ReplayGain Album Gain Probmlem?

[BryceJ]

I am using the Bulk Conversion tool to convert FLAC files to Apple Lossless files. I have the Replay Gain DSP selected and configured to write Album Gain identified by Album ID. When I look at the tags for the converted files there is only Track Gain, no Album Gain. I have tried this with the Write iTunNom on and off, the results are the same, no Album Gain.

Is this normal, or do I have a problem?

I am not sure what version of dBpoweramp I am using but the files are 4/11/2013 so this should be a recent version.

Cheers, Bryce.

[Spoon]

If you load converter again, the album replaygain is still checked from the last conversion?

[BryceJ]

Yes the options stay checked from session to session. Here is what the dialog box looks like.



Does the iTunNorm tag information contain album gain information or only song gain information?

Cheers.

[BryceJ]

So after a bit more testing a bit of strangeness. I checked the EBU R 128 Calculated Gain and converted the same files. This time there were both Album and Track replay gain values. I tried a third time with the EBU R 128 option turned off...still got both values.

Is it possible that this is some sort if initialization issues? I have been using the bulk convert for some time and it has never produced the Album Gain tags for me before.

Cheers.

[Spoon]

Very strange, did the files have an album ID Tag that can be used to separate the albums?

[BryceJ]

Yes, I believe that all files have the correct tags. I have a more detailed reply, but it is waiting for a Moderator to approve it. It seems that 8 albums work but 16 do not.

[Spoon]

As a test, convert those 16 flac albums to the lowest bitrate mp3 you can, then try to apply RG album to those 16 mp3 files, if the album gain does not write, please zip up those mp3 files and send to us:

http://www.dbpoweramp.com/email.htm

[BryceJ]

We had a power outage here last night, so I had to reboot my machine. It seems that this solved some of the problems. I imagine that I am dealing with a memory issue here. I did more testing and I find that I can now safely convert about 1500 files at one time. If I do more, then not all of the files will get RG Album_Gain. I imagine that this is because the Album_Gain is not written to the files until after all of the files in the batch are converted, not just the ones associated with a specific album.

So I am currently breaking my conversion job down in roughly 1000 file increments and it seems to be working well. This is not something that I do often, normally I convert less than 100 files at a time. This just means that I have to "baby-sit" the conversion process instead of just selecting everything and coming back hour later.

Cheers.

[Spoon]

Album gain is written right at the very end of conversion, track gain is written as the conversion goes along.

[DDJJ]

FYI Spoon, this can get to be a pretty serious problem when processing a lot of files. I just converted about 13,000 FLAC files to EBU R128 calculated gain (which took about 12 hours), and I'm guessing about only a third of the files have the Album Gain calculated. I used the most recent codec of the ReplayGain (see *post136659)

Started to fix by identifying each album where album gain was not calculated--quickly became obvious that this approach was unworkable. I assume I will need to break process into smaller "chunks" as noted in this thread, but wanted to make sure the problem was highlighted for a possible fix here.

Thanks!

[Spoon]

If you have security software, or other player software which looks for changes in the files, you have to disable, so that dbpoweramp can access the files.

[DDJJ]

Can't think of anything I would have like that, plus wouldn't that impact 100% of the files? What I'm seeing seems somewhat random.

[Spoon]

No it would be random as the timing would have to clash (it would not clash all the time).

[BryceJ]

I took your suggestion: Try the latest Replaygain DSP or utility codecs which are in the testing section of our forum. I like the ability to calculate the Replaygain without converting the file, however, I found that this new utility processes seems to allow even fewer files than what could be processed with the original version.

I first tried 445 files. All files processed no problems.
Then I tried 610 files. All files processed no problems.
Next I tried 2020 files. 1662 files were not processed. Obviously way too many files.
Now I tried 950 files. 550 files were not processed. I tried shutting down the dBpoweramp Batch Converter and tried again.
Still 950 files. 274 files were not processed. Better, but still not good. Now I rebooted my PC to see if that changed anything.
Same 950 files. 642 files were not processed. Well 610 had worked before, let's try a smaller number less than 950 but more than 610.
This time 695 files. 366 files were not processed. Rebooted my PC again to see if that changed anything.
Same 695 files. All files processed no error.
I still had 1070 files that needed to be processed so I split this into two batches,
the first 521 files and the second 549 files. In both cases all files were processed without error.

I did a few additional tests, but didn't write down all of the results.
One observation I have is that if you have a "problem" and some files are not processed then rebooting the PC seems to be the
only way to get things working again. See 695 file tests above.

It seems that writing the Album Gain should happen more often during the Batch Conversion process and not be "saved up" for the end of the conversion process. The number of files that can be converted safely at one time seems to have been reduced from the 1500 I was getting previously to something between 700 and 950. I would like to reconvert all of my audio files using this updated utility, but at the moment it would be too cumbersome.

If you would like some help testing any changes or enhancements to the ReplayGain Album Gain in the Batch Converter I would be willing do whatever I can. I have a large number of files to test with and a simple method to reset and check the results.

Cheers.

[Spoon]

That does not make sense, the only difference between the old and new is that the old will loop longer trying to write the tags.

The only way it could be worse is if something undid its tag writing after it completes...