Good morning,

In helping a friend with a book project, I
recorded what we are calling ";Tracks"; using VDL 2.5 and
Sibelius 5.2 and exporting the files through Sibelius.
I then took the files (aiff), dragged them into Wiretap Studio,
and converted them to mp3's.  I sent those tracks/files
to the publishing company.  The publishing company claims
they can barely hear the tracks when they play them.
When I play them through my I-Mac they sound fine.
Is there any way to manipulate the mp3's to increase their
volume?  I have Garage Band.  There are 176 files in
total, so I don't want to have to go back and export
each file individually.  Any help would be greatly
appreciated.

Take care,
Neal

office:  205-348-9440

Hey guys,

I already called Neil and helped him find a solution to this, but figured I'd post the solution I offered him on the forum for everyone's benefit.

The most recent version of Audacity (1.3.x) offers the capabilities of batch processing via what it calls ";chains";.  You can create a chain of effects and commands to enact on either your current project or a collection of files in a folder.  For example, if you wanted to amplify a file, then add reverb and perhaps a compressor, you could do it with a chain.  Most importantly, you can run the chain on a batch of files at once, enabling you to save time and effort.  In a case like Neil's, this could prove to be an invaluable tool.

For the purpose of this tutorial, I'll just focus on a chain that amplifies the volume of tracks.

-You will need Audacity 1.3 or later
-Go to File > Edit Chains
-Click Add (bottom left of dialog box) then give it a name... for this we'll just call it ";Increase Volume";
-Click Insert, then Amplify, then Edit Parameters, then set the gain to whatever you feel it should be
-After 3 ";Ok"; clicks, you should be back to the main Audacity workspace
-Go to File > Apply Chain
-Select Increase Volume, then either Current Workspace or Apply To Files
-After selecting files and whatnot, the chain should run and your files should be new and (maybe) improved.

Hope this helps some of you.

+1 karma for Bryan

I really liked Adobe Audition but it's PC only, and I finally migrated 100% to OS X.  I wonder if iTunes' normalization feature could correct audio levels?

what a great bit of info there Bryan!  very useful... this will be getting implemented into my workflow immediately. 

[quote author=J Mattson link=topic=2787.msg14805#msg14805 date=1225236591]
I wonder if iTunes' normalization feature could correct audio levels?
[/quote]

Jesse, according to a few sources, Sound Check--the software iTunes uses to normalize--doesn't affect the original files. 

That's my understanding of how Apple and a few other websites describe it.

it must be nice to work on websites and write beats all day. . . . sigh. LOL! Thanks Bryan!

Neal,

I've never used MP3Gain but I wonder if it might help any future projects?  Check out:

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,23022-order,6-page,1/description.html

If anyone has used this with success, I would be interested in hearing about it.