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[paulr]

Can anyone give me a very brief description of what Intensity is actually measuring?  I am thinking about making some Smartlists that use it, but there are some interesting results in my library...

Example:
Pink Floyd - The Division Bell - What Do You Want From Me: Intensity 5

Maybe I'm not thinking about it correctly, but that's a pretty mellow song...

I guess some combination of BPM and Intensity would be more of what I am looking for?

thanks in advance!

Paul

[Matt]

Intensity is based around the idea that if a song has lots of variation in volume (meaning plenty of quiet portions), it's not too intense.  If the whole thing is loud, it's pretty intense.

Newer CDs are ofted mastered to have all the dynamic range compressed out of them.  Essentially that music is all loud and therefore "intense."

Intensity isn't an exact science, but it can be interesting and helpful in some cases.

[paulr]

Thanks Matt!

I guess I will need to use a combination of Intensity and BPM then.  I think I can figure something out.

It would be nice if the recording companies gave up this loudness contest they seem to be stuck in.  =/

[modelmaker]

As I remember from the 'old' days one of the selling points for converting to CDs from LPs was the CDs' ability to reproduce music with a wider dynamic range! How ironic.

[paulr]

Indeed!

I just added the Intensity column to my full library view so I could take a look at it...

There's a definite trend.  CD's produced back in the 80's have a more reasonable Intensity and replay gain.  As you work your way to 2004, they consistenly get more 'intense' and the replay gain magnitudes increase...  I noted that even 'best of' albums from bands in the 60s that were "remastered"  now have huge replay gains and peg the intensity meter at 5 for the most part.

Pretty sad when "remastered" means compressed into oblivion.

Props to Blue Note,  Higher Octave and others for maintaining good sound quality in spite of the trends!

[Bendra]

How is it that I don't have numbers in many files in the Intensity column? The bulk of my library was ripped long ago using MM and iTunes. But all of it has been analyzed using MC9-10.

[astromo]

Finally found a meaningful explanation of what "Intensity" actually means, as far as JRiver MC is concerned.

The description from Matt matched what my intuition was telling me. As an update cum post-script, I recently came across a raft of blog posts from over at Computer Audiophile by a contributor, Mitchco:
http://www.computeraudiophile.com/blogs/mitchco/

Useful discussion and array of tests comparing the measurable differences between various audio formats (that clued me up in a couple of areas and confirmed some expectations that I already had) and of relevance to this thread, is the post on Compressors, Limiters, Loudness War, and Mastering Inception:
http://www.computeraudiophile.com/blogs/mitchco/compressors-limiters-loudness-war-and-mastering-inception-86/

For many of you out there, it's probably old news. But for those of you in my shoes, enjoy the read.

[Mikkel]

I got sort of redirected to this thread by reading the thread on Dynamic Range.
How should one interpret the intensity scale? Is 1 = highest dynamic range or lowest dynamic range?

I couldn't find the answer in the wiki (or perhaps I just overlooked it?).


Best regards,
Mikkel

[astromo]

I got sort of redirected to this thread by reading the thread on Dynamic Range.
How should one interpret the intensity scale? Is 1 = highest dynamic range or lowest dynamic range?

I couldn't find the answer in the wiki (or perhaps I just overlooked it?).


Best regards,
Mikkel

Intensity was not very well explained until this comment came in from Matt:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=77129.msg523135#msg523135

As stated above, Intensity in JRiver is a similar measure.  Roughly it looks at the percentage of the song with a loudness (RMS) that's close to the peak loudness.

With a CD like Metallica's Death Magnetic, 90% or more of the songs are about as loud as the loudest part of the song.

Brief but at least it's an answer to the question.

[Mikkel]

Intensity was not very well explained until this comment came in from Matt:
http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=77129.msg523135#msg523135Brief but at least it's an answer to the question.

Thank you for your answer.

I wish Matt or someone could tell us how the intervals are distributed, e.g. is it uniform in the sense that each value from 1 to 5 covers 20 % RMS close to peak level with each level below added (so that level 2 would be 40 % RMS close to peak level etc.).

Why am I even bothered? Just out of curiosity and an interest in what I am looking at corresponds to what I will hear :-).

Thank you very much for your response.


Best regards,
Mikkel