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Hi,

I am not sure how to explain my issue: All forums/docs on mp3 manipulation (for instance mp3gain, etc...) are mostly about changing the volume of tracks to a target one. Or maybe I did not understand at all (which is probably the case).

Here is my situation: I have some music, let say MP3, that I listen in different environments, such as a quiet home and a noisy car. And no, switching to an electric car is not a valid answer ;-)

Let say I have 2 songs (Ravel's Bolero, and Winehouse's "Rehab").
- The first has a very large volume amplitude, going up from beginning to end
- The second has a stable volume

I want to make a mp3 CD with them. In fact 2 CDs:

- One CD for home, where the volume levels of the 2 songs are similar (even this is difficult to explain, but let say I don't want to have to change the volume between songs to hear them correctly at the songs loudest parts, but I would like to hear the Bolero as the original, from very quiet at beginning to loud at the end ).

- One CD for my car. Here, I would like to be able to listen to Bolero, even at the beginning, but still the loud part not destroying my ears. So the volume amplitude of the Bolero should be limited. Let say for instance I would like the beginning to be the same volume as the original middle part of the music, the end not being changed, and everything in-between being relatively correct to both ends. This means I would like to have the Bolero to look louder and louder during the playing, the end having a similar volume to "Rehab".

I suppose this is a common thing that people want, in these ages of mp3 players used in noisy environments, and this is why I believe I did not understand at all the way mp3gain and others work (or I did not find explicit examples for such cases).

Any help/link/example will be appreciated.

Bruno.

PS. I believe radios do this kind of manipulation permanently, especially when broadcasting classical music.

--
2 + 2 = 5, for very large values of 2.

[tlug] MP3 normalization