Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[mabes]

All my songs are analyzed but some are WAY louder than others. A Rickie Lee Jones balled just blasted away the Stones. I've tried all the settings. Should I just reanalyze everything, don't want to take the time if it won't make a difference.

[ADDiCT]

I'm not using MC's replay gain functions, so i'm not the authority on that topic. I've done a lot of research and testing on the topic of replay gain in general, though.

What you're hearing is the basic problem with track-based replay gain, as MC does it. Each track will play back at the user-defined volume level, no matter if it is a "quiet" track (classical music, ballads, etc.), or a "loud" one (metal, rock, etc.). As volume perception is subjective, "quiet" tracks will sound much too loud with applied rg. This problem is inherent to the track-based replay gain system.

The solution is to use album-based replay gain, which calculates the avarage volume level of all album tracks, and then uses the same replay gain value for all tracks of an album. Using this technique, the intentional volume differences between tracks are kept intact. MC doesn't support album-based replay gain, AFAIK.

I've described my own solution for the problem in a number of threads. Search the forum for "replay gain", and you should find a lot of info. In short, my approach is to use "hard" volume correction, which is applied to the audio files directly, not via meta data. Of course, that approach has pros and cons.

EDIT: ah, i've just checked MC's options, and it seems i'm wrong - MC does support album-based replay gain! Under "Options/Playback/DSP & output format/Volume leveling", you can select "Album based" in the the "Mode" dropdown. I'll stick to my more complicated approach, though, as it has a number of advantages for my use. (;

[Alex B]

These are my usual Volume Leveling (aka Replay Gain) settings:

Mode: Album based (makes albums the same volume)
Adjustment: Automatic (based on current playlist)
Overflow handling: Clip protection

All albums play at about the same average volume level and the quieter tracks do not play louder than they should.

The album based mode works fine even if the playlist contains tracks from various albums. The loudest tracks from different albums play at about equal volume levels and the rest of the racks are kept at the correct relative volume levels.

The files must be imported and analyzed and the albums must be detected as complete before the album gain values appear. MC calculates them automatically from the track gains values.


I need to change the settings only when I play background music at a very low volume level (I rarely do that). Then it is better to use the track gain mode so that the quieter tracks can still be heard over the background noise.

EDIT

Depending on how use the Playing Now list you may want to disable the "Adjustment" setting or use a fixed value. I have normally a lot of tracks in the PN list and the automatic mode works fine. If you tend to have only one track in the PN list at a time the automatic mode will effectively cancel the replay gain adjustment and should not be used.