What Is Sound Check, and How Do You Use It with Your i Pod?

Using your iPod can be frustrating. You are listening to a song and you get the volume set perfect ly , and the device moves on to the next song. Suddenly the music is blaring in your ears at a deafening rate, or you cannot hear it at all. Did you change the volume? No, the second song was simply louder than the first. Constantly having to switch song volume makes the iPod inconvenient to use. For this reason, Apple created Sound Check and added it to both iTunes and all iPods.

Sound Check can be used to normalize the volume of your songs on your iPod and in your iTunes library. Remember, when artists are recording songs, they do so at different volumes. This could be for a variety of reasons, including different recording technologies. With Sound Check, you can balance all of your songs so that they play back at a similar volume. The original song is not changed, but the play back volume encoded into the file is changed so that it does not blare in your ears.

The Sound Check program can be used with most file types that iTunes accepts. Currently, MP3, AAC, WAV, and AIFF files can all be balanced using Sound Check. When set up correctly, Sound Check can keep this play back information as part of the song’s coding, thus allowing it to be transferred to the iPod when the device is synched to the computer.

To activate Sound Check in iTunes, open the application and choose “Preferences.” If you are on a Windows PC, you will need to choose the “Edit” menu and then “Preferences.” Once in this menu, choose “Playback” at the top of the window. Here you will find a box for “Sound Check.” Click the checkbox to enable the program. This will allow you to play songs on your computer at similar volumes, without having to manually adjust the volume.

Sound Check is ready to be used on your iPod, as all iPods have the software installed on them when you purchase them. You simply need to activate it. To do so, turn on your iPod and access the “Settings” menu. You will find “Sound Check” halfway down the menu. Highlight it, and then click the button in the center of the iPod. This should turn the program on. At this point, any songs you upload from iTunes will be balanced using Sound Check.