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Topic: How to make tracks on different albums sound equally loud? (Read 6620 times) previous topic - next topic
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How to make tracks on different albums sound equally loud?

Hello,
    I only have 500GB hard disk which makes it difficult for me to store all the music I want on it.(used for other purposes also)
What I do is take all the songs from different albums and compile them into one album in order to save space. Now this arises a problem of all the tracks in my "user made compilations" sound at different loudness because they are different encodes coming from different sources. I don't have this problem on my computer since my player takes care of it but on my portable device (Nokia cell) I've to adjust the volume every now and then and it's difficult while I'm driving.

I couldn't find a DSP plugin with which I could make them all sound equally loud. I so desperately tried to learn Replay Gain but all in vein. I also tried to use Volume normalizer in dbpoweramp, yeah it alters the loudness of the file but that doesn't seem to alter all the files at the same level of loudness. Is there any other "EASY" way to accomplish it? Any help will be greatly appreciated.

Also, I use dbpoweramp if that makes any difference.

Thanks.

How to make tracks on different albums sound equally loud?

Reply #1
Could you please explain how it saves space to compile all of your songs into one album?

How to make tracks on different albums sound equally loud?

Reply #2
Quote
Could you please explain how it saves space to compile all of your songs into one album?

Yeah, I didn't quite understand that either.

If using dbpoweramp, I'd suggest trying EBUR 128 Normalize instead of the volume normalizer. Set to -18 LUFS, they'll come out very similar in loudness to ReplayGain but already baked into the file so any other device/player will play it the same.

How to make tracks on different albums sound equally loud?

Reply #3
Could you please explain how it saves space to compile all of your songs into one album?
I guess he is deduplicating his multiple copies of a track by arbitrarily choosing one version of the song and deleting the others, without taking into account that they all might be mastered differently. That this is a pretty bad idea should be quite obvious, because the gain is minimal but it creates a lot of headaches and micromanagement.
It's only audiophile if it's inconvenient.

How to make tracks on different albums sound equally loud?

Reply #4
Could you please explain how it saves space to compile all of your songs into one album?


Suppose that some artist has released 10 albums. I only like one song of each album so instead of keeping ten full albums, I'd take that each song and compile it into an album of ten tracks. This and my compilations are also created on the basis of genre's/languages Etc.

How to make tracks on different albums sound equally loud?

Reply #5
Suppose that some artist has released 10 albums. I only like one song of each album so instead of keeping ten full albums, I'd take that each song and compile it into an album of ten tracks. This and my compilations are also created on the basis of genre's/languages Etc.
So I guessed wrong, excuse me.

You could apply ReplayGain data directly to the audio stream. If I remember correctly MP3Gain will do that in a reversible fashion, so if your files are MP3 you can just use that. Of course there is no guarantee that these songs will actually sound equally loud to you, since they likely are all mastered differently, but that is the best approach I can think of without having to do a lot of manual work. I mean, 14 hours of work at minimum wage will allow you to buy a 2 TB hard disk which should solve this problem for a long, long time.
It's only audiophile if it's inconvenient.

How to make tracks on different albums sound equally loud?

Reply #6
If using dbpoweramp, I'd suggest trying EBUR 128 Normalize instead of the volume normalizer. Set to -18 LUFS, they'll come out very similar in loudness to ReplayGain but already baked into the file so any other device/player will play it the same.


Yeah, in order to accomplish this task I did tried it yesterday and it actually altered the the Track gain value on the song. But I just couldn't seem to get the right values. With the default values my track came out as +6.67, earlier it was -10.86. The output value I believed was way to low. I was looking for something like -7/6/5.

Thanks for the help, I'll try with -18 as you're suggesting and I'll post the results.

How to make tracks on different albums sound equally loud?

Reply #7
So I guessed wrong, excuse me.

You could apply ReplayGain data directly to the audio stream. If I remember correctly MP3Gain will do that in a reversible fashion, so if your files are MP3 you can just use that. Of course there is no guarantee that these songs will actually sound equally loud to you, since they likely are all mastered differently, but that is the best approach I can think of without having to do a lot of manual work.


Ah, don't be so formal:)

On topic: It's a good solution you're suggesting and the best part is that it doesn't re-encode the lossy encodes but the problem is most of my audio data is in lossless. Isn't there a solution for both lossless and lossy?

How to make tracks on different albums sound equally loud?

Reply #8
Oddly enough, changing the volume of a file can be lossless for a lossy file, but is lossy for a lossless file (unless you are just changing a tag that affects playback volume).

To change the volume of a lossless file requires decoding it, processing it, and then reencoding it. I don't know of an application that does this automatically.

How to make tracks on different albums sound equally loud?

Reply #9
You could apply ReplayGain data directly to the audio stream. If I remember correctly MP3Gain will do that in a reversible fashion, so if your files are MP3 you can just use that. Of course there is no guarantee that these songs will actually sound equally loud to you, since they likely are all mastered differently, but that is the best approach I can think of without having to do a lot of manual work. I mean, 14 hours of work at minimum wage will allow you to buy a 2 TB hard disk which should solve this problem for a long, long time.


Tried MP3Gain, it's easy and fast and does everything by itself without having to calculate/manually operated.

Apparently it has done the task (almost). Album now sounds lot quieter and I'm actually listen to some synths in the background which I previously couldn't.

Few questions though, what value should I use as "target normal value" by default it's 89. (The idea is to evade the distortion this process may cause.)

Should I use Album Gain or Track Gain?

Lastly, on the album I loaded into it,  there were two tracks which it said won't be clipping. What does  this cliping thing is anyway?

How to make tracks on different albums sound equally loud?

Reply #10
Quote
Apparently it has done the task (almost). Album now sounds lot quieter...
Many quiet-sounding songs have short-term peaks that hit the 0dB maximum.  Since you can't boost your quiet songs (without distorting), the only way you (or ReplayGain) can match volumes is by reducing the volume of the loud-sounding songs.  Overall, your music will tend to be quieter after applying ReplayGain.  Your quieter songs will be boosted or unchanged.

Perceived loudness is poorly correlated with the peak level.  Loudness is more related to the average dB level and the frequency content.    But, the peak level determines how loud you can go without clipping (distorting).

Quote
...and I'm actually listen to some synths in the background which I previously couldn't.
So you can hear the details better at lower volume???  OK, strange, but that's no different from using the volume control.

Quote
Few questions though, what value should I use as "target normal value" by default it's 89. (The idea is to evade the distortion this process may cause.)
I'd stick with the default.  It's a compromise.  If you use a higher value, many of your songs won't be adjusted at all (unless you allow clipping).  A lower value gives ReplayGain more "room to work", but results in quieter files.

Quote
Should I use Album Gain or Track Gain?
In your case, track gain.  Track gain tries to make all of the songs equally loud.  Album gain tries to keep all of your albums equally loud while adjustig all of the songs in the album by the same amount.    The goal is to keep quiet songs quiet and loud songs loud, maintaining the relative volumes on the album as originally intended.   

Quote
Lastly, on the album I loaded into it, there were two tracks which it said won't be clipping. What does this cliping thing is anyway?
Clipping is distorted flat-topped waves.  There is a limit to how high you can "count" with a limited number of bits.    If you try to go higher your file may clip (depending on the format) or your digital-to-analog converter will clip.    Clipping is also what happens if you crank up the volume and try to get 110 Watts out of a 100W amplifier.   

ReplayGain gives you a choice - The default is to limit the amount of volume boost so that you never go over 0dB.  That means some songs won't be as loud as others.    There is the option for allowing distortion if you want the song to be louder.

 

How to make tracks on different albums sound equally loud?

Reply #11
So you can hear the details better at lower volume???  OK, strange, but that's no different from using the volume control.


Yep, I truly can.

Thanks a lot for all the necessary information and the suggestions, I'll work around those.

Thanks everybody for responding and helping me out

Keep rockin' folks.