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[ludwigl]

Hi All,

I'm new to all of this and I'm having a hard time understanding Replay Gain feature and the Help Text is not making it clear enough for my thick skull.

In an attempt to "Volume Level" my music I have "Analyzed" all of my MP3's using MC10 .106 and now have Replay Gain settings of -18.53dB to +9.54dB. When I transfer playlists to my portable they now play too softly. It looks like if I sync and carry the Replay Gain over I can also use the "Adjustment - Fixed" to add a fixed amount to the calculated adjustment and that might bring the volume to a normal level... Assuming I can find the correct adjustment number. Is this correct? Or should I be doing something else to correct this problem?

Thanks in advance for all help.

Lorne

-In Beer there is Strength...
-In Wine there is Wisdom...
-In Water there is BACTERIA!!!

    Old German Proverb

[ludwigl]

Well... I'm getting views but no answers, maybe others also are wondering about this? I started to play a bit and found that this does seem to work. I tried a +10dB adjustment and that brought quite an improvement. On a playlist that had songs with Replay Gain settings ranging from -18.53dB to +9.54dB this was more than enough to allow the volume setting on my iPod to not need to be set to max just to hear the music. I guess I need to play some more to find the perfect setting.

[lee269]

Well, heres an answer, but not a complete one...

Your description of tweaking the RG settings will certainly work in MC playback for volume levelling, but I cant say if it will work on files transferred to any particular player.

My understanding is that ReplayGain is simply a number stored in a tag. The number is used by MC to adjust the volume for that file. Unless your player knows how to use that tag, files transferred elsewhere wont be volume levelled using RG. Also, converting/transferring RG'ed files in MC will not actually apply the RG values to produce volume levelled files. Theres a piece of software (not from JRiver) called MP3Gain which will do this - the downside (?) being that it alters the entire mp3 music file data to reduce the volume, rather than just changing a tag.

Ludwig, it sounds from what youre saying that the Ipod/Ipod plugin somehow does take account of RG info in preparing files for transfer. I havent got one so I dont know - if youre not getting any joy Id suggest a repeat post to the Ipod thread, where Im sure Steve can give you the lowdown.

Hang in there - someone who really knows what they are talking about will surely post soon.

[urlwolf]

WHat portable are you using?

[ludwigl]

lee269,

Thanks for the info... I was trying to not modify the files just how they were played and it looks like you understood that. I'm not sure but from what little testing I've done I found that on sync with Replay Gain on most of my playlists were reduced to a point that they were too soft even at max volume. Once I enabled Replay Gain and added 10dB there was a VERY noticable diff. I'm not sure if the iPod is reading this info from the tag or if MC is mod'ing the file on Sync. Either way the result is that this seems to work. My playlists act as if they are Volume Leveled and I can get a good playback volume. I didn't post in the iPod Problems thread because I thought this was more of a non-player specific question and more on how MC deals with the requested adjusted.

urlwolf,

As you might have guessed by now the portable is an iPod, 3G 40GB iPod.

Thanks All,

Lorne

[lee269]

Lorne: glad it was helpful. My experience is that RG works great with MC playback, but Im sure RG is player specific for the reasons I said before. More accurately I guess the Ipod plugin is player specific in what its doing during transfer. I dont know how 'sync with RG' is supposed to work in your case.

As I say, I cant help with Ipod stuff because I havent got one. Its OK to leave your thread here, because you never know whos watching, but the JRiver Ipod plugin development people and the Ipod gurus are going to look at the Ipod thread first. I dont think itll hurt to repost, or put a link to this in the Ipod thread.

Good luck.

[ludwigl]

Lee269,

Thanks again. You make some valid points as to why this might be better in the iPod Support thread.

I noticed that starting in 9.1 iPod support for the following was included:

Single Click Synchronization of iPod audio and data with MC.
Apply Replay Gain to files on iPod.
Dynamically adjust playback volumes.
Audible file bookmarking.
iPod playcounts, date last played, and rating transfer to MC from iPod.

This was, in part, why I ordered MC10 2 weeks ago and just started to play with it.

It looks like the iPod support was added directly to MC and I don't believe that a separate Plug-In is used and so I don't think this would work well in the Plug-In Forum but I'll draft a summary and open questions post for the iPod Support thread.

Thanks again,

Lorne

-In Beer there is Strength...
-In Wine there is Wisdom...
-In Water there is BACTERIA!!!

    Old German Proverb