Trying to get the most out of my MP3's

[janlafata]

I have a bunch of MP3's that I wanted to start making music compilations with. They sound average in their raw form, so I bought a program called MP3 Doctor Pro. It really did the trick too as I both normalized and equalized them.

Now I need to burn them and I do that with Acoustica MP3 CD Burner, but I'm wondering, since all of the files have already been normalized, do I need to have checked in "Preferences" "Automatically Boost Songs" and "Automatic Volume Adjustments" which by default is set to "Normalize track volume if...".

I did a couple of tests, where I burned my already tweaked MP3's in MP3 CD Burner with just the "Automatic Volume Adjustments" checked but not "Automatic Volume Adjustments" and visa versa . I also did a test burn with neither of those preferences checked.

I have to do some more testing because I could only hear slight differences in the different burns, but I wanted to find out from someone who knows audio, what, technically, is the best thing to do?. I just want to get my MP3's to sound the best they can.

I did notice one thing right after tweaking them in MP3 Doctor...It was not perfect. Not every single song sound balanced, loudness-wise upon playback, though most did.

I have another question. What would happen if I ran the already normalized and equalized MP3's through the MP3 Doctor normalization again? Would they sound any better, or worse?. I've also thought about running them through normalization with another program I have, "Ashampoo Music Studio" and see if that makes any difference.

Sorry to ask you questions about MP3 Doctor Pro but they offer no support whatsoever.

[Acoustica Eric]

Be careful when using programs like those, noramlizing multiple times will damage the files. I have a friend who used a normalizer application on an entire folder which contained thousands of songs and it ruined many of them.
If your files are ok now, I would avoid running them through a second time.
Burn them with mp3 cd burner with normalization enabled, if it comes out ok then that's about all you can do short of importing them one by one into Mixcraft and manually leveling the volumes. Then you would have to save them as new mp3 files, naming and tagging them again, which would be tedious.
I personally always leave the normalizing feature on in mp3 cd burner.

When you combine mp3 files onto a cd that have come from different sources, there will no doubt be a difference in levels, even the best normalizing process will not level every song perfectly.
For example, I have a list of songs on an mp3 player which I use at clubs between band sets when i play out. The lowest level song is something like "call me" from Blondie, the loudest is something like "never again" from nickelback. The difference in the recording itself is a huge factor there. Blondie didn't use thundering kick drums in their recording, so to bring that song up to the level of the nickelback song would be difficult since the properties are so different.

[janlafata]

Thanks Eric...You answered a lot of questions for me. Now just to clarify...You said to leave the Normalization on in MP3 CD Burner. Did you mean that setting under "Automatic Volume Adjustments" where it says "Normalize track volume if 15% different than loudest track". And do I keep it at 15%?

Also..If I'm using the Normalization feature do I uncheck "Automatically Boost Songs" then or leave it on? Also....by using the normalization option described above on those MP3 files I mentioned that are already normalized, wouldn't I be normalizing them twice then?

[Acoustica Eric]

Here's how I run it, I have never had a need to change these setting in the past 4 years.