iTunes, Toast outdone by Nero?

And not just, but Nero Express? Say it ain't so! Well, in terms of burning audio, it IS. I suspect, though, it has to do with how Macs and Windows machines approach burning audio in different ways that may be the root of the problem/issue/shortcoming. The magic word, friends, is "normalize". Nero does, iTunes and Toast don't. Though that's not entirely true -- if you're playing stuff back in iTunes, it does its level best to bring everything to the same volume. But that's playback, and this is CD-DA we're discussing here, ennit ?! As I understand it, Windows machines burn CD-DA as a variation of burning WAV files to CD as data. While Macs do the same bit as a varuation of burning AIFF files to CD as data. Somewhere in the WAV file format specification, I suspect, is something that allows CD writing utilites in Windows to normalize on-the-fly. This is the only reason my undereducated mind (where concerns the true nature of uncompressed digitized audio) can come up with as an explanation for why iTunes and Toast can't perform this same function. Anyone more versed in this area, please fill me in on what I may be missing. I think it's time His Jobsness bid adieu to his baby, AIFF, and gave Mac CD burning software developers leave to burn WAV. I'm almost positive the outcome would be a much-improved set of CDs. TIA. Steve W. -- With even PC magazines praising our immunity to viruses, what do we on the Mac side actually have to prove? Nothing!

In article <110420042237274434%sjwright68@charter.net>, Steve <sjwright68@charter.net> wrote: > As I understand it, Windows machines burn CD-DA as a variation of > burning WAV files to CD as data. While Macs do the same bit as a > varuation of burning AIFF files to CD as data. Somewhere in the WAV > file format specification, I suspect, is something that allows CD > writing utilites in Windows to normalize on-the-fly. This is the only > reason my undereducated mind (where concerns the true nature of > uncompressed digitized audio) can come up with as an explanation for > why iTunes and Toast can't perform this same function. No, they can't perform it because they have not been programmed to perform it. That's all. -- Jerry Kindall, Seattle, WA <http://www.jerrykindall.com/> Send only plain text messages under 32K to the Reply-To address. This mailbox is filtered aggressively to thwart spam and viruses.

In article <110420042237274434%sjwright68@charter.net>, Steve <sjwright68@charter.net> wrote: > And not just, but Nero Express? > > Say it ain't so! It ain't so. > Well, in terms of burning audio, it IS. > > I suspect, though, it has to do with how Macs and Windows machines > approach burning audio in different ways that may be the root of the > problem/issue/shortcoming. > > The magic word, friends, is "normalize". > > Nero does, iTunes and Toast don't. > Though that's not entirely true -- if you're playing stuff back in > iTunes, it does its level best to bring everything to the same volume. > But that's playback, and this is CD-DA we're discussing here, ennit ?! > > As I understand it, Windows machines burn CD-DA as a variation of > burning WAV files to CD as data. While Macs do the same bit as a > varuation of burning AIFF files to CD as data. Somewhere in the WAV > file format specification, I suspect, is something that allows CD > writing utilites in Windows to normalize on-the-fly. This is the only > reason my undereducated mind (where concerns the true nature of > uncompressed digitized audio) can come up with as an explanation for > why iTunes and Toast can't perform this same function. I can't explain it, largely because it's not true. Step 3 of iTunes help under "Creating your own audio CD": 3. To have all the songs on the CD play at the same volume level, select the Sound Check checkbox. > Anyone more versed in this area, please fill me in on what I may be > missing. I think it's time His Jobsness bid adieu to his baby, AIFF, > and gave Mac CD burning software developers leave to burn WAV. I'm > almost positive the outcome would be a much-improved set of CDs. Nope. It's time for you to get more familiarity with your topics before recommending a remedy. -- Standard output is like your butt. Everyone has one. When using a bathroom, they all default to going into a toilet. However, a person can redirect his "standard output" to somewhere else, if he so chooses. - Jeremy Nixon

In article <110420042237274434%sjwright68@charter.net>, Steve <sjwright68@charter.net> wrote: > The magic word, friends, is "normalize". > > Nero does, iTunes and Toast don't. iTunes does - so does Toast w/Jam.

Gregory Weston <gwestonREMOVE@CAPSattbi.com> writes: > > I can't explain it, largely because it's not true. Step 3 of iTunes help > under "Creating your own audio CD": > > 3. To have all the songs on the CD play at the same volume level, select > the Sound Check checkbox. Unfortunately, it doesn't work. I've a few discs here that are proof of that. Unfortunately, iTunes disc burning also doesn't accept manual EQ and level settings either. At least version 4.2 doesn't (I think version 3 did.) I've sent a bug report to Apple, but I'm not expecting an update until the next iLife suite comes out and they charge me another $50 for it. But this doesn't contradict your main point - that Mac software is just as capable of normalizing audio output as Windows software. We just need to kick some of the developers in their collective duffs so they'll go and implement this feature. -- David

In article <m2ekqr6dgb.fsf@qqqq.invalid>, shamino@techie.com (David C.) wrote: > > I can't explain it, largely because it's not true. Step 3 of iTunes help > > under "Creating your own audio CD": > > > > 3. To have all the songs on the CD play at the same volume level, select > > the Sound Check checkbox. > > Unfortunately, it doesn't work. I've a few discs here that are proof > of that. You need to select Sound Check in the Burning preference to have it apply to burnt discs. This is orthogonal to the checkbox in the effects preference pane. If you have a bit more concrete information than "it doesn't work" after doing this, we can investigate the issue. However, I just did a test burn here and sound check certainly was used.

Tom Dowdy <dowdy@apple.com> writes: > David C. wrote: > > You need to select Sound Check in the Burning preference to have it > apply to burnt discs. This is orthogonal to the checkbox in the > effects preference pane. I did have it checked. > If you have a bit more concrete information than "it doesn't work" > after doing this, we can investigate the issue. However, I just did > a test burn here and sound check certainly was used. Here's the scoop: - I've a directory of MP3 files at various bitrates. They have a wide variety of different playback levels. - I made a playlist from these tracks - I burned a CD using SoundCheck. I played the CD in a boom-box and found the same wide variation in levels on the CD. Seeing this, I turned off SoundCheck and manually set each track's EQ and level so that they play at similar levels in iTunes, and burned another disc. The result was identical to the first. If you want to contact me outside of the newsgroup to help diagnose this bug, feel free to do so. -- David

In article <m27jwj4uj5.fsf@qqqq.invalid>, shamino@techie.com (David C.) wrote: > If you want to contact me outside of the newsgroup to help diagnose > this bug, feel free to do so. I'll pay you both to keep the discussion in here. :) Quite interested.

David C. wrote: > > But this doesn't contradict your main point - that Mac software is > just as capable of normalizing audio output as Windows software. We > just need to kick some of the developers in their collective duffs so > they'll go and implement this feature. Normalizing is misunderstood. It does NOT make all tracks the same volume, it makes all tracks have the same PEAK level not the same AVERAGE level. If one track has less dynamic range than another, it will sound louder. Using dynamic range compression to increase the volume level is an old audio trick. That's why your local top 40 radio station always seems louder than your local classical radio station. -- Brian Rost Stargen, Inc. **********************************************************************

Brian Rost writes: > David C. wrote: >> But this doesn't contradict your main point - that Mac software is >> just as capable of normalizing audio output as Windows software. >> We just need to kick some of the developers in their collective >> duffs so they'll go and implement this feature. > > Normalizing is misunderstood. It does NOT make all tracks the same > volume, it makes all tracks have the same PEAK level not the same > AVERAGE level. Not necessarily. It depends on the algorithm used by the software. Not everybody does it the same way. > If one track has less dynamic range than another, it will sound > louder. Or they could simply be recorded at a different level. Not all CDs you purchase are recorded at the same level. Dynamic range is one part of the equation, not all of it. -- David

Reginald Dwight writes: > David C. wrote: >> >> If you want to contact me outside of the newsgroup to help diagnose >> this bug, feel free to do so. > > I'll pay you both to keep the discussion in here. :) Quite interested. Here's our next e-mail exchanges: Tom wrote: >> >> Do these files play properly within iTunes when sound check >> playback is selected? If you do a Get Info on the tracks do you >> see a sound level in dB shown in the Summary pane? If not, they >> may not have been scanned for sound check information -- removing >> them and re-adding them to your libary with sound check selected >> should perform the sampling. >> >> Are these file odd in some other way (ie, very wildly varying >> levels, bizzare almost silent passages interspersed with loud ones, >> etc)? And I replied: > > Although they're not completely normalized by SoundCheck in the > player, they are brought much closer together. > > Here's some info about the tracks in question > > Track dB bitrate channels Encoded with > ----- ---- ------- ------------ ----------------- > 1: -7.9 192 Joint Stereo Unknown > 2: +9.2 192 Stereo iTunes v2.0 > 3: -6.9 192 Stereo Exact Audio Copy (Burst mode) > 4: -6.3 128 Joint Stereo Unknown > 5: +0.2 160 Joint Stereo Unknown > 6: +0.3 160 Joint Stereo Unknown > 7: -0.4 160 Joint Stereo Unknown > 8: +1.1 160 Stereo Unknown > 9: -2.5 256 Stereo iTunes v2.0.4 > 10: -3.1 192 Stereo Audiograbber 1.80.04, LAME > 11: +0.4 128 Joint Stereo Unknown > 12: -7.6 192 Joint Stereo Unknown > 13: -0.1 128 Joint Stereo Unknown > 14: +0.6 128 Mono Unknown > 15: -0.1 160 Stereo Unknown > 16: -0.4 128 Joint Stereo Unknown > 17: -0.7 128 Joint Stereo Unknown > > All of the above data is from the Summary page of iTunes's > "Get-info" box. > > When playing, track 2 is still a bit quiet (but definitely louder > than without SoundCheck). I suspect I may have reached the upper > limit of SoundCheck, given the 9.2db setting. The volume adjuster > slider doesn't have enough range to bring it up either. When I > manually adjust this track, I normally use a "volume booster" EQ > preset - the equalizer has a much greater range for this and is able > to bring it in range. > > FWIW, the total collection consists of 7533 songs, 24:20:59.06 total > time, 32.89GB. Mostly non-DRM AAC files (ripped from CDs) with a > few hundred MP3s. All the tracks on this particular playlist are > MP3s. > > The total length of the playlist I'm burning is 1:18:36. The > bitrates range between 128 and 256 kbps. Some tracks are "Joint > Stereo", some are "Stereo" (including track 2), and one is "Mono". > > Just to test everything again, I've reset my volume and EQ settings > back to their defaults (no volume adjust, no EQ), and I burned > another disc, explicitly making sure that SoundCheck is on. As > before, there doesn't appear to be any normalization. The > variations between tracks are much much greater than when I play > them in the player. > > In case I failed to mention it before, my iTunes is version v4.2(72) > (according to the about box). It's running on MacOS X 10.3.3 on a > Dual-1GHz Quicksilver-2002 PowerMac. > > As I wrote before, manual settings of the volume and EQ (with or > without SoundCheck) also have no effect on burned CDs, although they > work fine in the player. This used to work in iTunes version 3. (I > don't think I did any burning with earlier versions of 4.x). At this point, Tom mentioned that: 1: No version of iTunes has used EQ/level settings during burning. This is requested feature in their database. 2: SoundCheck works for him during burning 3: My tracks have a very wide range of levels - with SoundCheck's adjustments ranging from -7.9 dB to +9.2 dB. This is unusual and may have something to do with it. He then said he'd hand it off to a developer who may be able to investigate more thoroughly. -- David

David C. wrote: > Brian Rost writes: > >>Normalizing is misunderstood. It does NOT make all tracks the same >>volume, it makes all tracks have the same PEAK level not the same >>AVERAGE level. > > > Not necessarily. It depends on the algorithm used by the software. > Not everybody does it the same way. If it does something other than setting the max peak level in the recording to be "0 dB" than it isn't normalizing, it's doing something else. Semantics, I suppose. An algorithm that matches average volume levels is not normalizing. >>If one track has less dynamic range than another, it will sound >>louder. > > > Or they could simply be recorded at a different level. Not all CDs > you purchase are recorded at the same level. Dynamic range is one > part of the equation, not all of it. Yes, you could have reduced dynamic range and never reach the maximum level allowed by the media, but why bother? I have yet to see a commercially sold CD that doesn't hit 0dB at some point. If the maximum level (even if only for a fraction of a second) is the same for all CDs, then that means the MINIMUM level must differ based on the overall dynamic range. The more compressed the dynamic range then the higher the average level. Thus is true for all audio formats, not just digital ones. Whether it's brickwalling on a CD, a stylus jumping out of a groove of an LP, a tape saturating or a radio broadcast overmodulating all formats have a maximum level and compression has been used as a tool for years to allow increasing the average level without exceeding the maximum level. Not trying to rathole here, I'll shut up now. -- Brian Rost Stargen, Inc. **********************************************************************

Brian Rost <fred@flintstone.com> writes: > > I have yet to see a commercially sold CD that doesn't hit 0dB at > some point. Recently produced discs all do this. Boosting the level to hit this point is now a standard part of the mastering process. But I've a lot of older discs that were transfers from analog masters where the disc never hits peak volume. This is because the rule for analog mastering is to keep the level clear of the clipping point (in order to minimize distortion). It took many years for recording engineers to become comfortable with the new rules of digital media. When those albums were remastered several years later, the levels came up as well. -- David

On 2004-04-16 04:29:35 +0100, shamino@techie.com (David C.) said: > Brian Rost <fred@flintstone.com> writes: >> >> I have yet to see a commercially sold CD that doesn't hit 0dB at >> some point. > > Recently produced discs all do this. Boosting the level to hit this > point is now a standard part of the mastering process. > > But I've a lot of older discs that were transfers from analog masters > where the disc never hits peak volume. This is because the rule for > analog mastering is to keep the level clear of the clipping point (in > order to minimize distortion). It took many years for recording > engineers to become comfortable with the new rules of digital media. > > When those albums were remastered several years later, the levels > came up as well. One thing that should always be taken care of, though, is to never compress and normalise the life out of your music (which is what some mastering engineers can be pushed into doing). Some CDs contain great music, but occasionally they have the dynamic range of BBC Radio 1 - virtually nowt - and that's a sad thing. Andy. -- dpd - computing, audio & graphic design www.dpd.org.uk / nospam@dpd.org.uk

In article <2004041920211716807%nospam@dpdorguk>, Andy Davison <nospam@dpd.org.uk> wrote: > On 2004-04-16 04:29:35 +0100, shamino@techie.com (David C.) said: > > > Brian Rost <fred@flintstone.com> writes: > >> > >> I have yet to see a commercially sold CD that doesn't hit 0dB at > >> some point. > > > > Recently produced discs all do this. Boosting the level to hit this > > point is now a standard part of the mastering process. > > > > But I've a lot of older discs that were transfers from analog masters > > where the disc never hits peak volume. This is because the rule for > > analog mastering is to keep the level clear of the clipping point (in > > order to minimize distortion). It took many years for recording > > engineers to become comfortable with the new rules of digital media. > > > > When those albums were remastered several years later, the levels > > came up as well. > > One thing that should always be taken care of, though, is to never > compress and normalise the life out of your music (which is what some > mastering engineers can be pushed into doing). Some CDs contain great > music, but occasionally they have the dynamic range of BBC Radio 1 - > virtually nowt - and that's a sad thing. Depends greatly on the listening environment. In the car, or for that matter in the computer room, a modest amount of compression is quite handy to keep the softer parts of the music from getting lost. -- Jerry Kindall, Seattle, WA <http://www.jerrykindall.com/> Send only plain text messages under 32K to the Reply-To address. This mailbox is filtered aggressively to thwart spam and viruses.