MPC is Media Player Classic.
When I play the sine through JRiver I get -3.xx db on the soundcard output but when I play it in MPC or Winamp I get 0.00db output so the output from MPC/Winamp is roughly 3db higher than JRiver. I would like it to be the same as that would ensure that MPC output is not louder than JRiver.
No adjustments you make in JRiver will affect playback in other software unless you're looping those signals through JRiver, I think I may have misunderstood your goals above. The whole point of the discussion above was to build in a little headroom for intersample overs, so you've deliberately set your JRiver output to play slightly lower (-3dB). Other media player software doesn't usually account for inter-sample overs, so you'll need to turn the volume down in those places as well if you still plan to use them.
Probably the best thing to do would be to undo about -3dB worth of JRiver attenuation, and turn your soundcard's max volume down by 3 dB (on your sound card interface). That will generally save you from intersample overs and will be globally applicable.
Also when I enable Volume Leveling and Adaptive Volume then the output on my music files is relatively constant across files but the movie file output is higher, the music doesn't seem to go higher than -15db or so while one movie file I played peaks to -11db output.
Which adaptive volume mode are you using? When you say the movie "peaks" at -11dB, how did you determine that? Is that the highest reading over the course of the whole movie? What does the audio analysis say the peak level is? I'm just trying to make sure we're both talking about the same thing here, as average audio levels in movies are often 10, 15, or even 20dB lower than the peaks, and peaks tend to come and go fairly fast.
I think I can set the rest of my chain to clip at 0.00 db output but then I would never achieve close to max output on the music or movies at -11/15db output on the sound card if I am understanding the process correctly. What should I do in this case? At what point at the sound card output should the rest of my equipment reach clip? Is there someway to make the peak movie output and music output be the same?
Lot of questions here, but let me start at the beginning. How can you "set the rest of your chain to clip at 0dB"? I assume you're talking about amps, etc.? Amps can clip a couple different ways, but typically amps clip when they clip (i.e. a given input voltage will overdrive the input causing clipping) unless you have a very unusual amplifier. You should probably compare the input sensitivity of your amps to the maximum output power of your soundcard (if you can mention model numbers, I can help). For many consumer amps a full "pro" output will drive the amp input into clipping at full power, so you may not want 0dB as your goal.
If I disable Adaptive Volume and Leveling then the loudest music file (R128 peak value of +3.6db) plays at about -5db while the same movie clip is peaking at -12db.
This way the difference in volume across various music files is very large though and I don't want that. The file with the lowest R128 peak value is at -11.6db and that plays at roughly -19db. Is there someway so that all music/movie files will have the same maximum peak playback value of -5db after Volume Leveling and Adaptive Volume?
When you say the music plays at about -5dB is that the average output or the peak of the whole song? Peaks tend to come and go very quickly so unless you're looking at a meter that holds peaks it might be hard to spot.
Adaptive volume (in peak normalize mode) + volume leveling will attempt to maximize the volume of a given playlist without clipping, which will result in different playback levels for different playlists, but will generally tend to get the peaks as high as possible. This will not necessarily result in similar perceived volume between two albums, but it will be closer than if you had everything off.
Volume leveling (by itself) will result in very level playback of music based on the average level (not the peak level), but if you use volume leveling by itself, you should never clip in any case because it turns the volume down quite a bit.
I wouldn't focus on the peak level of music as a way to normalize volume, peaks tend to be transient, the average level of the music is much more important. The proof of this is that 95% of music is normalized to have it's peak within 1dB of 0dB, but it can have drastically different loudness. Music with more than +2dB peaks are relatively rare (less than 1% of music).
The bottom line is that JRiver works very hard at avoiding clipping, and even if it fails, it has built in clip protection that usually just silently turns the volume down rather than allowing clipping. If you turn the max input on your soundcard down a few dB, you'll be more or less unable to create actual flatline clipping in JRiver (especially if you're using volume levelling and/or adaptive volume).
Other software is anybody's guess, but turning down the max volume on the soundcard should also help that issue.
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Topic: Signal Chain setup question (Read 3662 times)