Boosting The Volume Of Sound Files (Mac Version)

Thanks for the info.

Are you suggesting this technique to boost the volume of a file when played on a GPS or just when listening via iTunes?

bentbiker,
The procedure that I mentioned should increase the volume of voice alerts on the GPS. Since iTunes is used to "play" the voice alert you can take advantage of this to increase the playback volume.
Hope this helps.
JeffSh

The settings in iTunes do not really change the sound file itself, they merely tell iTunes how much to boost the volume when iTunes is playing the file. So, when you drag the file to the GPS, none of that info follows.

Bentbiker is correct, Adjusting the slider in Get Info does nothing more than has iTunes adjust the volume of playback when it gets to that song, that is the playback volume of the iTunes application. It does not actually change the gain of the file itself.

One application people might look into is a shareware app called MP3 Trimmer. A nifty little program that allows you to edit MP3 files somewhat withOUT having them re-encoded (and thus lose more quality). Maybe not as much of an issue for alerts, but an issue for music files. Anyway, MP3 Trimmer has a gain adjust that will apply to the file itself and should then play back louder on most MP3 playback devices.

Alternatively, you can open the file in a program like Sound Forge or Audacity, bump up the gain there, then resave back to an MP3 file (re-encoding required).

PT

Great recommendation -- thanks. It is a shame they limit the gain boost to 50%; I'm sure they figure that boosting most audio by more than that introduces too much noise, but for most alerts that is not a problem. But you can always put it through multiple times. Easier to use for trimming than the more sophisticated editing programs.

Ya I actually paid the shareware fee on that one because I encode everything in iTunes as MP3 files. And often I want to trim down audio files to do stuff like through out long silences at the end of tracks or really boring parts, or to take that "hidden track" that starts after 8 minutes of silence on the last track and break it up into two tracks. The nice thing about that program is, since it works directly on the MP3 "frames" there is no re-encoding and therefore no additional encoding quality loss.

I have only recently started playing around with the gain function.

PT

I will probably buy it as well if/when Garmin fixes the problem of custom alerts turning off my MP3 player or jumping tracks. 'Til then I'll be using default audio alerts.

Thanks for the posts that corrected my original method of increasing the sound files on the alerts, using a Mac.
It is appreciated.
JeffSh
Nuvi 650