In a much older version of Foobar, I was able to make custom metadata fields and they would be what ever I put the name as. I'm not sure if I changed something of if it was part of an update, but now all nonstandard (and even many standard) fields are stored in the metadata as: 'foobar2000/CUSTOM1', 'foobar2000/play_count' and so on.
Is there a way to make it not add the 'foobar2000/' part?
Specifically this happens in wav and wma files. Not in ogg. I'm using windows 7 and 10.
In Foobar the field names in question look like <CUSTOM1>
to see the 'foobar2000/' part I read the metadata using the jaudiotagger library. Or you can see it with the dBpoweramp Edit ID-Tag tool.
So I have also noticed that this seems to be some sort of standard among some programs. Some of the metadata tags created in Gold Wave have a 'GW/' in front of them.
It would be nice if there were a way to turn this off in Foobar2000. By turning it off the metadata would be more universal and manipulable across other programs.
I haven't tested it yet, but I was thinking of using a dBpoweramp DSP to calculate and create replay gain tags. I'm almost willing to bet that Foobar2000 will ignore them because they won't have the 'foobar2000/' tacked onto the tag.
Please correct me if I'm wrong.
It would also be nice to understand the reasoning of why this was implemented in the first place.
I thought WMA had become extinct. ;)
You're probably safe with the ReplayGain data. According to Mp3tag, fb2k doesn't add "foobar2000/" to replay gain tags for WMA files. There's no "foobar2000/" added to custom fields for M4A or MP3, so I guess there's WMA reasons for it that I don't understand.
Could I ask why you wouldn't use fb2k's ReplayGain scanner for calculating and saving ReplayGain tags? Not that it matters. I'm just curious....
To be honest the first reason was because of the extra words in front of the tag.
The next reason is to see if it gives a more accurate seeming volume adjustment. What I'm finding is that songs that already have a good amount of dynamic range, sound louder than songs that don't, after my processing. The processing adds some dynamics, but they don't seem to affect the replay gain calculation.
The fb2k scanner uses the EBU R128 (https://tech.ebu.ch/loudness/) scanning algorithm these days, rather than the original ReplayGain method. The R128 scanning seems a little more accurate to me. I don't know which one dBpoweramp uses but if the scanning method is the same the result should be the same, or there's something wrong.
But nothing's perfect. I have three compressor DSPs I use semi-regularly on soundtrack audio and I've compared them by compressing with each, scanning the compressed audio and listening to each version at the same target volume, and normally it's what you'd expect, even if sometimes one version has louder peaks or wasn't compressed as evenly etc, but for one DSP, virtually every time I compare it to the other two it's output sounds noticeably louder at the same target volume. I''ve no idea why. I guess there's no such thing as a perfect method for determining volume.
I fully agree with that.
dBpoweramp can pick from a few options, but the one that works best is the EBU R128. Thanks for letting me know. Now I don't have to go down that redundant path.
On that note, do you (or anyone) know if EBU R128 will increase volume?
R128 usually gains down compressed material with a lot of boomy bass and boosted treble harder than the original ReplayGain algorithm, usually by around 1 dB. The R128 frequency equalization curve (K-weighting) is simple and flat down to 120hz, and ultrasonics are considered more audible... You can have both scanners with an old version of foobar installed portable side by side.
To me, dynamic music also seems louder at low listening volume, where I hear mostly the peaks, but at loud levels both are close again. I notice this with post-disco, house and old dance music with mostly only drums playing. So a single gain value might not work for all listening conditions.
If your processing involves phase shift with an equalizer or something like the deceptive relife plugin, then the average power and replaygain value shouldn't change despite the increased peaks.
No it's a declipper. Specifically, it's an old version of Stereo Tool, with just the declipper active. I have a dynamic compressor I made to tidy up after it. It's for my compressor, and other programs I've made, that I want to be able to modify custom metadata tags.
I just ran a few more songs and found that R128 does indeed need to be applied on some songs. The first few I tried it didn't make a difference.
To me, dynamic music also seems louder at low listening volume, where I hear mostly the peaks, but at loud levels both are close again. I notice this with post-disco, house and old dance music with mostly only drums playing. So a single gain value might not work for all listening conditions.
I agree that at louder volumes the difference seems to go away.
That declipper is very good. But the contribution of the short restored peaks to the average level is small and will not change ReplayGain by much.
If it were just restoring the clipped portions, I would agree. And on maybe most songs, it doesn't make a difference. However, with the settings I have it on, it also tries to restore dynamics at the same time. I ran it on a one track album, and the R128 volume it got set to before processing, was much lower than what it got set to after processing.