DSD to Flac and Album Normalization

[Drewligarchy]

Hi -

I have about 115 DSD albums I want to convert to 44/16 flac, and normalize each album to 0db.

The first part is easy, the second part I'm having trouble.

I could just add 6db to each album, but this causes clipping or some albums are too low.

I tried writing album gain tags and then applying album gain to the file (don't care that I am changing the audio, as this is simply a copy for my car) - but it doesn't seem to be altering the gain at all.

Is there any way to scan for the album peak, find the difference between that and 0db, and apply that gain to the album? At this point, if I can at least scan the album to find the peak, I'll add gain - via the music converter - on an album by album basis.

Any help is appreciated.

[timster67]

Re: DSD to Flac and Album Normalization

Hi -

I have about 115 DSD albums I want to convert to 44/16 flac, and normalize each album to 0db.

The first part is easy, the second part I'm having trouble.

I could just add 6db to each album, but this causes clipping or some albums are too low.

I tried writing album gain tags and then applying album gain to the file (don't care that I am changing the audio, as this is simply a copy for my car) - but it doesn't seem to be altering the gain at all.

Is there any way to scan for the album peak, find the difference between that and 0db, and apply that gain to the album? At this point, if I can at least scan the album to find the peak, I'll add gain - via the music converter - on an album by album basis.

Any help is appreciated.

I think your problem is using the ReplayGain tags via the utility codec - your player(s) probably don't support them. It doesn't alter the audio data.
However, if you really don't mind being destructive to your audio data in the copies, you can use the ReplayGain (Apply) DSP effect.

[Drewligarchy]

Re: DSD to Flac and Album Normalization

Thank for the post. I have already tried replaygain(apply) as these are for my car, so I assumed that the tags wouldn't work in the flac player and I don't care if I alter the files. Still I am not notices a discernible gain change in the albums.

Further, I am not even sure if replaygain is the right method to achieve my desired result. If I am trying to normalize to increase gain of each album so the peak (of the album) is at 0db, will replaygain apply enough gain at all?

[timster67]

Re: DSD to Flac and Album Normalization

Ahh, the Apply only applies the tag values if present.
Try Volume Normalize instead.

[Drewligarchy]

Re: DSD to Flac and Album Normalization

Ahh, the Apply only applies the tag values if present.
Try Volume Normalize instead.

Looks like I got it to work. I think my problem was trying to do it in one pass.

Converted the DSD to Flac

Added the tags using the replay gain encoding tool

Encoded the flac with Replaygain(apply) album gain.

Looking in audacity the gain is indeed increased on the files by the 0 db point for the album.

Thanks for your help