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Request Google Music to support Replaygain

Google Play Music still does not support Replaygain which is a real annoyance considering that many people including myself enjoy music from different eras which unfortunately vary durastically in volume thanks to the loudness war. A while ago I contacted Google requesting to implement it in a future update but did not receive any acknowledgement. Considering that these types of music services are becoming so widespread and add to the fact that Apple and Spotify have at least some form of volume normalization, I don't understand why a large company like Google would not have this essential feature.

If anyone else uses Google Play Music and would like to see Replaygain support, please send them a feedback message under the "help and feedback" option in settings. It seems that they won't hear only one person's request so if we can get more support it would be greatly appreciated and would help spread a little more awareness on the loudness war as well.




Edit: Aaaand G/A might be the wrong subforum. Apologies if that's the case

Request Google Music to support Replaygain

Reply #1 –
People have been requesting it for a while, at least as far back as 2010 from what I can remember.  Google still hasn't implemented Replaygain or something similar and that's why I use Poweramp for local audio playback.  It wasn't free ($1.99) but it works with more audio formats, it doesn't stutter over Bluetooth (something every other media player does on my Galaxy S5, it's an S5 issue though), and it supports Replaygain tags.  About the only aspect it lacks is Google Music compatibility with streaming media.  I never used that anyway as it would eat through my data plan since I listen to music more on the go, away from my home wi-fi, more than anywhere else.

Request Google Music to support Replaygain

Reply #2 –
For Android usage I turned to Winamp which works and does support replaygain rather well, but there are other players that do for free. For browser usage, that's where I really like Google Music. Standard access is also free and since you can upload at least 20000 tracks, why wouldn't I use it lol. But the lack of replaygain is a big deal breaker when it comes to paying for full access which is why I won't upgrade.

Request Google Music to support Replaygain

Reply #3 –
Sorry to disappoint, but I think that google is not interested in any feedback at all.

Someone once said that they are more machine orientated and rather tend to optimise on that end than to talk to actual users...

If also tried to give some feedback at some point of time but no response.

If you like replay gain you could still try a workaround. Convert your library with something like foobar2000 and apply the gain to the tracks. Once you've uploaded your files this should work as well except for those tracks that google matched.

Request Google Music to support Replaygain

Reply #4 –
Quote from: Chris Norman on
Sorry to disappoint, but I think that google is not interested in any feedback at all.


Well, they're a massive corporation so you can imagine how many requests get sent to them. How did gapless playback get included in Jellybean after so many people across the net requesting it? I thought that would never come, so there's still hope.

In the mean time, I second kornchild's recommendation. Poweramp is worth it not only for replaygain but the audio quality is superb.

Request Google Music to support Replaygain

Reply #5 –
I'd hate to think the same Google that's developing future tech like self-driving cars is also stuck in the 90s with their streaming audio service... but it looks like that's the case, at least for now.

I have no love for Apple in this arena either, eschewing the established ReplayGain standard for their own less-flexible standard is a calculated move to increase vendor lock-in, with the added effect of slowing adoption of any volume normalization system.

Long live owning your own music library and tagging it as you see fit. Fuck music-as-a-rental services, if I may be allowed to use those words here.

Request Google Music to support Replaygain

Reply #6 –
Quote from: ManekiNeko on
In the mean time, I second kornchild's recommendation. Poweramp is worth it not only for replaygain but the audio quality is superb.


How is it's audio quality any better than other players?

I don't believe amazon use replaygain either. It's one of those standards that doesn't seem to catch on. I would mention car stereos, but aftermarket car stereos are usually at least 5-10 years behind the curve from my experience

Request Google Music to support Replaygain

Reply #7 –
Quote from: Chris Norman on
If you like replay gain you could still try a workaround. Convert your library with something like foobar2000 and apply the gain to the tracks. Once you've uploaded your files this should work as well except for those tracks that google matched.


That would work if your lossy library consisted of mp3 files that were uploaded and the Play Music app supports replaygain tags.  One of those is fine, I'm sure you can trick Google Music into uploading the majority of your content.  However, the Play Music app doesn't support replaygain tags, that's the issue.  You can upload your tracks all you want through Google Music but it doesn't do any good if the player itself lacks replaygain compatibility.  Your solution would work only if each and every audio file is downloaded to the smartphone and played back with a different app thus defeating the purpose of streaming all together.  You might as well just buy a memory card and make the most of it if you are going to do that.

Quote from: probedb on
How is it's audio quality any better than other players?


I'm not sure what they were trying to get at and I haven't come across any audible differences between Poweramp, Google Music, the built-in Samsung app, or even doubleTwist in my completely non-scientific, sited tests.  However, I have benefited from Poweramp's customization options.  Music would skip (small pauses but the music would keep playing) with all of my music apps when playing over Bluetooth in my car, all of them.  I'm not sure if it is due to the CPU throttling, not caching the audio far enough ahead, or if it's a software-hardware communication issue.  I looked up the issue and initially thought it was a hardware/firmware problem on Samsung's end that would get fixed.  I purchased Poweramp and noticed it was skipping a whole lot more.  I then assigned the player one higher thread count giving the music a higher priority and increased the buffer to the maximum 720 ms (it might be 750 ms).  Not a single issue after the last couple of months.  So it managed to have better "quality" for me, not really audio quality itself but just overall playback quality.

Request Google Music to support Replaygain

Reply #8 –
Quote from: probedb on
Quote from: ManekiNeko on
In the mean time, I second kornchild's recommendation. Poweramp is worth it not only for replaygain but the audio quality is superb.


How is it's audio quality any better than other players?

I don't believe amazon use replaygain either.


I and my partner did a blind shoot out some years ago using his original Samsung Galaxy S (superb) using 3 players - stock gingerbread, Poweramp and Neutron. We both clearly preferred the latter two over stock (with an edge to Neutron, but man is it ugly).  I believe that certain players such as Poweramp use their own decoders and pre-processing filters. I find the pre-amp in Poweramp useful as well as the Eq for tweaking certain IEMs.

Why not just just give it a play with- it free to try

And no, Amazon player doesn't feature replay gain the last time I used it.

Request Google Music to support Replaygain

Reply #9 –
Quote from: slks on
I have no love for Apple in this arena either, eschewing the established ReplayGain standard for their own less-flexible standard is a calculated move to increase vendor lock-in, with the added effect of slowing adoption of any volume normalization system.

Apple has had sound check for as long as I can remember. I don't know when Replaygain came into the scene, but I remember my third-generation iPod had sound check and I'd be willing to bet that at the time the competition didn't have anything like it. Also, it is almost as good as you can apply Replaygain values to the sound check tag.

Request Google Music to support Replaygain

Reply #10 –
Quote from: andy o on
Quote from: slks on
I have no love for Apple in this arena either, eschewing the established ReplayGain standard for their own less-flexible standard is a calculated move to increase vendor lock-in, with the added effect of slowing adoption of any volume normalization system.

Apple has had sound check for as long as I can remember. I don't know when Replaygain came into the scene, but I remember my third-generation iPod had sound check and I'd be willing to bet that at the time the competition didn't have anything like it. Also, it is almost as good as you can apply Replaygain values to the sound check tag.
Replaygain was proposed in 2001, which is the same year the first iPod was released. Speaking of the competition, I used a rockboxed iRiver H120 with RG support in 2004 or 2005, if memory serves me well. Using google the oldest mentions I found of Soundcheck and iPods are in 2004.
It's only audiophile if it's inconvenient.

Request Google Music to support Replaygain

Reply #11 –
Right, I my first iPod was from 2003 (PDF). It probably was the first one to have Sound Check, but at the time there was not a lot of competition. Having been at the time kind of an Apple hater, it really was the best option, so I got into the iPod. Sony was still doing their transcoding shenanigans with MP3, and I think Creative were the other ones putting out an MP3 player.

The point is though, was any of the competition using RG or something like it? Did Apple "eschew the established ReplayGain standard for their own less-flexible standard in a calculated move", etc? I think this refutes the passage I quoted.

Request Google Music to support Replaygain

Reply #12 –
Quote from: andy o on
The point is though, was any of the competition using RG or something like it? Did Apple "eschew the established ReplayGain standard for their own less-flexible standard in a calculated move", etc? I think this refutes the passage I quoted.


The Sandisk players started using RG a few years after Apple reinvented it.  I don't know if apple simply wasn't aware of replaygain or not, but probably they had little interest in supporting the standard anyway.

Request Google Music to support Replaygain

Reply #13 –
Quote from: kornchild2002 on
Quote from: Chris Norman on
If you like replay gain you could still try a workaround. Convert your library with something like foobar2000 and apply the gain to the tracks. Once you've uploaded your files this should work as well except for those tracks that google matched.


That would work if your lossy library consisted of mp3 files that were uploaded and the Play Music app supports replaygain tags.  One of those is fine, I'm sure you can trick Google Music into uploading the majority of your content.  However, the Play Music app doesn't support replaygain tags, that's the issue.  You can upload your tracks all you want through Google Music but it doesn't do any good if the player itself lacks replaygain compatibility.  Your solution would work only if each and every audio file is downloaded to the smartphone and played back with a different app thus defeating the purpose of streaming all together.  You might as well just buy a memory card and make the most of it if you are going to do that.


No like you said it, it doesn't make sense. My idea was actually to convert the files again (thus the whole library) to mp3 and apply replaygain in the process. Foobar2000 has an option for that.

Cheers.
 

Re: Request Google Music to support Replaygain

Reply #14 –
Quote from: Chris Norman on

If you like replay gain you could still try a workaround. Convert your library with something like foobar2000 and apply the gain to the tracks. Once you've uploaded your files this should work as well except for those tracks that google matched.

I did exactly that.  Then downloaded an album onto my Android phone and played it in my car. But one of the tracks was some 10db louder than the previous one! Nearly caused an accident. It was someone else's upload, a track "that Google matched".  Arrrrr! 


Re: Request Google Music to support Replaygain

Reply #15 –
yet another good reason to not trust these "cloud services" especially when SD cards are cheap, and with the state of the art codec Opus one can carry a really huge amount of music, never to be betrayed by any 3rd party which suddenly decides to deny or replace something.

Re: Request Google Music to support Replaygain

Reply #16 –
Frankly at this point, any normalization attempt would do for me. I know Spotify has the option, though who knows if it's ReplayGain. I've given up on Google doing anything about it. I applied mp3gain on my tracks years ago when uploading them (about 1200) to Play Music, and over time many of them lost it cause apparently they got matched, and now my library is a volume mess.

And worse, Google with their short attention span, now are going to deprecate GPM in favor of Youtube Music, and it's basically starting from scratch, YTM is very basic and has less features, not even an EQ at this point, nor the ability to upload your own songs.
 
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