Replay Gain question?

[Eleven13]

Re: Replay Gain question?

Thanks for the replies everybody! Currently I have all of my music stored on my HD in separate folders according to bands and then each album in a separate subfolder. Would there be a way to change all of the tags at once without needing to really do any rearranging, or is it just not worth the hassle and I should just keep everything at -23?

[garym]

Re: Replay Gain question?

An iPod running Rockbox can use replaygain tags.

and one can also use dbpoweramp DSP or an action in mp3tag, to create SOUNDCHECK tags (iTunNorm) based on either track or album RG values. These SC values are then used by an ipod/iphone etc. This works with standard apple software (no requirement for rockbox).

[AndersHu]

Re: Replay Gain question?

An iPod running Rockbox can use replaygain tags.

EBU R128 is a broadcast standard for loudness normalisation, and it recommends to normalize audio at -23 LUFS.
The ReplayGain uses a different algorithm for measuring loudness, and defines a set of tags that the player can use.
Now we are writing ReplayGain tags, but use the R128 algorithm to measure the loudness.

You should chose one target for all your files.

User tests have shown that if you set R128 to -18 LUFS the result is close in volume to the old ReplayGain(89 dB) results.

[dbfan]

Re: Replay Gain question?

The difference is just louder, however to iPod will not use replaygain tags, only itunenorm

[Eleven13]

Hey everyone,

Sorry if this question is in the wrong place, I just wasn't sure where else it would fit in.

I've had dbpoweramp for a while now, and I use it to rip all of my CDs to FLAC format which I put on my iPod with rockbox.

When initially setting up dbpoweramp ripper, I just followed the setup guide exactly as the pictures showed, so when I got to the DSP "Replay Gain" section, I left the setting "EBU R128 Calculated Gain -23 LUFS Target Volume" just as it was in the picture at -23.

I sort of forgot all about that setting for a while until I had an Mp3 file that was really loud in comparison to my other files, and I used the batch converter to add the Replay Gain DSP tag to it and it fixed the volume.

However, it was also then that I realized I never looked into what the optimal setting for the Replay Gain should be. After reading around, a lot of people are saying it should be instead set to -18.

What is the difference between -23 and -18? Is it just that -18 will be able to be played at a louder volume? I did notice that even maxed out on my iPod the music doesn't get overtly loud, so it got me thinking that maybe I screwed up and should have changed that setting a long time ago.

So overall, my questions are:

1.) Would a change from -23 to -18 make a very significant different in sound volume/quality with my music files?

2.) Since I've already ripped probably around 150 CDs, would the process of changing all of the tags be a nightmare if I wanted to change them all to -18?

Thanks for any help and sorry if this is a dumb question!