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[MellowVelo]

I recently started using Volume Leveling in MC32. I'm not using any other DSP options. I understand that JRiver preserves intentional volume differences between tracks on the same album; however, when I play albums and look at the volume adjustment in Audio Path, the volume adjustment is not consistent across tracks on the same album. For example, I'm listening to an album right now where track 1 is adjusted by -11.9 dB, track 2 by -12.3 dB, track 3 by -12.6 dB, and track 4 by -10.7 dB.

Is Volume Leveling working correctly? I would think that intentional volume differences between tracks on the same album would be preserved by applying the same volume adjustment across all of the tracks, but maybe there's an aspect of the math here that I'm not understanding. Could somebody please clarify this for me? Thanks.

[MellowVelo]

I reread the Volume Leveling wiki and found this line:

By default, when you play an album, the whole album gets adjusted by a fixed amount so that intertrack dynamics aren't affected (i.e. a "quiet" song on an album will still sound quiet compared to the rest of the album).

When I play an album with Volume Leveling enabled, JRiver is not adjusting the whole album by a fixed amount; rather, each track is adjusted by a different amount, as I described above. I'm not using any other DSP. Any idea why this is happening? Has this happened to anybody else?

[mwillems]

I reread the Volume Leveling wiki and found this line:

By default, when you play an album, the whole album gets adjusted by a fixed amount so that intertrack dynamics aren't affected (i.e. a "quiet" song on an album will still sound quiet compared to the rest of the album).

When I play an album with Volume Leveling enabled, JRiver is not adjusting the whole album by a fixed amount; rather, each track is adjusted by a different amount, as I described above. I'm not using any other DSP. Any idea why this is happening? Has this happened to anybody else?

If that is happening it's most likely because for some reason MC is viewing the collection of tracks you are playing as not all part of the same Album.  My first step would be to confirm that all the tracks have the same tag values in the [Album], [Date], and [Album Artist] tag fields.  If any of those are different for some of the tracks, JRiver will view those tracks as part of a different album (because different artists release Albums with the same name, or the same artist might re-issue the same Album in a different year, etc.).   Note that the [Artist] tag field need not be the same, but [Album Artist] should be the same for all tracks on an album.

If Playing Now has tracks from multiple Albums in it, Volume Levelling will level per track instead of using the album adjustment, and that's probably what you're seeing.

[MellowVelo]

If that is happening it's most likely because for some reason MC is viewing the collection of tracks you are playing as not all part of the same Album.  My first step would be to confirm that all the tracks have the same tag values in the [Album], [Date], and [Album Artist] tag fields.  If any of those are different for some of the tracks, JRiver will view those tracks as part of a different album (because different artists release Albums with the same name, or the same artist might re-issue the same Album in a different year, etc.).   Note that the [Artist] tag field need not be the same, but [Album Artist] should be the same for all tracks on an album.

If Playing Now has tracks from multiple Albums in it, Volume Levelling will level per track instead of using the album adjustment, and that's probably what you're seeing.

Thank you.

All the tracks are tagged correctly, so that's not the issue.

I checked Playing Now. The list clears every time I add a new album, so that's not the issue, but your suggestion helped me to identify a different issue with Playing Now. I'm using MC32 on a Mac with files on an NAS, and I'm sending the files via Library Server to an IdPi for playback. Even though I select a whole album, only one file shows up at a time in Playing Now on the IdPi. Thus, IdPi does not realize that I'm playing an album, so it's adjusting the volume for each individual track.

If I log in remotely to the IdPi, I can select the album directly on the IdPi. The whole album shows up in Playing Now, and it correctly levels the volume for the whole album. It's a solution, but it's kinda cumbersome because I have to use a remote viewer for the IdPi.

Do you (or does anybody else) know how to send the files from the Mac and have the whole album appear in Playing Now on the IdPi? Thanks.

[bob]

Thank you.

All the tracks are tagged correctly, so that's not the issue.

I checked Playing Now. The list clears every time I add a new album, so that's not the issue, but your suggestion helped me to identify a different issue with Playing Now. I'm using MC32 on a Mac with files on an NAS, and I'm sending the files via Library Server to an IdPi for playback. Even though I select a whole album, only one file shows up at a time in Playing Now on the IdPi. Thus, IdPi does not realize that I'm playing an album, so it's adjusting the volume for each individual track.

If I log in remotely to the IdPi, I can select the album directly on the IdPi. The whole album shows up in Playing Now, and it correctly levels the volume for the whole album. It's a solution, but it's kinda cumbersome because I have to use a remote viewer for the IdPi.

Do you (or does anybody else) know how to send the files from the Mac and have the whole album appear in Playing Now on the IdPi? Thanks.

When files are pushed to the IdPi (or any device acting as a DLNA renderer) they are pushed one at a time. The protocol doesn't support pushing a playlist.
If volume leveling is turned on in the IdPi's DSP settings you will get the volume leveling that the track has stored in it's tags (and also in the information MC sends via DLNA to the renderer).

[MellowVelo]

When files are pushed to the IdPi (or any device acting as a DLNA renderer) they are pushed one at a time. The protocol doesn't support pushing a playlist.
If volume leveling is turned on in the IdPi's DSP settings you will get the volume leveling that the track has stored in it's tags (and also in the information MC sends via DLNA to the renderer).

Thanks, Bob, for explaining the protocol. So if I'm understanding correctly, there's no way to do album leveling when pushing files to a renderer; files can only be leveled on a track-by-track basis. Is that correct?

[bob]

Thanks, Bob, for explaining the protocol. So if I'm understanding correctly, there's no way to do album leveling when pushing files to a renderer; files can only be leveled on a track-by-track basis. Is that correct?

That appears to be the case. It's something we could possibly add in the future. It's somewhat complicated since it would have to be passed as a custom field in the DiDL then handled specially on the MC renderer side.
If you use the IdPi MC as a media server client, it should work as is but for me that's not as convenient as just using the IdPi as a DLNA renderer.

[MellowVelo]

That appears to be the case. It's something we could possibly add in the future. It's somewhat complicated since it would have to be passed as a custom field in the DiDL then handled specially on the MC renderer side.
If you use the IdPi MC as a media server client, it should work as is but for me that's not as convenient as just using the IdPi as a DLNA renderer.

Thank you, Bob. I'll add my vote to this as a feature request. Cheers!