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[wer]

I have two albums, one being a remix version of the other, that I would like to combine together: some tracks from one version, some from the other, into one album; I'll edit all the tags when done to show that they're all one album.

To do this cleanly, I need to match the volume levels of the two albums.  One is mastered much louder than the other.  But I also want to maintain inter-track dynamics, so that quiet songs are still quiet.

If I use Convert Format and apply DSP Volume Leveling, it will normalize all the tracks to -0.1db individually, which will crush any inter-track dynamics, so that's not what I want.

So I thought to use convert format with volume leveling, but first by modifying all the Volume Level(R128) tags to the AVERAGE volume of the album (the same way Volume Levelling does during playback.  I couldn't find this info in the database, so I calculated it myself.

Album A has an Average Volume Level(R128) of -7.62, and Album B as an average of -13.12.  So my thinking was that if I tagged all files in Album B with a value of -5.5, when I ran the conversion, this would leave them at an average of -7.62, the same as Album A.

However, after running the conversion, importing the resulting files, and running audio analysis on them, the converted Album B had an average Volume Level(R128) of -8.69, which in no way follows mathematically from what I did.

So am I doing something wrong, or is Volume Leveling applied incorrectly during convert format, or is there just a different but easier way to get the two albums to the same average level so that I can mix the tracks together?

Thanks for any advice!

[Matt]

Volume Leveling will preserve the dynamics of an album.

From the text on the DSP Studio page:
"Intentional volume differences between tracks on the same album are preserved."

So it might do what you need if you just convert the two albums and apply volume leveling.

[wer]

I tried it before I posted.

I converted 3 test tracks (pink noise generated by MC, one edited to reduce volume) with the same album tag.

Before conversion, they were loud, quiet, loud.  After conversion with volume leveling, they were all equally loud.

The text you quoted applies during playback, but apparently during conversion it's strictly track by track.  At least that's how it behaved for me.  I'll be glad to mail you some tracks if you want to try.

[swiv3d]

For a job like that I would tend to use Audacity.

[wer]

Modifications made in Audacity would be uncorrelated to JRiver playback, so it would be trial and error trying to get them to match up.  I was hoping for something in JRiver, so that it would be more straightforward and predictable.  I had hoped volume levelling during conversion would work as Matt described, but alas...