Playback levels when burning cd's

Mine are all over the place - how to fix?

[Syzygy]

Went to a party (at the county jail...) at the weekend. Decided to burn a cd to play there - an (I thought) excellent but eclectic mix of ska, reggae and latin, with a couple of 50's rock n roll standards thrown in for good measure. All good party & dancefloor stuff.

Anyway, comes the time to play the cd, and it's terrible. The overall recording volume is way down on the first track, even lower on the second. Come the next track and volume goes through the roof. It's a mess. My musical reputation is being torn to shreds...

I burned the cd using iTunes. The music I have here comes from a variety of sources, downloads, cd & vinyl 45's and lp's, thus sound levels naturally vary.

Because of this I've always used sound check, although this seems to take sound to the lowest volume level common denominator. On burning I also used sound check, but it would seem to no avail.

How then can I ensure my musical credibility is not further destroyed and ensure consistency in playback levels on my once legendary (via cassette) home-made music compilations? :-)

Syzygy

[tbear]

Whenever I burn a music CD (I write songs and mess with music), I run each track through a programme (Audacity usually) and 'normalise' it with a ceiling of +3dB.
In your case, using studio produced tracks the same should ensure a balanced output level. Labourious, but gets results.

[Syzygy]

From what I've now read over on Mac's own user/support forums, it seems this is an inherent problem with iTunes. There is a third-party download, iVolume, which seems as if it may offer a partial solution. I'm going to give it a go.

I'm surprised not to have heard about this flaw before.

Syzygy

[sem4u]

I am sure that there is something in iTunes that will let you set the volume level for each track. I haven't had to use it myself though.

[balam]

For .mp3's on a PC, try a search for "MP3Gain".