Volume normalization

Hi there @JadeRiver @teqteq 

Thank you for your detailed feedback - there are a few things we still need to improve, and this is one of them. Our iOS app has an equalizer builtin @teqteq. And we've been testing on Android for quite some time too. Thank you for your patience.

You’d have to change the EQ setting for every track to get the same effect :-)

If there are ever technical constraints in iOS preventing loudness-normalisation you could always pre-process a loudness-normalised version of the track and stream that instead (I.e. backend processing).

But that has shortcomings, such as playing already-downloaded music.

Does Apple allow this kind of processing to be added? I imagine they would, given the audio plugins framework etc, and that you have EQ. 

PS - when you do get a chance to implement this, be sure to either normalise loudness, not normalise amplitude. You need an algorithm that perceives loudness. 

You could probably pre-process these amplitude adjustments in the back-end too, and send through the relevant gain adjustment to the app, to ensure it’s not battery-draining. Then the app only has to turn the song up or down based on the gain adjustment, rather than calculating it on the fly. I think MP3 tags might already include a field for a gain adjustment value. I remember some time ago an app that did exactly this (loudness-normalise your library by changing the gain value in the ID3 tag)

Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this with us, @teqteq :thumbsup_tone2:

But Equalizer what it does is play with frequencies, not volume control of songs. I agree with using IA in this problem, to examine volume of previous song and volume of the next. And if you have Radio Anchor enabled, it can use that time to work in the background.

i found an example…

take the album Full Moon Fever (id = 229564 ) by Tom Petty

reach song #5 Runnin' Down A Dream
the volume is completely out of the rest of the album

Hi there @benobro 

Thanks for reporting it to us. In what platform/device are you listening in this way?

I guess an alternative would be to license something like Maxx by Waves and build-in actual compression, similar to what’s bundled with a lot of laptops. It’s going to result in lost sound quality and not be true to the original recording, but maybe that’s what some people want - truly flat volume (which might be worthwhile for applications like cars or background music where you can’t be fiddling with the volume all the time).

Some people would probably also like the Maxx bass and loudness enhancement options too.

Hi @teqteq 

Great feedback, thanks!

Fortunately, we're working on this as we speak - so we should have more updates very very soon!