Volume levelling

[Cloudberry]

The difference in volume levels between diffrerend cd-rippings is a bit disturbing, especially when moving between modern and classical. Large library of FLAC music, from up to 24/196, so I am sensitive to the quality.

Is there any clever way to fix this?

Will it affect the basic data?

Would it be reversable?

[garym]

Re: Volume levelling

The difference in volume levels between diffrerend cd-rippings is a bit disturbing, especially when moving between modern and classical. Large library of FLAC music, from up to 24/196, so I am sensitive to the quality.

Is there any clever way to fix this?

Will it affect the basic data?

Would it be reversable?

Use replaygain DSP when ripping. This adds album and track RG values to tags. Does NOT change audio at all. But many players can read these tags and adjust volume accordingly. Google replaygain to get more info. The problem here is not the ripper, it is that CDs are mastered with lots of different volume levels. And newer pop CDs are a victim of the loudness wars where there is such dynamic compression that these things sound super loud. It's sad really. But anyhow, RG is the standard for dealing with this.

[Cloudberry]

Re: Volume levelling

Gracie, Any medicine for the TB of music already ripped?

[garym]

Re: Volume levelling

Gracie, Any medicine for the TB of music already ripped?

yes, you can use dbpa to add RG tags to existing files. You "convert to" Replaygain dSP (rather than another codec like FLAC or mp3). it doesn't change your audio, it just examines it and adds the proper RG tags. It should have some settings to do this by album (as your album RG values are determined on an album basis). Once you understand what you are doing, you can load up all the files, click a few times and it all happens automatically.

[BrodyBoy]

Re: Volume levelling

Do you think we're moving toward a universal standard with this? Presumably ReplayGain? It bugs me that Apple still uses a different approach, and that players still vary in the normalizing tags they support. I haven't followed this issue long enough to know whether there's a "trend" moving toward one overriding standard.

[garym]

Re: Volume levelling

Apple always does its own thing. Mp3tag will convert RG values into soundcheck values read by iTunes.

[Cloudberry]

Re: Volume levelling

I have downloaded the Replay Unity Gain, and it appears as expected. But I am not sure what it does, or what I should do.

Will this create an information, attached to album or track (will I not need track?), but based on album I trust will be best.

Is this then used by the player, if I configure it right, so that it will determine a volumebased on this?

If I understand it correctly it is a matter of creating an additional information regarding the music, i.e. nothing that should normally be reverted, if I dont like it I dont use it?

[garym]

Re: Volume levelling

I have downloaded the Replay Unity Gain, and it appears as expected. But I am not sure what it does, or what I should do.

Will this create an information, attached to album or track (will I not need track?), but based on album I trust will be best.

Is this then used by the player, if I configure it right, so that it will determine a volumebased on this?

If I understand it correctly it is a matter of creating an additional information regarding the music, i.e. nothing that should normally be reverted, if I dont like it I dont use it?

1. Yes, the player either uses it or doesn't (it is just tag info, just like ARTIST name or TRACK name). Not using the RG tag info causes NO issues. Audio is still lossless and not effected at all.

2. When you run RG on your tracks, have it add BOTH Album and Track RG gain tags. It keeps track of both, then in your player you can use either RG value you want. I like Squeezeboxes that use "smart gain" (if you are playing an entire album it uses album gain and if you are playing a mix of tracks from several albums it uses track gain). This is perfect! Other players that I know of that use RG info (winamp, foobar2000).

3. To add RG tags, you run dbpa music converter (same program you'd run if converting from FLAC to mp3, but in this case you're not really "converting" just analyzing for RG info and adding tag info). Select the albums (could be ALL albums, but I'd do some testing to get comfortable first) then hit enter or whatever to get the convert starting. You'll then see a convert screen, and can select at the top what you want to convert to. You'll choose RG (Replay Gain), select album and art, and tell it to use album idenitifed with Album ID tag. May want to do compilation albums separately from regular albums.

[BrodyBoy]

Re: Volume levelling

Good info, garym!

[Cloudberry]

Re: Volume levelling

Fantastic, I'll try tonight. Ihave though discovered that my player (Linn DS) do not support is, yet - but is on the todo list

I'll get it done anyway. Great help!

[garym]

Re: Volume levelling

You'll choose RG (Replay Gain), select album and art, and tell it to use album idenitifed with Album ID tag. May want to do compilation albums separately from regular albums.

typo and can't edit original. "select album and TRACK" (not art), and tell it ....

[Cloudberry]

Re: Volume levelling

Seems to work fine, but somehow during this setup I managed to set some DSP effect in the Options DSP effects box at the bottom, now I cant figure out to take that away. If for instance I want to run Rearrange audio, I do not want any RG effect that slows it down dramatically. How can I turn that off?

[Cloudberry]

Re: Volume levelling

Seems to work fine, but somehow during this setup I managed to set some DSP effect in the Options DSP effects box at the bottom, now I cant figure out to take that away. If for instance I want to run Rearrange audio, I do not want any RG effect that slows it down dramatically. How can I turn that off?

In addition to the aabove I have another strange observation. When running a RG 'conversion', I get this statusinformation box, with four CPU. It counts down, for instance six hours. After 'completion' the box do not turn to finalised, it seems to be busy, but now for more than one hour. It did show a similar pattern when running on one cd, five minutes normal running and then perhaps one minute before it turned to 'Finalised'. So, shall I expect this and just wait?

[garym]

Re: Volume levelling

Seems to work fine, but somehow during this setup I managed to set some DSP effect in the Options DSP effects box at the bottom, now I cant figure out to take that away. If for instance I want to run Rearrange audio, I do not want any RG effect that slows it down dramatically. How can I turn that off?

right click on the DSP you want to remove, then choose "remove selected"

[garym]

Re: Volume levelling

In addition to the aabove I have another strange observation. When running a RG 'conversion', I get this statusinformation box, with four CPU. It counts down, for instance six hours. After 'completion' the box do not turn to finalised, it seems to be busy, but now for more than one hour. It did show a similar pattern when running on one cd, five minutes normal running and then perhaps one minute before it turned to 'Finalised'. So, shall I expect this and just wait?

how many tracks/albums are you doing. For me, I think if I selected all my 4 or 5 thousand albums it would take several days to run! So 6 hours is certainly reasonable if you are talking about hundreds of albums. Even when it has completed running, it should then do some other stuff before you get to finalized (it's writing tag info, etc.).