14 DAY TRIAL // Volume Logic is a iTunes plugin that offers digital remastering on the fly. While this might sound like overkill, for those who cannot tell the difference between a bitrate of 128 and a much higher one, and presumptuous boast, from those who can, Volume Logic is going to please everyone.
The need for such an application is clear enough. While CDs are remastered to make all the tracks sound good together, when you create a playlist on your computer you have in effect created your own CD, and more often than not, the songs will not sound good together, manifesting big differences in volume and feel. This issue has been addressed by Apple, through the introduction of the Sound Check option that is intended to even out those differences. The only problem with Sound Check is that it treats a track as one value, meaning that no matter how many volume variations, peaks and transients there are in a song, the length of the entire track will be adjusted using one mean value. This more often than not results in nasty distortion, clipping and a 'watered down' feeling to some songs that are heavily adjusted.
So why is Volume Logic so good? Unlike Sound Check, Volume Logic does everything as the track is actually playing, there is no precalculation or anything of the sort. This means that it will always deliver the best output for what you are playing at this very moment.
The plugin is basically a 5-band dynamics processor that examines, tweaks and adjusts the audio output, correcting it thousands of times per second. It selectively raises low levels and keeps loud signals in check, all in real time. This serves to give everything a crisper, cleaner and more balanced sound. And it's not just good marketing, it actually works. Using the same technology that Rogue Amoeba employs in Audio Hijack, this piece of software will make a big difference in how good your music sounds. The only drawback is that, since everything is done real time, it will be gobbling up quite a few processing cycles.
Working with it Once you have installed Volume Logic, a new entry will appear in the iTunes Window Menu. Selecting it from the menu or using the associated shortcut will bring up the Volume Logic window. It is recommended that at this point, you turn off the Sound Check option in iTunes and let Volume Logic handle everything, otherwise it will receive 'watered down' versions of the songs and since it works with the output from iTunes it will never look at the original file.
Everything is pretty self explanatory. You can turn the plugin on/off using the tickbox and toggling it on and off after you have been listening with it on will yield quite the shock.
The volume slider lets is one level above the one in iTunes, meaning that it will take precedence, and the developer recommends leaving the volume all the way up in iTunes, and using the slider in Volume Magic because the plugin offers the best output when it has the full audio signal to work with.
The preset, although very similar to the iTunes equalizer in looks, is not intended to enhance the sound of individual tracks but rather all the tracks and the way they sound together. It affects the way the songs 'blend' when played one after the other, and the idea is to find the setting that is best for the type of music you are listening to, your speakers and the listening environment, and then have this setting applied constantly across all the tracks.
Drive controls how much of the processing magic that Volume Logic can do applied to the sound being played. Although the amount of processing that gets applied and the amount of CPU cycles that are needed are going to be in close connection, but from what I have experimented with, the plugin eats about the same amount of processing power, no matter how much, or how little Drive you set. There is a difference, but the difference in how the sound sounds is much more acute than the difference between how much CPU it uses... so I would keep the drive all the way up.
Last, but not least, the Bass Boost will beep up the Bass. This will not distort the other frequencies, but, on smaller speakers, this will reduce the overall signal level. If you are listening on really small speakers such as those in a PowerBook, you are better off turning this all the way down.
The Good A tiny plugin that offers real-time digital remastering of whatever it is you are listening to at the moment. It does amazing things to the sound, and none of it is precalculated in any way, meaning that it will preserve the variations in the track.
The Bad Eats up quite a bit of the processing power. Other than that, not one thing.
The Truth If you like your music you are going to love your music with Volume Logic installed. Try it and you will see what I am talking about.
Here are some screenshots, click to enlarge:
