Max and Match settings in Goldwave

[kisrum]

When putting together music or video compilations I frequently throw in audio from odd sources like old documentaries, TV news, etc. which have very different volume levels and cause a lot of volume control fiddling for the end user.

I've usually relied upon my ears and Goldwave's volume settings to tweak individual files to where they more or less match others on playback, but I'm looking for a faster and more professional sounding result so I've been exploring the use of the Max and Match settings in Goldwave. Questions:

1. Goldwave help says don't use Max and Match on the same file because they cancel each other out on that file, but I'm actually using Max on every file to the same setting (full dynamic range) and then using Match on a whole bunch of audio files at once to get the same average volume level. Do you see any reason why this won't work? I'm careful to view all the files individually to find the lowest average volume and then I set Match to that level to avoid clipping.

2. Itunes has a "Use Sound Check" check box for burning CDs. Is this supposed to work the same way as the Match setting in Goldwave? It doesn't seem to work very well according to my ears.

Thanks.

[DarrellS]

Have you tried Musicmatch Jukebox? There is a volume leveling feature.

[redwudz]

I don't use Goldwave, but most audio editors have a 'normalize' filter, whose purpose is to set all audio levels to a standard audio level. That would seem to be better suited to what you want to do.