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Topic: FB2K - Boosting Low Volume Songs (Read 6298 times) previous topic - next topic
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FB2K - Boosting Low Volume Songs

I am trying to boost the volume of the quieter tracks while leaving the tracks that are already at the loudest level to stay where they are. I already received some great information in another thread in the general forum - http://www.hydrogenaud.io/forums/index.php...=107877&hl=

Since my questions are now specific to FB2K, I am moving my questions to this forum.

There is a ReplayGain setting to "Only increase volume". Is it correct to assume that this means that tracks that are at or above the target volume will not be touched?

The default target volume is 89 db, what is the max target volume?

Is there any reason why not to have the target volume at max? (assuming no clipping).

FB2K - Boosting Low Volume Songs

Reply #1 –
Where do you see this 'only increase volume' setting? Is it 'Preferences/Playback/ReplayGain/processing/apply gain'? If so, it should go both ways, since the ReplayGain values can be both positive and negative (thus either bringing up quiet tracks or down the loud ones to target level).

Why are you trying to change the target volume? If you find your songs are too quiet after normalization, foobar has a preamp setting on the same page to boost them back up.

FB2K - Boosting Low Volume Songs

Reply #2 –
Quote from: Snash on
There is a ReplayGain setting to "Only increase volume". Is it correct to assume that this means that tracks that are at or above the target volume will not be touched?

That is correct. It will only not touch files unless a boost is required to reach target.

Quote from: Snash on
The default target volume is 89 db, what is the max target volume?

foobar2000 has hardcoded limit of 100 dB.

Quote from: Snash on
Is there any reason why not to have the target volume at max? (assuming no clipping).

If you don't care about ReplayGain and its intended usage to have all files or albums at the same loudness, then no. If you did care about this the reason would be that there are many tracks that can't be boosted to such high levels without clipping.

Quote from: Daeron on
Where do you see this 'only increase volume' setting?

The setting is in Advanced for ReplayGain's file alteration operation. Currently usable with MP3s and MP4s with AAC audio.

FB2K - Boosting Low Volume Songs

Reply #3 –
Quote from: Daeron on
Why are you trying to change the target volume? If you find your songs are too quiet after normalization, foobar has a preamp setting on the same page to boost them back up.

See the original thread:
Quote from: Snash on
I adjusted my library to use "album gain" using F2K, not as tags but actually updating the file. Most albums were changed to be quieter, and some to be louder. I also turned on soundcheck* for when shuffling. Now when shuffling I do not get the jarring changes in volume. When I listen to albums, the album gain is consistent throughout the album.

Quote from: Snash on
Since I have normalized my collection I am finding that for the most part, I need to keep my car radio turned all the way up. This is as a result of the louder tracks being normalized downward. Although I got exactly what I asked for (a more consistent volume when shuffling), I would like to find a compromise here. Using F2K can I boost only the quieter songs, leaving the rest alone?


The preamp doesn't help him because he is not using fb2k for playback.

These are MP3s or M4As that he has done 'apply album gain' on. The natural playback volume of the files is within 0.75 dB of the 89.0 dB target, on a per-album basis. He is unhappy with the quieter songs on the albums being as quiet as they are.

He could switch to track gain, getting truly consistent volume but not have quieter songs play quieter at all ... or he could use a higher target like, say, 94, which will nearly double the volume level of everything, but also will require him to make a decision about whether to live with clipping when the originally-under-94-dB albums-without-headroom are boosted. To avoid clipping, he can boost those albums as far as possible without clipping, i.e. tick the "prevent clipping" checkbox...which will result in them being slightly quieter than the rest, maybe sometimes a lot quieter, so he probably doesn't want that. The "only increase volume" checkbox is useless now that he's normalized everything; every album will be affected.

He could try setting the target to 94, apply album gain, and see how the albums that were originally quiet (if he remembers which ones they are) sound during their loudest parts. If the clipping isn't terrible, then great, stick with that. If not, take it down to like 92 and see if that will be acceptable.

If he has the option of starting over with the unnormalized library, he could use "only increase volume" with a target of 94 or whatever, and then only his quieter albums would be boosted. His louder albums would remain at an inconsistent volume relative to each other, and the quieter albums would never be too quiet on a per-album basis. Still, on a per-song basis, he could end up with some songs being too quiet. Really this doesn't seem like a good idea.

In my car, I'm just listening to tracks on shuffle play and often have the windows open, so album gain is pointless. I'm blaring music over the road/engine/wind noise, so how much range do I really need? Might as well just use track gain. That's what I do, and keeping the target at 89 dB helps me keep from blowing my speakers when I crank the knob. Worrying about dynamic range is something for when I'm listening with headphones at home.

So my advice is to use track gain on everything.

To answer the original question, though, starting from the point he's at now, he can boost only the quieter songs and not reduce the volume of louder songs just by making sure that the songs to be boosted are the only ones selected in the playlist for the apply track gain operation. In the album list filter box, he could do %REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN% GREATER 0. Or he could add a playlist column for track gain (%REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN%), sort on it, and manually select and remove anything whose track gain is not above zero. The caveat is that once he applies track gain to any files, he can't recover their original volume relative to the rest of the album.

FB2K - Boosting Low Volume Songs

Reply #4 –
Yes, but why not Track Gain everything as you said and convert with Track Gain + 3db (or whatever boost is required) with the Advanced Limiter added as a DSP in the converter dialog. So you get everything at equal perceptual volume, louder and not clipped.

Quote
Advanced Limiter : This DSP is really useful to avoid clipping problems, it will detect peaks and cut those to avoid any kind of clipping, it cuts what is needed and is not limited unlike the hard -6dB limiter. It could be useful with Replaygain.

Source: http://eolindel.free.fr/foobar0.9/DSP.php

C.

EDIT: Ah, just seen that the files are lossy and thus the above would require a transcode. Not ideal. Though in a car stereo would it be noticeable if transcoded to high bitrate AAC?
PC = TAK + LossyWAV  ::  Portable = Opus (130)

FB2K - Boosting Low Volume Songs

Reply #5 –
Quote from: mjb2006 on
If he has the option of starting over with the unnormalized library, he could use "only increase volume" with a target of 94 or whatever, and then only his quieter albums would be boosted. His louder albums would remain at an inconsistent volume relative to each other, and the quieter albums would never be too quiet on a per-album basis. Still, on a per-song basis, he could end up with some songs being too quiet. Really this doesn't seem like a good idea.

In my car, I'm just listening to tracks on shuffle play and often have the windows open, so album gain is pointless. I'm blaring music over the road/engine/wind noise, so how much range do I really need? Might as well just use track gain. That's what I do, and keeping the target at 89 dB helps me keep from blowing my speakers when I crank the knob. Worrying about dynamic range is something for when I'm listening with headphones at home.


mjb2006 - Thank you so much for the detailed response and the time you took to review the original note. Your summation was spot on.

I am able to go back to the original unnormalized version of my collection and start over again.

I will be happy if I can bring all songs up to the highest level they can get to without clipping. I realize that this will still leave some issues with the variations in loudness, but it will be improved, it is a tradeoff between the two.

Based also on Case's response as well I think I can get to my goal by:

File content alteration:
- Only increase volume - Yes
- Prevent clipping - Yes
- Target volume level (dB) : 100

Does this make sense?

FB2K - Boosting Low Volume Songs

Reply #6 –
Maybe you'd like vLevel ?

vLevel

FB2K - Boosting Low Volume Songs

Reply #7 –
Quote from: Snash on
I am able to go back to the original unnormalized version of my collection and start over again.

I will be happy if I can bring all songs up to the highest level they can get to without clipping. I realize that this will still leave some issues with the variations in loudness, but it will be improved, it is a tradeoff between the two.

Based also on Case's response as well I think I can get to my goal by:

File content alteration:
- Only increase volume - Yes
- Prevent clipping - Yes
- Target volume level (dB) : 100

Does this make sense?


Not really, because as you already noticed, nearly every album—including many of the quieter ones—have no room for increasing the gain without clipping.

FB2K - Boosting Low Volume Songs

Reply #8 –
Quote from: mjb2006 on
Quote from: Snash on
I am able to go back to the original unnormalized version of my collection and start over again.

I will be happy if I can bring all songs up to the highest level they can get to without clipping. I realize that this will still leave some issues with the variations in loudness, but it will be improved, it is a tradeoff between the two.

Based also on Case's response as well I think I can get to my goal by:

File content alteration:
- Only increase volume - Yes
- Prevent clipping - Yes
- Target volume level (dB) : 100

Does this make sense?


Not really, because as you already noticed, nearly every album—including many of the quieter ones—have no room for increasing the gain without clipping.


True, but when I did it last time the target dB was 89. Now it will be 100. So is it correct to assume that more albums would be increased? Also that there would be more increase for each album than before?

I realize that I'm using the tool somewhat not as intended, but I guess the root question I have is "when mastered, why doesn't every album have its peaks the highest that is available to the medium (i.e., CD)? Please note that I'm not asking to use DRC, I'd love wider DR, just master the peaks at the top.

FB2K - Boosting Low Volume Songs

Reply #9 –
Most CDs do peak at digital full scale. Most of those that don't (typically early CDs) aren't that far away. The number of CDs that will become significantly louder by peak normalising them is very very small compared with the total number of CDs made.

A decent playback system should be able to play back "quiet" CDs more than loud enough. So try to figure out...

Why is iTunes playback too quiet for you?
Why is iPhone playback too quiet for you?

Maybe it's the EU volume cap? If you're in Europe, Google remove eu volume limit iphone.
Maybe it's inefficient headphones?

You can make the older/quieter CDs louder through dynamic range compression, but you really shouldn't have to - especially not at home with iTunes or on an iPhone with reasonable headphones/earphones.

Cheers,
David.

FB2K - Boosting Low Volume Songs

Reply #10 –
Quote from: 2Bdecided on
Most CDs do peak at digital full scale. Most of those that don't (typically early CDs) aren't that far away. The number of CDs that will become significantly louder by peak normalising them is very very small compared with the total number of CDs made.

A decent playback system should be able to play back "quiet" CDs more than loud enough. So try to figure out...

Why is iTunes playback too quiet for you?
Why is iPhone playback too quiet for you?

Maybe it's the EU volume cap? If you're in Europe, Google remove eu volume limit iphone.
Maybe it's inefficient headphones?

You can make the older/quieter CDs louder through dynamic range compression, but you really shouldn't have to - especially not at home with iTunes or on an iPhone with reasonable headphones/earphones.

Cheers,
David.


I'm not in EU. Maybe I'm going deaf. I'll need to get back to this next week.