Improving sound quality on mp3's

[elSicomoro]

I think I have found the solution to my problem...

I took one of the funny volume songs (a ripped mp3), put it into Nero, and pulled up the wave editor to view the sound spectrum.

I then ripped a song from a CD and did the same thing.

I noticed a significant difference between the two graphs. So, I bumped up the volume on the "quiet" song by 11 decibles, to bring it up as close to the CD song as possible.

What a difference. No noticeable difference in quality at all, but better volume. Very impressive.

I understand what you're saying, UT. But as I see it, this was a song that just had a low volume to it, due to a low bitrate, the fact that the song was released in the early 70s and not remastered, whatever. If anything, bumping up the master volume to the song does it justice.

This whole thing has me fascinated. It makes me wonder what I could do with other stuff that doesn't sound right to me.

For example, Nitzer Ebb's Ebbhead album. Alan Wilder and Flood did the production on it. And it doesn't sound bad...but the volume just sounds too low. The CD came out in 1991, so it would have been mastered to CD upon its release. I don't know if they just fucked up the volume controls, or if I got a shitty copy of it, or what.

In general, I straddle the line between preservation and knob-twiddling. There are some things I don't mind on a CD of an older record: the crackle of old tape reels, some background noise, etc. But I want to make the music "fuller"...more alive. Sony did a great job with this on the Miles Davis remasters. A lot of the crackling and splices are gone, but now it sounds like you're right there in the studio, smoking a Marlboro with Miles...and this is stuff that came out 40-50 years ago. Amazing.