Jun 21
Spice up the sound of iTunes with Volume Logic
2004 at 09.59 am posted by Veerle
Every now an then an amazing program pops-up and surprises me. Volume Logic is such an app. It’s a plug-in for iTunes to be exact. So we’re talking about an audio plug-in that makes real-time digital re-mastering a reality for all iTunes audio so even streaming music from an online radio. I have the Apple Pro speakers with an iSub and the results are amazing.
Here a few examples (MP3):
More before and after examples here
Everything sounds a lot better, it's hard to describe it but it feels like the musicians are just in front of you and now you really hear ALL the instruments. You're probably thinking that this sounds like a sales pitch but I can assure it's not, once you tried it you'll never want to go back. Even with my PowerBook speakers the results are stunning. This iTunes plug-in works on Mac OS X and Windows. There is a 2 week trial. The plugin costs $19.95 but after trying it I got an e-mail coupon good for $10 so that was a nice surprise.
7served
1
Well, always nice something works out, but $20 for a plug-in seems a little steep, or is that just me?
(I’ve got a completely different setup and have a dedicated PC connected to my stereo in the same room as where my ‘workstation’ is situated… so no need for digital wizardry ;-))
2
Markie, unless you’ve tried you can’t give an opinion on this price...my Apple speakers look very nice but aren’t to compare with high end quality speakers...with this plug-in however the results are amazing. I know it must sound like something simple but the stuff that happens behind the scene is a quality job.
If you try out, after the trial period you receive a discount coupon of $10. So I bought it for $10, but even if it was $20 I would still buy it.
3
Flippin ‘eck! What a difference this thing makes!! If the price goes down to $10, thats only 5 of my english pounds! I’m having this!
(sorry about all the exclamation marks...)
4
I downloaded and tried it, and it does sound great! One caveat, though...it appears to be a CPU hog. On my Titanium powerbook (15” 800Mhz laptop w/1GB ram), the Activity Monitor shows a spike of ~30% increased CPU usage.
5
What a great find. Thank you for posting this. I’ve been trying the demo out in my library and the difference is amazing. Recommendations are certainly forthcoming for all of my iTunes-using friends. Heck, I’ll just be boring any person within earshot.
6
@Jon: No problem in using too many exclamation marks, I would have done the same to express my enthusiasm ;-) It’s really a great plug-in.
@Amitabh: This type of complex audio processing does take a lot of CPU cycles. To reduce CPU usage, hide the meters by clicking in the Meters check box, or clicking on the green button in the window title bar.
@Tim: Thanks for the nice words and I was hoping that people would find it useful.
7
This stuff rocks.