MP3 volume booster

Increase the volume of an MP3 by up to 20 dB without clipping, and download it as an MP3 again. Free with no limit, no account and nothing uploaded.

AudioRinse · volume boosterOn-device · 0 B uploaded

Drop audio or video here

MP3 · WAV · M4A · MP4 · MOV · WEBM — up to 60 min. Nothing is uploaded.

How it works

  1. Drop the MP3 onto the box above. M4A, WAV, FLAC and other audio work too.
  2. AudioRinse measures how loud it is and boosts it to Auto, as loud as YouTube and Spotify play, on your device.
  3. Want it louder? Pick +10 or +20 dB, and compare the original with the boosted sound.
  4. Download the louder MP3, free with no limit. Stereo stays stereo.

Before / after

Hear it before you drop anything

“After” is AudioRinse at its default settings. The voice is synthetic, so we can share it freely.

This recording came out at −30 LUFS, far below podcast level; after, it's at −16.

How much to boost

  • Auto brings the file to −14 LUFS, the level YouTube and Spotify play at: loud, with room left for the peaks. A file that's already that loud stays as it is.
  • +6 dB sounds about 1.5 times as loud, +10 dB about twice and +20 dB about four times: every 10 dB roughly doubles how loud it sounds.
  • Start with Auto, play the loudest part, and go up a step only if it's still too quiet. The numbers under the result show where it started and where it landed.

Why MP3Gain isn't enough

MP3Gain and similar tools change an MP3's volume without decoding it, in steps of 1.5 dB, which keeps the audio as it was but can't hold the peaks back. Once a boost would take them past full scale, the choice is to clip them or to boost less, and on a song that already peaks near full scale that comes after a few dB.

AudioRinse decodes the MP3, boosts it through a look-ahead limiter that turns down only the peaks that would go over −1 dBTP, and encodes it again. So a quiet MP3 can go up 10 or 20 dB, and the peaks still don't crackle.

Keeping the MP3's quality

The louder file is encoded once, at 192 kbps: more than the 64 to 128 kbps most podcasts and audiobooks are published at, so the new MP3 holds on to what the old one had. To keep editing it, download a WAV instead, which loses nothing; an M4A is about the same size as the MP3 and plays on any phone.

Questions

Is my file uploaded anywhere?

No. AudioRinse measures and boosts it inside your browser, on your own device. Your file never leaves it, so there's no upload to wait for and nothing stored on a server.

Is it free?

Yes. Boosting, listening and downloading the sound as MP3, M4A or WAV are free, with no limit and no account, for files up to 1 hour. Pro ($7.99 a month or $39.99 a year) adds the video download, with the picture copied as it is, and many files at once.

Will the MP3 lose quality?

Very little: it's decoded once and encoded once, at 192 kbps, a higher rate than most MP3s are published at. If you'll edit it further, download it as a WAV, which loses nothing.

Will it distort?

It won't clip: nothing is pushed past full scale. Where the boost would take a peak over −1 dBTP, a look-ahead limiter turns down just that peak, for a few milliseconds, and the page shows by how much. A few dB of that goes unnoticed. Past about 12 dB, drums and plosives lose their punch; a smaller boost keeps it.

Can I make an MP3 quieter instead?

Not here: the booster only turns up. The loudness normalizer brings a file to a level, up or down; its broadcast target, −23 LUFS, turns most MP3s down.

Which other files does it take?

Any audio your browser opens: M4A, WAV, FLAC, AAC, OGG and Opus, and the sound of a video, up to 1 hour. Whatever comes in, you can download MP3, M4A or WAV.

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