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iTunes4 sound balancing feature causes volume fluctuations Apps
What seems to be a new feature in iTunes4 has become more of a hindrance; as I'm playing a song (Three Doors Down's "When I'm Gone" shows this pretty frequently), the volume changes from high to low as an inverse of the song's volume (it tries to make the volume consistent). At times, it's very good, but most of the time, you can hear the audio wavering and sometimes cutting way down then gradually coming back up.

Deleting iTunes' pref file doesn't help, neither does unchecking every sound enhancing feature. I even copied a new version of the song, locked it immediately, and tried playing it to make sure iTunes wasn't just editing the song file. The only fix I've been able to find is to turn off the equalizer. iTunes3 didn't show this behavior, so unless you use the Music Store, you might want to just keep using iTunes 3 instead.

I'm going to hunt around in the plist file to see if there's such an option for the sound balancing, but it seems that turning off the equalizer (which I need to use for iTunes to make half-decent sound) must be turned off.

[robg adds: I haven't noticed any sound fluctuations, but then again, I'm far from an audiophile and usually don't play iTunes at a loud volume, making it tougher to discern any volume fluctuations. I have, however, heard similar reports as this, so I thought I'd post this to see what others had to say on the matter...]
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iTunes4 sound balancing feature causes volume fluctuations | 15 comments | Create New Account
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iTunes4 sound balancing feature causes volume fluctuations
Authored by: JayBee on May 05, '03 10:58:20AM

Yup - exactly what I've noticed.

Underworld tracks are very good indicators of this. In fact, any track where there's a big bass hit after a quiet spell will flag this up nicely.

It's very much like Sony's old AVLS system, where it would cut the music back if it got to the point where it might damage your ears (mostly to crack down on "Now I'm deaf, why didn't you warn me" lawsuits, I reckon). iTunes kills anything with a big "stab" as it cuts the volume just before the stab and maims the effect.

Boo.

Anyway, I've submitted this as a bug, and I suggest anyone who's noticed this does the same. I don't mind a volume limiter (I've got some on my speakers to protect them from my amp ;) ), but I want control over it, for example having a dragbar on the EQ to indicate a maximum allowable volume, or just a plain old check box for on and off.

Please submit the bug reports - this is sooooo annoying me, and as someone pointed out, this kind of "feature" is exactly why we have version 4.01s ;)

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iTunes4 sound balancing feature causes volume fluctuations
Authored by: fletcherpenney on May 05, '03 11:04:19AM

Does disabling Sound Check not turn this off? I haven't noticed
any trouble with my songs, so I can't test it....



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iTunes4 sound balancing feature causes volume fluctuations
Authored by: Quantum Cowboy on May 05, '03 11:05:40AM

Hi,

Been tracking this problem myself and discussing it in another forum. It appears to be a new feature in iTunes 4 to prevent clipping - distortion caused when the sound level goes too high to reproduce the waveform.

If I play a certain track in iTunes 3, I can notice a little distortion on some loud parts. In iTunes 4, this is precisely where the volume drops occur. iTunes 4 is automatically throttling back the levels to prevent that clipping distortion. Unfortunately, this is far more annoying than the distortion ever was!

The fix is to back the pre-amp in the Equalizer down some (1 tick mark worked for me, but your mileage may vary). This drops the sound levels below the clipping threshold while preserving the relative frequency response. You might need to turn the volume up some to compensate though. This has eliminated the fluctuations for me, and I can use my favorite Equalizer and Sound Enhancer settings again.

-Robb



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iTunes4 sound balancing feature causes volume fluctuations
Authored by: daeley on May 05, '03 01:05:48PM

When you back the preamp off, do you have to edit each preset or does it maintain itself?



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iTunes4 sound balancing feature causes volume fluctuations
Authored by: Quantum Cowboy on May 05, '03 01:52:21PM

Near as I can tell, presets stay unchanged. As soon as you move any slider in the Equalizer, it becomes a "Manual" setting. But you can then save the new config as a preset by choosing "Make Preset..." from the pop-up menu.

-Robb



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iTunes4 sound balancing feature causes volume fluctuations
Authored by: JayBee on May 05, '03 01:47:54PM

I've actually GOT it throttled back and still get the volume
problem... maybe not throttled back enough, though - will try
taking it RIGHT down and letting my amp do the work.

The problem with THAT, though, is that the signal might start to
be subject to interference as the s2n ratio will drop considerably
the weaker the signal from the G4.

Also, I'll have to remember to crank the amp back if I ever
reset :D :D



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iTunes4 sound balancing feature causes volume fluctuations
Authored by: Quantum Cowboy on May 05, '03 02:01:54PM

Do you have Sound Check on? That could be boosting some levels beyond the clipping threshold. This was the case for at least one person I know. Sound Enhancer also fiddles with levels behind the scenes (which is why I thought it was the culprit at first).

Do you have per-song Equalizer presets? Those might be overriding any other settings you make in the main panel.

-Robb



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iTunes4 sound balancing feature causes volume fluctuations
Authored by: sjmadsen on May 05, '03 03:42:34PM

I'm so glad other people have noticed this. I thought it was in my head.

When playing the problem tracks in iTunes 3, I don't remember hearing any distortion. I don't recall if there was an increase in the low frequencies immediately before the volume decrease in iTunes 4, either. I'll have to check it out more tonight.

What other forums are discussing this problem in more detail?



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iTunes4 sound balancing feature causes volume fluctuations
Authored by: Quantum Cowboy on May 05, '03 04:04:16PM
Here's the thread I've been participating in over at MacAddict. Has a few details as we tried various things:

MacAddict Forum Thread

-Robb


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iTunes4 sound balancing feature causes volume fluctuations
Authored by: Anonymous on May 05, '03 12:01:08PM
Strange. I thought I discovered a bug in the new iTunes. I didn't know it was a new feature. I still call it a bug. If it were a feature, I would have a way of defeating it without crippling my EQ settings.

In my wildest dreams, I'd like to see iTunes provide a built in compressor/limiter. If we're going to be able to limit dynamic range, let us set the high and low limits on our own. Maybe giving a few presets (like the EQ has) would be useful for listeners without recording studio experience. Having iTunes automatically turn the volume up or down is definately the wrong way of limiting audio dynamics.

---
--
Gypsy

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iTunes4 sound balancing feature causes volume fluctuations
Authored by: coolmacguy on May 05, '03 10:57:54PM
In my wildest dreams, I'd like to see iTunes provide a built in compressor/limiter.

I don't think that is a good idea. A real time compressor would significantly increase the processor demand, I don't think Apple would be willing to do that.

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iTunes4 sound balancing feature causes volume fluctuations
Authored by: josephaw on May 05, '03 01:00:37PM

I have some older mp3s from CDs that had scratches in them so I used to hear a lot of ticking sounds at certain areas of a song, now with iTunes 4 I can hear the first tick and then iTunes automatically lowers the volume and slowly brings it back up so I don't hear a bunch of them ticking away like before so it's less annoying.
Joe



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iTunes4 sound balancing feature causes volume fluctuations
Authored by: kennyfett on May 05, '03 04:03:04PM

I experienced the same problem, and unchecking Sound Enhancer & Sound Check DID help in fixing the problem for me...

But maybe I have to listen a little longer & see if it does it with more than just a few songs..

---
"If you kill him, he won't learn nothin'" -Jim Carrey as the Riddler



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"Enhancer"
Authored by: AMacAddict on May 06, '03 09:59:15AM

I had severe volume clipping, but noticed Spark played fine. I unchecked the "Sound Enhancer," and compared the same audio files in Spark and iT4. Unenhancing my sound immediately returned iT4's output to normal. I use a manual EQ setting.



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iTunes4 sound balancing feature causes volume fluctuations
Authored by: uid73397 on May 06, '03 10:14:43AM

Take a listen through Quicktime then compare that with iTunes. You will then see the difference.



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