Let iTunes Automatically Adjust Sound Volume to Play Songs at the Same Level

It has always peeved me that some songs will play louder than others, and a playlist can quickly go from one moderately loud song to one that is either extremely quiet, or over-amped and crackly sounding. Of course I’m not talking about the type of music, because obviously something like hard rock is going to be louder than soft rock, I am talking about the actual sound volume. The reason there is variation in overall volume can be due to a multitude of reasons, whether it’s the source audio, to the way it was ripped and turned into a digital format, but nonetheless it’s obnoxious when one song is quiet and the next is blasting.

Rather than constantly messing with speaker volume as new songs come on that are louder or softer, there’s an excellent little-known iTunes feature that will automatically adjust all songs volume level to be constant for you! It’s a setting that should be enabled by default if you were to ask me, but since it’s not here is how to turn it on yourself:

Enable iTunes Automatic Song Volume Adjustment

This works in all versions of iTunes for both Windows and Mac OS X:

• From the iTunes menu, navigate down to ‘Preferences’
• Click on the ‘Playback’ tab at the top
• Select the checkbox next to “Sound Check”
• Now select ‘OK’

Here is what the setting looks like in a prior version of iTunes, the precise location may vary slightly but the wording is the same and the features core is also the same:

Changes should take effect immediately, but sometimes you will need to restart iTunes to let the setting take effect. Once it’s working, all song volume will be consistent across songs – songs that are quiet will be automatically adjusted up, and songs that are super loud will be automatically adjusted down – allowing for a much more enjoyable musical experience. No more speaker tweaking!