If you have ever watched media on media players such as Quicktime or Windows Media Player, you will probably have come across the situation where the volume is too low (even with the volume slider at max). Sure, you can adjust the volume controls in your OS or on the speakers, but sometimes this is either too fiddly or the volume knob is at max.
Well if you are using Quicktime, you can access a secret volume control by pressing Shift and clicking on the volume slider. This give you additional volume boost and best of all, doesn’t affect your OS volume settings (which is something I hate in Real Player).
Update: If you are using the standalone Quicktime player, hold shift and press the up arrow – it will increase volume even when slider is at max. If volume is above max, hitting either up or down arrow (without shift) will instantly bring it back to max. So that’s a quick way to fix the volume if you set it too high and a loud part comes on. Thanks to eridius on Digg for this additional tip.
I’m sure people will tell me that this ’secret’ volume control is really old news – but meh, I was only shown this today so it’s big news to me 
.
05/01/2007 at 9:35 am Permalink
Is this Mac, Windows or Both? Anyways, You’ve Been Dugg
Matt, it works for both. And yeah i noticed I got dugg last night when my server stopped responding. I was still setting up this blog (consolidating from a number of different sites I used to run) and hadn’t setup caching yet – so when I got dugg my server went down in a screaming heap – sigh
05/01/2007 at 9:35 am Permalink
Is there something like this for iTunes? I use the Soundcheck feature to normalize volume, but everything gets normalized to a level that’s much lower than the rest of the computer sounds, so you have to turn the speakers way up, but then all computer sounds and other media players are WAY loud.
TB, sorry, I’m not sure about iTunes. Ben
07/01/2007 at 6:17 pm Permalink
My quicktime gives access to that slider just by clicking the volume icon.. no need for key combinations. Using Win 2k.
Pado, it’s a different slider if you press ‘Shift’. Try moving the normal slider to the maximum position, then click ’shift’ and the speaker icon again … you’ll see another slider. Ben
19/07/2008 at 5:34 am Permalink
Thanks!
05/01/2007 at 8:53 am Permalink
hey … it really works …
thanks for the tip …
05/01/2007 at 9:20 am Permalink
What version of QT? Doesn’t work in 7.1.3 for me…