Re: Audacity amplify and iPhone volume; avoiding clipping

Some of my songs are very quiet, so I amplify them in audacity to the highest possible volume without clipping. I have a question:

Can I play tracks that have been amplified in audacity on my iPhone or computer at MAX volume WITHOUT the song clipping due to the loud volume of the output device? I feel like the principal behind clipping is that you can’t make a track too loud without distortion. But if audacity says that my track isn’t clipping after applying amplify, could my output volume on an individual device push the track over the edge?

Basically I’m amplifying well over 200 songs and I’m about 1/3 of the way through. I need to know if I’ve made a horrible mistake or if I can continue. I don’t always play my songs at full volume on my iPhone, but I don’t want to worry about distortion if I feel the need to do so. My headphones are Audio Technica ATH M50X if that matters. I also don’t use any amp, just the regular volume for the iPhone 6s in the music app.

Instead of manually amplifying each track, I recommend you use ReplayGain, or some similar software that’s compatible with your music player. What this does is add some extra metadata to the file that tells audio players how much louder to increase the volume, without touching the audio itself.

Instead of manually amplifying each track, I recommend you use ReplayGain, or some similar software that’s compatible with your music player. What this does is add some extra metadata to the file that tells audio players how much louder to increase the volume, without touching the audio itself.

so with the method i am using with amplifying each track, I am risking clipping when i playback the tracks on my iPhone?

I don’t think so. When using the ‘amplify’ effect, you are literally forcing the waveforms to be louder until the sound can’t be ‘contained’ anymore, and clipping occurs. When you’re turning it up on your phone, you’re just turning your phone volume up. Why don’t you play a few of your amplified tracks on your phone to test this yourself?

I am going to do that soon. I’ve been playing the songs on my computer and in iTunes and they all sound fine, albeit louder. My worry is that I don’t know if clipping is always intensely obvious. if your song is clipping a little bit, but not enough to produce a literal clip sound during loud moments, doesn’t it just reduce the overall quality of the track? maybe I have a poor understanding of what a song clipping actually sounds like. :/

———- Post added at 07:08 PM ———- Previous post was at 07:04 PM ———-

also while I have you i have a quick question. in audacity it only re-encodes upon export, right? so if i put an mp3 in audacity and amplify or trim or anything else as long as I export in lossless the quality is the same as it was before I imported to audacity? I’ve had this worry that if I import lossy files, add a fade out and amplify them, these individual effects constitute a re-encode for audacity to perform them on the file, and so I’ve been steadily reducing the quality of my lossy files with each effect I apply to them.

You absolutely are re-encoding when you do that. In order to make the changes you want to make, such as fading in and amplifying, you are changing the waveform and audio data. So exporting in lossless is the only way to ‘keep’ that original quality.
You’ll know clipping when you hear it. But if you need a guide, Audacity has a nice little tool to show when something’s clipping. Go to View->Show Clipping.

alright thanks man

Can I play tracks that have been amplified in audacity on my iPhone or computer at MAX volume WITHOUT the song clipping due to the loud volume of the output device?
Clipping is irrelevant outside of the file; distortion will be produced only because you’re playing everything at max volume.

if your song is clipping a little bit, but not enough to produce a literal clip sound during loud moments
This does not happen 99% of the time. Open any sort of modern electronic or rock album into audacity with the show clipping option ticked and you can see for yourself. Even with clipping, well produced, or rather, competent, albums make it inperceptible due to the other sounds going on. In the same way, a poorly produced album does not need a clip to have audible distortion.