Frequently Asked Questions

• How exactly does iVolume adjust my songs?
• Is there any loss in quality to my songs?
• Do I need iVolume to play my songs?
• If iVolume doesn't find iTunes or doesn't display the latest library, what's the cause?
• Help, iVolume 3.8.0 lost all my fancy settings and previous analyzation results!
• What file formats are supported by iVolume?
• Are songs purchased from the iTunes Store supported?
• My iPod/iPhone/iPad is connected via Dock Connector to my stereo system. Is that supported?
• What if I want to play my songs at their original volume level for some reason?
• Can I burn adjusted Audio-CDs?
• What exactly is shown by this fancy speed indicator?
• I have used iVolume but the “Volume Adjustment” sliders for my songs are still set to “None” in Music/iTunes - why?
• My Mac is not supported by the latest version of iVolume. Where can I download an older iVolume version?

How exactly does iVolume adjust my songs?

iVolume effectively repairs Apple's built-in “Sound Check” function of Music/iTunes. Information about the loudness is stored by Music/iTunes in a tag named iTunNORM inside your songs. This information is used for playing a song a bit louder or softer at playback time whenever Sound Check is turned on. Music's/iTunes' loudness analysis is very fast but unfortunately not very accurate so that Sound Check is not satisfying out-of-the-box. That's were iVolume comes into the game: iVolume re-analyzes every song with a professional algorithm that's oriented on the acoustic perception of the human ear and iVolume then permanently replaces the information in the iTunNORM tag of your songs with perfect values.

Is there any loss in quality to my songs?

No. iVolume does not re-encode your songs. It just replaces the information in the iTunNORM tag with perfect values. This information is used at playback-time to play a song softer or louder whenever Sound Check is turned on.

Do I need iVolume to play my songs?

No, you just let iVolume run once (every time you've added new songs) over your library. Then you play your songs as usual with Music/iTunes, your iPhone, iPod, iPad, or Apple TV. You just have to make sure to have Sound Check turned on in Music/iTunes or on your playback device so that the adjustments made by iVolume take effect.

If iVolume doesn't find iTunes or doesn't display the latest library, what's the cause?

On Windows you sometimes get a warning that iTunes is not installed or can not be found. Downloading and installing iTunes over the existing version usually helps in this situation.

Older versions of iTunes provided information about their music library in a so called XML file. For that you had to turn on “Share iTunes Library XML with other applications” in the “Advanced” settings of iTunes.

However starting with iVolume 3.8.0 for Mac, the information is gathered in a different and more modern way from Music/iTunes, so this problem does no longer exist.

Help, iVolume 3.8.0 lost all my fancy settings and previous analyzation results!

For the Music app on macOS Catalina iVolume for Mac had to change the way how it reads the music library. Furthermore iVolume always supported multiple libraries and differences them by an identifier. However, by using the new method to read the libraries, all identifiers have changed, so iVolume sees “new” libraries since version 3.8.0.
If you are an advanced user, you can rename your old file containing your previous settings and results to the name of the new one. The files are stored in
~/Library/Application Support/de.ivolume.mac/de.ivolume.IDENTIFIER.plist
You may look at their modification dates to identify the right ones. Please quit iVolume before making these modifications.

What file formats are supported by iVolume?

iVolume supports all formats that permit embedding the iTunNORM tag; currently that is MP3, AAC (.m4a, .m4b), AIFF and Apple Lossless. Unfortunately Video files and WAV files do not support the iTunNORM tag, so they can't be adjusted by iVolume.

Are songs purchased from the iTunes Store supported?

Yes, songs purchased in the current “iTunes Plus” format (.m4a) are supported. Older iTunes purchases may not be supported, because songs purchased before mid 2009 usually were copy-protected (.m4p) and that renders third party applications like iVolume impossible to decode such a song. Please see the iTunes Store for details about upgrading your music to the iTunes Plus format if you're affected by this. Songs can also be upgraded by using iTunes Match.
Rented songs (Apple Music subscription) are copy-protected for obvious reasons and therefore can not be processed, though.

My iPod/iPhone/iPad is connected via Dock Connector to my stereo system. Is that supported?

Unfortunately that depends. There seem to be at least two different ways to get audio out of the Dock Connector. Most probably that is analog and digital. In some cases Sound Check works just fine, but in other cases the volume adjustments are simply ignored. Hopefully Apple fixes this issue at some time. The best option is to use the headphone jack or Bluetooth whenever possible.

What if I want to play my songs at their original volume level for some reason?

Just turn off Sound Check and all modifications made by iVolume will be ignored and your songs all play at their original volume level.

Can I burn adjusted Audio-CDs?

Yes. You have to use iTunes to burn the Audio-CD. In the burning dialog of iTunes there is a checkbox “Use Sound Check”. Turn that on to burn volume adjusted Audio-CDs.

What exactly is shown by this fancy speed indicator?

It displays the current speed factor of the song analysis compared to the real duration of the songs. E.g. if it displays a factor of 60, a 5 minute song is analyzed in just 5 seconds. While analyzing it additionally displays the number of available processor cores.

I have used iVolume but the “Volume Adjustment” sliders for my songs are still set to “None” in Music/iTunes - why?

Please don't confuse the “Volume Adjustment” sliders with “Sound Check”. Music/iTunes offers two ways to adjust the volume of songs. The manual “Volume Adjustment” slider is in the “Options” tab of the song information dialog. But iVolume modifies the “Sound Check” information. This value can be seen in the “File” (or “Summary” in older iTunes versions) tab of the song information dialog; it's labeled “Volume”. For best results, the manual “Volume Adjustment” sliders have to be set to “None” so that they do not interfere with “Sound Check”. But iVolume can check this for you automatically.

My Mac is not supported by the latest version of iVolume. Where can I download an older iVolume version?

If you have a Mac running Mac OS X 10.4 or 10.5 or a Mac with PPC processor, please download iVolume Version 3.6 here.