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[urlwolf]

Hi All,
I need to play around with replay gain and intensity values, but cannot find them when looking at the file outside MC. Are they stored only in the MC database and not in tags? Or are there some custom tags that keep this info?

Thanks

[enervation]

They are stored in the comments tag (assuming you're using mp3), typically looking like this:

Media Jukebox: Tool Name: Media Center\\Media Jukebox: Tool Version: 11.1.161\\Media Jukebox: Date: 23377\\Media Jukebox: Peak Level: 0.94794\\Media Jukebox: Replay Gain: -11.30362\\Media Jukebox: Intensity: 5

I think there's an option though that controls whether MC updates tags or not. Try looking through the options menu if you're not seeing a comment tag like that one.

[Craig]

Personnally, I find the MC replay gain values too quiet so I run my files through Foobar to generate standard tags that work better with other apps.

Craig

[enervation]

Personnally, I find the MC replay gain values too quiet so I run my files through Foobar to generate standard tags that work better with other apps.

Craig

I've noticed that a bit as well - almost all of my songs seem to get replay values of something like -15db. Maybe this is something the devs should tweak a bit.

[Alex B]

The Replay Gain system in MC is based on the 83 dB target volume, which was originally proposed as a standard. As far as I know, JRiver's Media Jukebox was the first program that implemented a working Replay Gain analysis and playback correction system (e.g. foobar2000 was introduced much later).

If 89 dB is preferred instead of 83 dB it is easy to adjust MC's Replay Gain to use +6 dB permanently (89 dB can lead to some clipping with uncompressed music like classical).

Personally, I use the "Automatic based on current playlist" setting, so MC uses automatically the maximum possible "clean" volume.

MC's Replay Gain and Intensity tags can be seen and edited for example with Mp3tag. However, this can be used only for editing individual track gains. MC calculates the Album Gain correction value always on the fly. (The Album Gain tag can be forced to be written to the file tags, but MC would never use the value on playback.)

[Craig]

Alex,

That explains it - I have a +6dB fixed adjustment set in MC but I found that if I used the MC tags with a Squeezebox, it was too quiet. So I now add Foobar tags for Slimserver to use.

It would be nice if we could have a 83/89dB option to keep things standard.

I don't quite understand your comment about clipping, shouldn't the system be able to handle a peak of 96dB if replay gain wasn't applied?

Craig



 

[Alex B]

I don't quite understand your comment about clipping, shouldn't the system be able to handle a peak of 96dB if replay gain wasn't applied?

The Replay Gain system is not about peak leveling. Instead it tries to calculate an average volume that would lead to equal perceived volume level between different tracks or albums (depending on the selected mode).

A quiet uncompressed track or an album can have a relatively high Replay Gain correction value and still contain a couple of high volume peaks that would lead to occasional digital clipping. This is more likely to happen if a higher reference value is used.

Most of the current pop and rock albums are highly compressed and clipping is not likely to happen even when an 89 dB or a higher reference value is used because the calculated correction value is usually a big negative number. Classical music can be different. I am currently listening to a St. Matthew Passion recording that has an overall album gain of -1.26 dB inside MC. The highest track peak is 99%. So no clipping is introduced if an unadjusted album replay gain correction is used. With a +6 dB adjustment (= 89 dB target) the album correction value would be +4.74 dB and some of the peaks would clip.

[urlwolf]

Thanks alex B,

The tool I'm using (MediaMonkey) doesn't see that. It also has the "property" of overwriting comments easily.

Is there any way I can tell MC to write that info (peak level, replay gain, etc) in independent custom-tags?

[Alex B]

MC writes those fields to custom tags if tag writing is enabled in the field specific options.

I suppose you are using the MP3 format. Obviously the tool you mentioned cannot handle multiple comment lines in ID3v2 tags correctly. For accessing the info that MC writes you could try the tool I linked earlier. It can read and write MC compatible tags in ID3v2.3 ISO-8859-1 format (the v2.3 UTF-16 option in Mp3tag is not fully compatible with MC.)

Edit: If UTF support is needed, MC compatible ID3v2.4 UTF-8 option is available in the development build: http://www.anytag.de/forums/index.php?showtopic=57