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[mild7]

I have about 20 songs (all given to me by the bands who recorded them, if you are wondering). I would like to make them a uniform volume and 'pump them up' as much as possible. I have a couple of ideas about how to do this (and I'm pretty far along with one method) but I know there must be a better way. I would be interested in any suggestions and advice from you knowledgeable people in this forum.

Ideally, the cheaper the software the better, but I am also interested in what you think would do the best job given that I am something of a novice and will have the manual open in front of me. That is, if it's more expensive but much easier to use . . .

Thank you.

[Synthetic]

The way I look at it is... peak is the loudest point in music which usually (not always) is the drum track thanks to the attacks and such. Most of the volume usually comes from guitars, synths, keyboards etc. and they will sometimes sound louder than a drum attack that peaks higher simply because it is a sustained tone or sound. You can tell visually how loud a track might be by looking at the waveform and at certain zoom levels. You can see the peaks of the drum or percussion and the rest in middle makes the bulk of sound which determines the sustained volume of a track. So, to sum it up... just use your ears and don't let the meter control you too much. A track with a loud snare may seem quite overall due to snare's high peaks but another track with dull snare and low volume may sound louder when maxed to same level... that is when you have to spend lots of time with limiters and compressors to get tracks to sound closer in volume level. Hope this helps.