Automatic volume leveling during audio playback

**FIX for Automatic Volume Levelling!**I've had my new PC for only a few days, and although I am liking Windows 7 enormously, the volume fluctuation mentioned in this thread was really aggravating. It isn't random - it's like some sort of automatic volume normalisation. It is especially noticeable when listening to classical music, as the quiet parts become almost as loud as the genuinely loud parts. If you have the same issue I did, here is an obvious symptom to check: playing system sounds while listening to some music causes the music's volume to drop suddenly, then slowly increase over the next few seconds to where it was once the system sounds have finished.

Anyway here is the fix... I have a Realtek soundcard & drivers, but I expect it is similar for other cards.

1. Right click on the volume icon !\[\](http://kona.kontera.com/javascript/lib/imgs/grey_loader.gif)in the System Tray
2. Select "Playback devices"
3. Double click on "Speakers"
4. Click the Enhancements tab
5. Check "Disable all sound effects"
6. Click OK
7. If you are playing any sound/music, close down WMP / Winamp, wait a few seconds, then try again.

This took me no less than 9 hours to find... I had tried this option before temporarily, but unlike all the other buttons, the change wasn't instant, so I hadn't realised it would work. You do actually have to close down WMP/Winamp, wait a few seconds and restart it before playing music again to notice the change. What is also nasty is that even if the box of enhancements has nothing selected, you still need to check "Disable all sound effects". It would appear that there is some other normalisation effect that is going on in the background which you can't see in the list of options. (The last option is marked "Loudness Equalization" - this sounds like it is the culprit, but it isn't. Leaving it unchecked doesn't make the problem go away (unless you have checked "Disable" above), and checking it just makes the problem even worse.)

Hope this helps a number of you,

Bluto

Finally fixed this on my Win 7 machine - onboard ASUS audio with Realtek drivers (6.0.1.5959) using Realplayer plus (14.0.1.609).

1. open the REALTEK AUDIO MANAGER
2. on the "SOUND EFFECTS" tab make sure "Loudness Equalization" is off on all tabs (Speakers, Digital Output, Digital Output (Optical)
3. Click "Ok" to close the window
4. load up RealPlayer
5. Click on the menu, then TOOLS > EQUALIZER
6. On the right hand side you will see "tools" with a slider bar underneath.  Below that is an option box that says "Automatic" -  DESELECT this box.
7. Close the Equalizer.

No more "normalization" for me.

Jerry,

It is odd for me that you are having this problem elsewhere as mine seems to have subsided. Regardless, so far I have one possible solution with reference to one of my previous emails in this forum (so forgive me if you've already tried this). I came across something in the control panel when I was having this problem with the sound, I came across something called 'loundess equalisation' that supposedly 'uses understanding of human hearing to reduce percieved volume differences'. Go into the Control Panel, click 'Hardware and Sound' then click 'Sound'. In the Playback tab there should be an Icon for 'Speakers' right-click this and choose properties. Once the Speakers window has opened, select the 'enhancements' tab and look for 'loundess equalisation' in the toggle/selection box.

This is all I have for now.

Matt

Jerry,

I have discovered that for some reason this is due to the use of the graphic equalizer in WMP12 (and furthermore Windows Media Centre), I imagine you are also using this to improve your experience of that epic phill collins track. I tried contacting the Microsoft support team for directions on how to remove this effect from the graphic equalizer and was redirected to a man whom, although polite and helpful in many respects, clearly did not speak english as his first language. So I simply could not reiterate the problem to him in the first place.

In your case if you are using an external amplifier, as I assume that you are for a home theatre system, I reccomend that you turn off/reset the Graphic equaliser in Windows and instead use what EQ settings you have externally. This may be an annoyance, but it did resolve the problem for me with regards to my personal enjoyment. However, for others reading this post, this is not likely to be a solution for those who are having the same problem on other applications, such as certain audio/video editing software, as they do not tend to rely on Windows Media Player 12 for playback, unlike Windows Media Centre. 

You may also want to try downloading alternative players. For example, I was able to diagnose this as a problem with WMP12 when I downloaded and confirmed that Windows Media Player Classic did not have the same trouble although, being older software, the playback quality was not so good. Saying that, there are many other options for media players.

Best Regards,

Matt