A friend of mine would like to know if there is any software out there that could be used for making MP3 or audio discs that would fade out the song playing and fade into the next one. It would be nice if the level could be automatically adjusted for new and older material. Who knows if this even exists, but it sure would be nice if there was some user friendly software out there that could do that. If you have ever heard of something like that please let me know. Thanks in advance.

There sure is. The choice really depends really on how deep you want to go with this though. If all you want to do is listen to CD's and mp3's then Windows Media Player will do this for you. It has a crossfade plugin that'll fade one track into another in your playlist and a normalize plugin that'll level out volume differences between tracks. Winamp also has crossfade and normalize plugins. If you want more serious volume leveling then you'll want to look into a compressor plugin (in winamp), but that *will* change the way the track sounds depending on your compressor settings (in terms of soft passages vs loud passages within each track)

If he wants to *make* cd's then he'll have to get some sort of audio editing package. There's plenty of those out there starting with free ones such as such as Audacity or more expensive professional types such as Cubase, Wavelab etc. You could also look at DJ mix type software that will do the same. Check out VirualDJ or Traktor DJ Studio.

Now that I think about it, I think the CD burning software Nero also has crossfade and normalize options, so you can select the tracks you want to burn to CD, and crossfade between them as well as normalize them.

ramzing

Nero most definately has a "Normalize" filter, and it's a pretty darned good one, too... will work off a "maximum" volume (in dBFS if I recall) or off RMS.

I use it quite often when putting together CDs for the car or discman... the difference in levels between, say Dead Kennedys "Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables", "Bedtime for Democracy" and "Frankenchrist" is staggering. Of course, they were all remastered at different times by different people. It works really well... I don't feel like I have to ride the faders while I'm in the car.

Bren R.

I have Nero but it is a couple of years old, I'll have to check it out to see if it has crossfading and normalizing. Also foud a free one called acoustica. Thanks for the input.