Automatic volume leveling during audio playback

Anonymous
2009-11-05T13:16:13+00:00

This is really annoying:

Quiet sound is amplified to sound at a reasonable level. Then when a loud part of the song comes on the level automatically drops making the quiet parts sound annoyingly loud & the loud part annoyingly quiet... Sorry that's the best way I can describe this... again:

Only happens when its had a few seconds on silent (eg. pause) - at that point the system starts to "think" for itself creeping the base volumes up. Then when the song begins again you are treated to loudness that is quickly quietened when the system realises there is a higher level of sound coming through...

This is very frustrating because I use my computer to record & as such need to have the audio playing at its proper level - not the level the computer thinks it should be playing at...

I have combed through the settings looking for an "auto off" option, and have spent a long time searching for an answer online. 

Any help you could offer would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Music, photos, and video

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Anonymous
2009-11-05T22:23:05+00:00

Hi pablo647,

Welcome to Microsoft Windows 7 Answers Forum!

We would like to get a little more information from you to help troubleshoot your issue.

Are you using any Sound Card on the machine?

You can try playing the same song to a differnet Headphone or the Speakers.

I suspect it could be a problem with the sound card drivers.

You can update the drivers for the sound devices and try after that.

  1. Click Start and then click Control Panel.
  2. Click System and Maintenance, click System, and then click Device Manager.

Note If Control Panel is in Classic View, double-click System, and then click Device Manager.

  1. If you are prompted for an administrator password or for a confirmation, type the password, or click Allow.
  2. In Device Manager, expland "Sound Video and Game controllers", right-click the "Sound Video and Game controllers" and go to properties.
  3. Browse to the Update tab and then click on update driver.

You may also check on the Sound card manufacturers web site and verify if they have any updated drivers for Windows 7 and try to install it.   

Hope it helps.  

Thanks and Regards:

Shekhar S - Microsoft Support.

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  1. Anonymous
    2012-06-03T05:02:28+00:00

    This seems to work for me! Oh man I've been hating this for about two years now. I bought a new 'external' sound box and Windows 7 still showed the same problem. All my drivers were updated. I tried ALL the other settings people said worked, like Loudness... nothing worked.

     

    I can see in the Windows mixer under Media Player column, when something is playing there is a green bar and a grey bar behind it that is about 2x the green bar. When that grey bar cross over the 'Device/Speakers' threshold, it seems to auto attenuate the sound, causing the volume to fluctuate terribly!  By setting the Device/Speakers setting to 95% and the Media Player slider to about 25%, that grey bar never crosses the 'Main' threshold and I don't hear the volume drop now.

    Hopefully this continues to work.

     

    update: I had it set to 45% and during a very loud part of the song it tripped. I lowered it to 25% and it seems to be much better.

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  2. Anonymous
    2012-04-23T16:45:08+00:00

    So.. is there ever going to be a PROPER Windows based FIX for this issue?  I'm afraid to even use my win7 machine as a DAW due to this problem, especially the whole randomness of it.

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  3. Anonymous
    2012-04-22T23:55:38+00:00

    mp3dmod.dll is currently resting in the third layer of H3LL!!!! I am presuming it will arise from it's dark layer in the next Windows update ;-( It has indeed worked so far. No more annoying auto sound leveling.

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  4. Anonymous
    2012-02-08T13:53:17+00:00

    None of the solutions above helped. And I found my solution:

    Open Graphic equalizer

    Press Reset

    Voilla! You may Turn off this feature also for future cases.

    And this definitely is a bug.

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