Play tracks with a set db aim (Like play all at 89db) and gapless playback?

2018-07-10 16:49:49

I know there is ReplayGain and Skip Silence but they are not perfect for me.

I would like to set a volume limit for all my played audio in foobar with a certain set db such as "89db". The music should be lowered or highered, up to what db the music source has by default. Rarely it is below 89db anyway, considering the loudness war and everything... Also the files shouldn't need any edits or tags added. I mostly playback Flac and MP3 files. I am not sure if such a function is realistic or good. There also seems to be a way to use ReplayGain without adding tags? Not sure though. Also I don't get how the tool exactly changes the db. It is not like it has a option to playback all files at the same volume like what I would like to have, it just changes the db +/-. Bit confusing.

Skip Silence seems to skip some audio inside my tracks sometimes like when there is a short silence or hidden tracks. Sure, this is really rarely the case but not optimal in my opinion. Is there the same function that only skips the silence on the beginning and end of an track? Wasn't there gapless playback once? Not like I could find this DSP anymore. Or I am blind.

Thank you in advance for any help!

Re: Play tracks with a set db aim (Like play all at 89db) and gapless playback?

Reply #1 – 2018-07-10 18:07:03

1. "changing the db +/-" is just increasing / decreasing volume. ReplayGain applies different values of this "db +/-" to ensure that files are playing at the same db level of loudness. This is exactly what you want to achieve. There is not even a tiniest bit of confusion.
2. Foobar always provides gapless playback for properly encoded files in popular formats which support gapless playback as part of format specification (flac, mp3, mp4, m4a, etc.). You need short crossfading (not silence cutting) if you have incorrectly encoded for example mp3 files.
3. Unfortunately ReplayGain requires existence of tags. However you can write them to external tag-only files and keep your music files untouched (look for m-tags component and similar one made by Case).

Re: Play tracks with a set db aim (Like play all at 89db) and gapless playback?

Reply #2 – 2018-07-10 18:47:09

Oh that was helpful, thanks!

I guess I only need to change the source mode to track, processing to apply gain and leave the rest at default? There is also a tool in the options called ReplayGain scanner but its already at 89db and says make files louder or quieter so I guess that is exactly as I want it to be setuped. I am using foobar2000 1.4 beta 17 btw.

Weird with this gapless playback. I either didn't use it for my CD Rips in lossless with FLAC or it doesn't always work? I usually use EAC to rip my CDs. In fact I never saw it working really, not even with digital lossless files from Beatport, etc. Quite a few tracks have 1-3 seconds of silence at the end. Of course maybe that is normal for some and they only skip lenghts higher than that and I am just ultra picky. I found a DSP plugin called Gap Killer and it seems to work just fine for me and it only cuts silence at the beginning and ending of my music. There are no options for it though so I don't know if it has something like a 2000ms limit or if it actually intelligently scans for silent audio streams at the beginning and ending of an track.

Re: Play tracks with a set db aim (Like play all at 89db) and gapless playback?

Reply #3 – 2018-07-10 20:50:01

Hm. I noticed that maybe we are not talking about the same thing with the gapless playback. Not sure though.

I talk about silence in the beginning or ending (nearly always ending) of tracks. I don't think those are added by ripping the CD badly or using shitty codecs. I talk about those that are added when the music is mastered or put on CD. There are some records which are simply mastered with having like 1-2 seconds of silence on every track. This is even the case for digital distributions so it can't be a rip issue. Not sure why this is done, maybe more enjoyable listening for some people? Dunno... I usually don't need them and prefer my music pretty much without stop so gapless.

Sorry, just thought to mention this since I wasn't sure if we talk about the same issue. I think what you are talking about is something else. I remember this gapless stuff from many many many years ago when there were still cheap encoders and rippers like pre 2010. But I think its something different then what I mean. Most people most likely won't even care about 1-3 seconds of silence.

I actually used to manually cut those silent streams away with MP3DirectCut since they were very easily to spot with the tool but since I moved on to pretty much Flac only, I kind of miss that. Beside of the fact that I am too lazy and don't wanna edit my ripped audio anymore. And there comes that gapless audio play into play which just skips the silence at the end of the music.

Gap Killer seems to do this very well. Maybe a bit too well since it seems to have a very aggressive Algorhythm which cuts even milliseconds away and sometimes the music feels cut off now. Damn am I picky. Wish that tool had a option to gap after 1 second of silence, not instantly at like 0,0001ms. Sure, I could just use Skip Silence but it skips silence in the entire track, not only at the beginning and end. I would pretty much need that.