Thread: boosting the recording volume of mp3 sermons

How can I boost the volume of the original audio file? My mp3 player at full volume is still pretty quiet.

I have winamp and audacity (?) do either of these or windows xp or vista have anything to alter the file?

I use audacity to edit my church's sermons. That way it is easier to listen to online (cause I boost the audio and do some other quick fixes).

Since you have Audacity do the following.

1. Open your MP3 file in Audacity
2. Once imported select all the audio
3. In the file menu click "Effect"
4. Then click "Compressor..."
5. Stick with all the default settings and press "OK"

If there are any spikes in the audio (like parts where the preach yells then:
6. select those areas of "spiked audio" with you mouse
7. In the file menu click "Effect"
8. Then click "Normalize..."
9. Stick with all the default settings and press "OK"

After that I usually repeat step one until the audio is at max level.

I use MP3Gain.

It's free, fast, simple and you can 'batch run' several MP3s at once.

Install MP3Gain, drag the MP3 files that you want to change into it, have it do a Track Analysis on all of them, and then have it do a Track Gain (to the dB level that you want) on all the files.

Simple and sweet.

I cannot save the boosted files as mp3!!!

You probably don't have an MP3 encoder installed. You can download and install the free LAME MP3 Encoder and it should solve the problem.

Originally Posted by Eoghan

I cannot save the boosted files as mp3!!!

You need to install the Lame MP3 encoder to get Audacity to export in MP3 format.

Also here's a web page explaining your problem: Audacity: How do I download and install the LAME MP3 encoder?

-----Added 10/6/2009 at 10:52:53 EST-----

oops...Beat me to it.

Originally Posted by Seb

I use MP3Gain.

It's free, fast, simple and you can 'batch run' several MP3s at once.

Install MP3Gain, drag the MP3 files that you want to change into it, have it do a Track Analysis on all of them, and then have it do a Track Gain (to the dB level that you want) on all the files.

Simple and sweet.

I've used this often for my .mp3's and it does work very well.

I would warn about turning it up to much it can severely damage the S/N ration (signal to noise ration). basically if you tuen the sound up too much on the original it will make the noise go much higher the signal anything under 1.0 severely damages sound quality.