I think I got it right this time

[Sony_Fan]

Let me know if this sounds good. I downloaded a program called Goldwave. It can increase the volume of .wav files. So I created some .wav files from a CD from the 80s and increased the volume of the files and then burned it to a CD-R. No doubt, the CD-R sounds much louder than the original and there is no distortion. I'm guessing this is the right way to do it since there is no compression involved. What do you think?

[The Low Volta]

indeed as long as you are careful not to cause clipping when raising the volume you should be safe and you will simply increase loidness without causing distortion/compression or any other detrimental effect.

going straight from CD -> audio editor -> CDR removes the lossy step you had before (by using MP3) so now it is safe.

still kinda hard to get all CD's sounding equally loud using this method, but very usefull to gain volume on a few 'silent ones'

[DaikenTana]

Does GoldWave not have Normalize? Normalizing looks for the loudest peak in the sound wave and amplifies the entire wave equally until that peak reaches 100%. You could also try Hard Limiting which increases the volume of the wave even without reaching 100% (I think it's just like Normalizing only it operates on a sample-basis rather than a peak-basis)

[Ral-Clan]

You're definitely on the right track. There is a simple, free program called NORMALIZE which will do exactly what you want to do in batch mode (i.e. will automatically convert a whole directory of WAV files to the same volume and will also do peak limiting at the same time to avoid digital clipping). It's GREAT. I use it on the AMIGA but apparently there is also a Linux and Windows version:

http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~cvaill/normalize/

Also, you use the word "compression" above. Just be aware that digital data compression (i.e. MP3, ATRAC, etc.) and audio compression (i.e. volume compression) are totally different things.

Edited March 21, 2006 by Ral-Clan