First, let me introduce myself, as I've been lurking around the forum before, but never get registered until now
I'm guess I'm sorry for that. Anyway, this is the matter...
I have a 16-track album in FLAC format and I decided to make a DR analysis of them (like I always do, since I have around 300+ FLAC albums).
Software used:
Foobar2000 1.1.11
Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1
CUETools 2.1.2a
FLAC: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)
So, I drag-and-drop the tracks into Foobar playlist, right click over the playlist > Contents > Dynamic Range Meter
At the end, Foobar displayed the following window:
(http://i.minus.com/imvJLk2jXEQYh.jpg)
...and the following log:
foobar2000 1.1.11 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1
log date: 2012-03-30 9:55:54
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Analyzed: Album
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DR Peak RMS Duration Track
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
DR12 -2.28 dB -17.67 dB 1:36 01-Track 01
DR4 -0.21 dB -6.37 dB 5:56 02-Track 02
DR5 -0.20 dB -9.40 dB 1:19 03-Track 03
DR4 -0.21 dB -5.34 dB 4:24 04-Track 04
DR11 -0.33 dB -15.82 dB 1:01 05-Track 05
DR3 -0.21 dB -5.66 dB 4:52 06-Track 06
DR6 -0.20 dB -8.42 dB 5:15 07-Track 07
DR15 -1.19 dB -19.38 dB 1:48 08-Track 08
DR4 -0.20 dB -6.89 dB 3:37 09-Track 09
DR11 -3.22 dB -25.33 dB 3:59 10-Track 10
DR9 -1.24 dB -17.72 dB 1:01 11-Track 11
DR5 -0.20 dB -6.47 dB 4:40 12-Track 12
DR12 -0.20 dB -16.67 dB 2:48 13-Track 13
DR12 -0.21 dB -18.80 dB 0:46 14-Track 14
DR4 -0.21 dB -6.11 dB 3:32 15-Track 15
DR8 -0.21 dB -14.49 dB 8:20 16-Track 16
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Number of tracks: 16
Official DR value: DR8
Samplerate: 44100 Hz
Channels: 2
Bits per sample: 16
Bitrate: 482 kbps
Codec: FLAC
================================================================================
(the tracks with high DR value are just intros, spoken parts, skits, interludes, etc...)Then, with the CUE + FLAC tracks, I made a WAV Image using CUE Tools.
After finished, just to check I run a DR analysis again... with very strange results.
After finished, Foobar displayed the following window:
(http://i.minus.com/iFOcD0zhvgRSZ.jpg)
...and the following log:
foobar2000 1.1.11 / Dynamic Range Meter 1.1.1
log date: 2012-03-30 10:10:51
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Statistics for: ?-Image
Number of samples: 145233060
Duration: 54:53
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Left Right
Peak Value: -0.20 dB --- -0.20 dB
Avg RMS: -8.04 dB --- -8.65 dB
DR channel: 4.00 dB --- 4.56 dB
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Official DR Value: DR4
Samplerate: 44100 Hz
Channels: 2
Bits per sample: 16
Bitrate: 1411 kbps
Codec: PCM
================================================================================
What the heck...
So I run a RG scan. First from the FLACK tracks:
(http://i.minus.com/iZWFUuPMk6HoF.PNG)
(yes, the album suffer from Loudness War)...and then another from the WAV Image:
(http://i.minus.com/iL1nBeqLnrM4B.PNG)
Same loudness. So definitely there's no kind of limiting whatsoever: both sounds and (clearly) are, without a doubt, the same.
Just to be clear, in case some track(s) were repeated or missing during analysis, I did this like
four times,... same results.
This actually happened yesterday, so I thought maybe it could something that might get fixed when restaring the PC or something.
I came today and got the same results. Besides, I updated Foobat long ago (weeks, maybe over and month), any problems so far, so it's discarded.
Frankly, it's the first time I have no clue what's going on. I hope you guys can help to find the answer.
Greetings.
I would use the developer's feedback form at http://www.jokhan.demon.nl/DynamicRange/index.htm (http://www.jokhan.demon.nl/DynamicRange/index.htm) to ask about this. Maybe just point him to this thread.
This might have something to do with the "Grouping" option of foo_dynamic_range. Try checking all the boxes.
I don't think there are any problems, you are analyzing a whole image without a cuesheet to virtually split it into tracks and the dynamic range meter takes somehow into account loud parts only. Thus, this hardly surprising if you get a low result since the whole image contains hypercompressed passages. When the album is split (as files or with a cuesheet) into tracks, then value for the album will be the average DR values of the individual tracks, which is certainly different than the DR value of the album regarded as one single song.