sur) File > Library > Export Library

You can export to the same folder as the Music library and any apps that need the XML file can use that file - it has to be manually updated from time to time for any changes etc.

 

[Powerbooky]

iVolume has since been updated for compatibility with Music. So it will work for what you want, then just enable Sound Check on iOS.

I tried iVolume after the first moment an iTunes update did wreck the VolumeLogic plugin: it did not level the actual perceived volume that good as VolumeLogic did.
And the last few years I’m looking for an iOS version, iVolume is MacOS only

 

[steve62388]

I tried iVolume after the first moment an iTunes update did wreck the VolumeLogic plugin: it did not level the actual perceived volume that good as VolumeLogic did.
And the last few years I’m looking for an iOS version, iVolume is MacOS only

Enable Sound Check on iOS, as I previously posted.