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[d2b]

Does JRiver Media Center 21 support Replay Gain tags for FLAC files? Our interest is only for FLAC files, nothing else.

If so, does it use the EU R128 recommendations?

If so, does it support it for album RG, track RG, or both?

Does it support it the same way on both Windows and OS X versions?

Thanks for your responses. We appreciate it, especially since we have over 12,000 albums on our media server that have not included any RG information.

Dennis...

[BryanC]

Yes to all of your questions.

[d2b]

dBpoweramp inserts the following field names with typical values shown as examples:

REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK=0.96594
REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN=-6.22 dB
REPLAYGAIN_ALBUM_PEAK=0.99832
REPLAYGAIN_ALBUM_GAIN=-5.92 dB

Is this format compatible with JRiver Media Center? That is, are these the correct field names for the ReplayGain tags (Vorbis comments)?

Last question (I hope):  Where might we find a human-readable description (i.e., preferably not expressed as lines of even well-documented code) of the algorithm(s) used to apply these tags to a given track in a multi-track album? We're end-users, not developers.

You might wonder why I ask these questions. We're creating a well-tagged (we think) FLAC library of thousands of CD albums, and we would like to ensure that the perceived volume (loudness?) is reasonably consistent across the whole of them or at least within each album. The application is non-commercial, community radio broadcasting  and Internet streaming. JRiver Media Center is likely to be our primary application of choice for this purpose.

 Thanks for whatever help or leads you can provide.

Dennis ... aka "d2b"

[RD James]

JRiver uses R128 which supersedes ReplayGain. Use its analyzer instead of dBpoweramp.
JRiver analyzer and leveling system is 100% compliant with the spec, others may not be.

P.S. Albums are leveled as a whole, individual track dynamics are not altered.
There is currently no way to tag an album as a custom mix to force track-based leveling instead of album-based leveling.

[d2b]

>> There is currently no way to tag an album as a custom mix to force track-based leveling instead of album-based leveling. <<

From what you said, I think I understand that JRiver's volume normalization only applies to a collection of tracks as a whole but not each to track individually unless, of course, the collection comprises only one track.

I'm not sure I understand your last sentence, the one quoted above. Do you mean that R128 can only be used to level an entire collection OR to individual tracks but not to both? It seems to me that it could be desirable to first optimally level each track in an album and then optimize their levels as an album.

Last question: Does applying R128 compress the audio, even if minimally, or is it an entirely linear process?

Thanks a lot for your clarifications!

Dennis, aka "d2b"

[RD James]

JRiver does smart leveling.
If the playlist has a random collection of tracks from several albums, they will use individual track-based leveling.
If the playlist has full albums, or tracks from the same album played one after the other, they will be leveled as a group, applying one adjustment to all tracks equally, to preserve the album dynamics.

It can mix track-based and album-based leveling together, as it's handled dynamically.
The only case that it does not currently handle, is when you have a custom mix of tracks which you have tagged as a single album. Not a playlist with random tracks, but a collection of tracks that have been tagged as an "album".
If they're tagged as an album, they will be leveled together as one, instead of using individual track-based leveling.


R128 does not use any compression, it only adjusts the volume level of a track up or down.
The target for R128 is set to provide enough headroom that it should not be required.
If a track has so much dynamic range that it cannot be leveled without clipping, JRiver will play it at a lower volume instead of allowing it to clip or compressing it. This is very rare, and applies to less than 10 tracks in my library.

[d2b]

Extremely good and thorough answers! Thank you very much!

Are there ANY instances where JRiver uses volume-related metadata in a FLAC file for level optimization? If so, what are the field names for these tags?

Dennis...aka "d2b"

[astromo]

Extremely good and thorough answers! Thank you very much!

Are there ANY instances where JRiver uses volume-related metadata in a FLAC file for level optimization? If so, what are the field names for these tags?

Dennis...aka "d2b"

A lot of this detail is already located on the Wiki (look at the bottom of every forum page). Here's the entry relating to the general subject:
https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Volume_Leveling

Regarding meta-data, you might want to look here (again over at the Wiki):
https://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Library_Fields

[RD James]

Extremely good and thorough answers! Thank you very much!

Are there ANY instances where JRiver uses volume-related metadata in a FLAC file for level optimization? If so, what are the field names for these tags?

Dennis...aka "d2b"

It uses its own R128 tags.
Use the JRiver analyzer to create these, don't try to import data from other programs.