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[fmd]

Hello - new to MC18 and having trouble taking advantage of the DSP effect Replay Gain which I have applied to my FLAC's using dbpoweramp.

I have gone into DSP Studio and clicked Volume Leveling.  There must be something I am missing because I don't think it is working. Is there something else I need to do?

Thanks in advance

[InflatableMouse]

When you select and enable volume leveing, you need to choose how you want leveling to work. There is track based or album based, and below that you can select 'based on current playlist' or a fixed value.

In most cases you would want to select based on current playlist.

[nwboater]

It's a two step process. First the files have to be analyzed, then Replay Gain is applied.

See the WIKI for this:   http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Replay_Gain

Rod

Added on Edit: I just reread your original post and saw that you applied Replay Gain using dbpoweramp. I don't know How or if MC will respond to that.

Rod

[Vocalpoint]

Hello - new to MC18 and having trouble taking advantage of the DSP effect Replay Gain which I have applied to my FLAC's using dbpoweramp.

As a dbPowerAmp user as well - for best use of Volume Levelling in MC - use MC to handle all analysis of all your files (not dbPowerAmp) and then apply the other suggestions made here.

I can't recall specifics but some years back when I tried a few "analysis" sessions using dbPowerAmp and then brought those files into MC - something was not right. these two apps have always "gently" disagreed on how a few specific tags are stored for FLAC etc so to avoid all issues - make MC home base for Replay Gain analysis.

VP

[fmd]

Thanks for the advice. 

I am a little concerned about analyzing the audio in MC18.  Is everyone happy with how JRiver levels volume in their libraries?  Any negatives?  I am assuming JRiver is altering the meta tag info in this analysis and it is irreversible.

[Matt]

Thanks for the advice. 

I am a little concerned about analyzing the audio in MC18.  Is everyone happy with how JRiver levels volume in their libraries?  Any negatives?  I am assuming JRiver is altering the meta tag info in this analysis and it is irreversible.

It's safe.

It writes a tag to the file in a standards-compliant way. 

You can remove tags later, but there's no reason to do that.

[fmd]

In the JRIver Wiki it mentions creating a playlist with these parameters:

mediatype=[audio] filetype=mp3 -artist=[] (replaygain==0 or peaklevel==0 or bpm==0 or intensity==0)

I like the idea of the playlist because I only want to apply this to my flac's. However most of my flacs have Replay Gain applied at rip by dbpoweramp and would not show in this query.  What happens if a file already with Replay Gain is analyzed by JRiver?

Thank you

[Vocalpoint]

In the JRIver Wiki it mentions creating a playlist with these parameters:

mediatype=[audio] filetype=mp3 -artist=[] (replaygain==0 or peaklevel==0 or bpm==0 or intensity==0)

I like the idea of the playlist because I only want to apply this to my flac's. However most of my flacs have Replay Gain applied at rip by dbpoweramp and would not show in this query.  What happens if a file already with Replay Gain is analyzed by JRiver?

It will simply "redo" the analysis and refill the tags. I do it all the time when refreshing parts of the my library.

BTW: There is absolutely no harm in this process...I have run every single flac file I have (60,000+) thru MC to print replay gain tags. Works perfectly.

VP

[Dawgincontrol]

Just to make sure you understand; Replay Gain is just a note in the tag of the file, just like the Artist, Album, etc.  It does not actually change the data part of the file as would volume normalizing.  That's the beauty of it.

I always use Foobar for Replay Gain, because they sort of wrote the book on it; but that's probably just me being anal with my music!!    I did a test once, and the numbers were a little different between the two programs; so, I have just stuck with my old way.  Saying that, let the same program do all the Replay Gain whether JRiver, DbPoweramp, Foobar, or whatever.  JRiver does an excellent job of reading the tag and executing it either way. 

[fmd]

Thanks VP

I am having trouble running this on only 1 playlist.  Any trick?

[Vocalpoint]

I am having trouble running this on only 1 playlist.  Any trick?

I would just highlight all the tracks...right click and choose Library Tools-> Analyze Audio

That should do it.

Then again - not sure why you would be analyzing only tracks in a "playlist" which - logically might only contain just single track from any given album - and only that single track will be analyzed - leaving the other tracks within that album with no Replay Gain values.

If it were me - I would go into Album view or similar and select as much as possible and analyze everything. But without knowing what kind of playlist it is - maybe you have a specific reason for doing it that way.

Cheers,

VP

[fmd]

This is flac library but I also import a select iTunes AAC playlist (purchased songs I consider 5 star) that I do not have a flac version of. Since they "point" to a separate library I was trying to avoid JRiver altering these files (which it does after applying Replay Gain). 

Maybe it's inconsequential............

[Vocalpoint]

Maybe it's inconsequential............

It is. You can let MC analyze everything.

It will do no harm to your aac files to have replay gain values written. It actually is better for them since you can then get Soundcheck working perfectly on an "i" device. MC applies Replay Gain and then the iPod can use those tags to keep the volume consistent during playback.

All of my mobile music for my iPod (I use MP3) is all analyzed by MC. But I do not use iTunes either. MC handles the loading of my iPod.

VP

[fmd]

What are people doing regarding the significant overall reduction in volume. Setting to Fixed + X db or living with the reduction and setting as Automatic based on Playlist? If X db what is the typical boost?  I know the risk is if you have not applied replay gain to a song an increase by x db it could be quite loud at playback

Thank you all

[Vocalpoint]

What are people doing regarding the significant overall reduction in volume. Setting to Fixed + X db or living with the reduction and setting as Automatic based on Playlist? If X db what is the typical boost?  I know the risk is if you have not applied replay gain to a song an increase by x db it could be quite loud at playback

Thank you all

I use Fixed +6.0 db on everything. Have not found a single track that sounds off with this formula.

VP

[pec]

(new user here of MC18) Great stuff in this post but my problem is when i try to analyze all my 9000 albums it freezes pc and nothing can be done. i have to hold the button in to turn of pc....so if what im reading here i can try and only analyze a playlist right

[mwillems]

(new user here of MC18) Great stuff in this post but my problem is when i try to analyze all my 9000 albums it freezes pc and nothing can be done. i have to hold the button in to turn of pc....so if what im reading here i can try and only analyze a playlist right

I had the same problem when I tried to do mine (lock ups when I tried to select the entire library at once).  My advice is to do them in batches of one or two thousand, and be patient.  For me even doing two thousand at a time, it would appear to lock up for a minute or two (and said it was "not responding"), but it was still working to add the files to the analyze pane.  It eventually cleared when I left it alone. 

[JimH]

A virus checker that is looking at every file every time any app opens it could also cause this kind of problem.

[pec]

ok thanks for the advice. i finished 2 of my main play lists and now will turn off antivirus. so what happens when i get them all done. will it automatically do new albums that i most surely add daily or will i manually need to do them?

ok i found how to analyze the new additions....

[magnust]

All my files (flac) where run through dbpoweramp to set replay gain. Works perfectly without a hitch in MC for me.

I use Fixed +6.0 db on everything. Have not found a single track that sounds off with this formula.

I've set it to fixed +4dB but on some files (with very low RG values = lower than 4 ) this results in slight clipping. So I need to keep an eye on the RG values on what I'm playing.

If you use internal volume instead of system volume this problem goes away but that is not a solution that fits my needs.

[Vocalpoint]

I've set it to fixed +4dB but on some files (with very low RG values = lower than 4 ) this results in slight clipping. So I need to keep an eye on the RG values on what I'm playing.If you use internal volume instead of system volume this problem goes away but that is not a solution that fits my needs.

Interesting. I have used +6 and Internal volume forever. No clipping or any ill effects here.

Cheers!

VP

[magnust]

Interesting. I have used +6 and Internal volume forever. No clipping or any ill effects here.

Cheers!

VP

Using internal volume solves the problem so you should be fine.

[6233638]

If you are using album-based ReplayGain, you are very unlikely to run into an album with less than -6dB of correction, and less than 6dB of headroom on the tracks. Even less likely with 4dB.
If you're using track-based ReplayGain though, I would avoid making any adjustment.

That being said, I do have at least one album with very high fidelity recordings where the album gain is -2.2dB, and four of the sixteen tracks have less than 2dB of headroom. So even if you were to only run a +4dB adjustment, you would run into clipping. If you were to run a +6dB adjustment, you would clip about half of them.


The "Automatic based on current playlist" option seems to negate the purpose of ReplayGain. It will only make your current playlist sound the same level, and if you then play something else, it will not match. The whole point of ReplainGain is to keep everything at the same relative volume.

Even undithered 16-bit audio has more than enough dynamic range for ReplayGain to work correctly, so I just use album-based gain with no adjustment, and turn up the volume on my amplifier.


I do wish that we were able to view the album gain from within MC18 though (it only lists track gain) and that we had some more control over analyze audio. I previously had everything tagged through dBpoweramp when ripping my CD library, but had to overwrite that in MC18 if I wanted Intensity (a crude dynamic range measurement) and BPM in the library. Unfortunately I have a couple of albums where there are multiple discs, and each disc has its own name. So I would want them to all have the same album value in ReplayGain, but MC18 only seems to check if the "album" tag is the same.

I've set it to fixed +4dB but on some files (with very low RG values = lower than 4 ) this results in slight clipping. So I need to keep an eye on the RG values on what I'm playing.

This will only result on clipping if the ReplayGain value is less than 4dB and there's less than 4dB of headroom in the recording. This is fairly uncommon.

[InflatableMouse]

I do wish that we were able to view the album gain from within MC18 though

But you can. Its a library field and I am using it as a pane and collumns in some views.

[6233638]

But you can. Its a library field and I am using it as a pane and collumns in some views.

How stupid of me - I was looking for "ReplayGain (Album)" or something similar when it's literally just "Album Gain"

Thanks.