Audio Leveling Software Recommendation?

foobar 2k had replay gain which solves the dilemma. It's free to boot

It may not be a soluable problem. Many recordings (e.g., all pop) use so much compression that they will sound "louder" than others, if both are correctly recorded at maximum levels. You don't want to rip them at lower levels, as that increases noise and distortion, and you don't want to compress the well recorded records and take the life out of them. I use Wavelab pro mastering software, which can be used to adjust any parameter, but can not recommend that route; it is not only expensive, but very hard to learn. I agree with Al that a consumer level solution would be preferable, and it should still have the functionality you need.

Thanks all. Lloydc I can appreciate your perspective and wondered if this could be solved to my satisfaction. I like the idea the idea of replay gain because it employs tags on playback and doesn't alter the original file. My ideal is replay gain applied only to playlists I create with the Squeezebox server. So far that doesn't seem doable. Sound Forge Audio Studio allows a downloadable trial so i am going to pursue that. I've got LPs that date to the early 60s (pop and classical) up through recently mastered CDs the dynamic range and use of compression is all over the map. And as I said, I'm not averse to spending a few dollars (or more) since the titles in my collection number well into the thousands. Maybe I should have collected stamps!

Thanks again to all of you for your advice.

One important point to be aware of. The trial version of Sound Forge (at least for the Pro version, that I am familiar with) puts intermittent beeps into any file that it is used to save.

If the trial version of Audio Studio is similar in that respect, then whenever you open one of your music files with it, the first thing you should then do is to use the "File/Save As" menu selection to save it as a different file name. That way you will assure that you won't inadvertently put the beeps into your original file.

The purchased version of the software won't have that issue, of course.

Re leveling the volume of your different tracks, the function you would want to use is called (on the Pro version, at least) "Normalize" (under the "Process" menu at the top). The "Normalize" function allows you to select any desired peak level, from "0 db" to "-60db," and it will apply a uniform gain to the entire file such that the peak value becomes the specified number. It will NOT apply any compression, or alter the music in any way other than gain, although other functions are available that can do those kinds of things, should you wish to use them.

Good luck!
-- Al

Any modifications that you make at the ripping stage you will have to live with in perpetuity. An alternative is to rip without adulteration and playback with a leveler, such as Sound Check in iTunes. Those playback features continue to improve with each iteration of the playback software. Most importantly, your library will have "perfect sound forever."