How to Reduce Music Background in Movies

By Jacob Stover

Updated September 22, 2017

It is nearly impossible to follow a movie when you are unable to hear the dialog. This can lead to a lot of frustration when dealing with low-quality speakers, or poorly mixed background music. If you find yourself frequently turning your television or computer to uncomfortably loud levels of volume just to make out what the characters are saying, you may need to normalize the audio from your playback device. Normalizing is a feature found in nearly all video playback software that changes the innate playback volume of sounds in the human vocal range to make them easier to understand.

Using Media Player Classic

Open up the movie file you wish to view.

Right-click the viewing window and select "Audio."

Locate the box next to "Normalize" and click it. Then click "OK" to save your settings.

Using VLC

Open the video file you wish to watch.

Select "Options" from the program toolbar and then select "Audio Preferences."

Set your default volume to "200%" and set Replay Gain to "None." Check the box next to "Volume Normalizer" and then set the Normalizer option to "0.5." You can adjust the normalizer value higher or lower depending on the desired volume.

Using iTunes or Apple TV

Right-click the video file you wish to view.

Select "Preferences" from the right-click menu.

Select the "Playback" tab.

Click the box next to "Sound Check." Then click "OK" to save your changes.

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