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Topic: Normalization of ALAC (Read 7023 times) previous topic - next topic
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Normalization of ALAC

Hi, I have a largish collection of ALAC files, some cd sourced others from downloaded flacs. I converted them all using XLD which I really like. My 2 main uses are on idevices and on XBMC connected to my TV's and sound systems.

I have run them all through iVolume to have nomalised playback, which works fine on my idevices, but not in XBMC. Unfortunately XBMC won't recognize the iTuneNorm tag.

Going forward, for new music, I have found that dbpoweramp does do the job that I need. It inserts the nomalisation into the iTuneNorm tag for iTunes & idevices and it also adds replaygain tags for other players like XBMC. I don't like dbpoweramp quite as much as XLD, but if it does the job, so be it. I have put in a feature request with XLD, so that would be perfect if that happened.

My main problem however is my existing ALAC library. I could use dbpoweramp to reconvert the entire library, but this would be really slow and cumbersome. It would be much better if I could just add the replay gain tags to the ALAC files in place. I've have done some pretty extensive searching and I havent been able to find any way of doing this. I have access to Mac, Windows or Linux and comfortable using CLI or scripts. Any ideas how I might be able to do this efficiently would be much appreciated.

Normalization of ALAC

Reply #1 –
I think that foobar2000 does support the alac format (inside aifc, i think). Maybe you could use that to update the tags.

Normalization of ALAC

Reply #2 –
^Exactly.  You can run foobar2000 on Windows or on or OSX using WineSkin:
http://www.foobar2000.org/
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....howtopic=105233

Just drag your ALAC albums over to foobar2000 main window, select all and right-click to "ReplayGain" > "Scan selection as albums (by tags)".  When done, right-click to "Properties" and you should see new ReplayGain tags at the bottom of the "Properties" tab.  Your ITUNESNORM tags will be unchanged at the bottom of the "Metadata" tab.  I don't think this will screw anything up with regard to iTunes/Sound Check, but you may want to test a few albums before batching your entire library.

Normalization of ALAC

Reply #3 –
OK, excellent! Thanks for the replies. I will check it out.

Normalization of ALAC

Reply #4 –
Yep! That certainly seems to do the trick. A foobar2000 is a little bit clunky on my mac. No window frames and some of the buttons are messed up, but it works so that's the main thing. Perhaps a bit of configuration at some point will sort that out.

Now, in my library, I also have a fair swag of mp3 & aac files that I have previously normalised with mp3gain & aacgain. Would there be any harm in just running foorbar2000 replaygain analysis over the entire library, rather than trying to pare out the ALAC files?

Thanks again for your help!

Normalization of ALAC

Reply #5 –
Quote from: pssturges on
Now, in my library, I also have a fair swag of mp3 & aac files that I have previously normalised with mp3gain & aacgain. Would there be any harm in just running foorbar2000 replaygain analysis over the entire library, rather than trying to pare out the ALAC files?


Since the gain has already been adjusted to the replaygain reference, the tags will all be nearly 0dB, and so shouldn't really do anything, except maybe give you slightly more accurate volume equalization.

Normalization of ALAC

Reply #6 –
That's what I thought. Just wanted to make sure there wouldn't be any undesirable side effects. Thanks!

Normalization of ALAC

Reply #7 –
In fact, it is recommended to rescan those mp3 and aac with foobar2000. The reasoning is that the current implementation uses the EBU-128 way of calculating the loudness, while the old and mp3gain/aacgain use the initial replaygain calculation way.
Generally, one can expect some discrepancies around 1 to 2 dB up or down, aside of the fact that mp3gain is limited to work in steps of 1.5dB.

The only point to take care is that by default foobar does not scan for replaygain in a file that is already replaygained.
When asked to do so on a file, the user is asked for confirmation, but if one selects some files replaygained and some which arent, and then calculate, only those that don't have replaygain are actually scanned.