CD/MP3 Loudness

[Warhavernet]

Why are some tracks on my MP3 player [ all ripped from my CDs ] so much louder than others ?
My player or ripper doesn't have the ability to match tracks volume

e.g. Simon & Garfunkel tracks loud compared to The Monkees, is it to with the quality of the original
master tapes the CDs were made with, or somethng more technical ?

[droopsnoot]

I don't know, but I share your irritation. I have an MP3 player in the car, whenever any Depeche Mode track comes on, it's always far louder than the other tracks. On cassettes, there was a thing called "record level" that you could adjust so that it didn't distort, presumably it's a similar thing. I had a CD player that would scan the tracks on a CD, find the loudest bit and play it several times so I could set the level before recording a CD to cassette.

I remember using a CD burning software package that would adjust the level of audio tracks to get them all the same, and it did occur to me that that would be a way to fix the issue - record all the tracks to CD via that software, then rip them back to MP3 at hopefully a consistent level. But, I can't remember which package it was (probably Nero or something commonplace) and I have several hundred tracks on the player and can't be bothered.