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Topic: Normalize Volume (Read 17009 times) previous topic - next topic
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Normalize Volume

HEy folks!

is it possible (with foobar or any other application) to normalize the volume of all my audio - files to a certain level at once? .. because with dBpowerAMP e.g. you only can normalize it while converting some file, and you cant normalize all together : \

thanks and regards
magni

Normalize Volume

Reply #1 –
In foobar you can replaygain all your music together, which is similar, though superior, to normalizing it. Just right-click on a selection and choose which type of replaygain you want. This is stored in tags though, rather than changing the files. To do this you need a program like mp3gain, depending on the file type.

For more information see http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Replaygain

Normalize Volume

Reply #2 –
Quote
For more information see http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Replaygain
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Yay! Great! Thanks for pointing out to the wiki... makes us wiki contributors feel our work appreciated 

>magni: well in the end it depends on where you want to play the files. if on your pc, then replaygain is best. if you plan on playing them on portable DAPs... never found one which support replaygain so i guess normalizing is needed.

For mass-normalization, i use MediaMonkey. Rarely do it however.

Normalize Volume

Reply #3 –
ye i need it for my portable mp3 - player, so i'll try MediaMonkey .. but thanks donnie anyway, i think i'll use this for the music located on my pc : ) ..
and are there any risks when mass - normalize the files?? does the sound quality decrease or the file itself gets larger, or anything like that?! would be nice to know, because it's a quite large amount of audio - files and i unfortunately have no space on my harddrive to copy them first : ((

thanks!!,
and greetings
magni

/edit: i've installed mediamonkey now and i have a question; can i add the audio - files i got in my foobar database into the one of mediamonkey without causing any complications / problems?? and without mediamonkey forces any changes on that files, so nothing will be changed in foobar (except the normalization of course ) .. thanks!

Normalize Volume

Reply #4 –
Quote
ye i need it for my portable mp3 - player, so i'll try MediaMonkey .. but thanks donnie anyway, i think i'll use this for the music located on my pc : ) ..
and are there any risks when mass - normalize the files?? does the sound quality decrease or the file itself gets larger, or anything like that?! would be nice to know, because it's a quite large amount of audio - files and i unfortunately have no space on my harddrive to copy them first : ((

thanks!!,
and greetings
magni
[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=360575"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]



I personally wouldn't suggest normalizing with media monkey as replaygaining is generally considered better. But then I haven't used media monkey or listened to the results of normalization so I can't really comment. Check to see whether the changes are reversible first. Also, I doubt there's any sort of album gain equivalent, which would rule this out as an option for me.

However, there are several ways to use replaygain for a DAP. If your files are mp3's, you can use mp3gain ensuring that the changes are not made to the tags. These changes are not easily reversible but they do not increase the size of the file and do not decrease quality (in any significant way).

If your files are lossless you can apply replaygain in foobar and then use its converter, ensuring that the use replaygain in conversions option is selected, to create replaygained lossy files for your DAP. This also means that you do not need to permanently alter your archive files.

I assume you have mp3's without ay lossless archive. In which case, mp3 gain seems like the most logical solution.

Normalize Volume

Reply #5 –
Well, i thought i can't use the replaygain for a DAP at all (i have a Creative Zen Micro 6GB .. but i think this doesnt matter, does it?) .. my audio - files are mp3's and wma's, lossy in both cases ..
.. maybe this helps?

greets
magni

/edit: and how can i 'normalize' the volume for my wma's, so that the DPA supports it, or at least plays the files e.g. at 89dB, if i want him to .. thx!

.. got another question ^^ .. how can i found out which dB a certain file has? .. my foobar only shows in the right corner e.g. -7,56 dB, but i think this obtains to foobar itself (volume control) .. so if a file has 13dB it means (13 - 7,56) and if i play another file the output - volume changes again .. so, help please !! : ) .. thank you
/edit:  .. i found out how to check the dB .. but not the other stuff yet, so thx for help!!

Normalize Volume

Reply #6 –
Quote
Well, i thought i can't use the replaygain for a DAP at all (i have a Creative Zen Micro 6GB .. but i think this doesnt matter, does it?) .. my audio - files are mp3's and wma's, lossy in both cases ..
.. maybe this helps?

greets
magni

/edit: and how can i 'normalize' the volume for my wma's, so that the DPA supports it, or at least plays the files e.g. at 89dB, if i want him to .. thx!

.. got another question ^^ .. how can i found out which dB a certain file has? .. my foobar only shows in the right corner e.g. -7,56 dB, but i think this obtains to foobar itself (volume control) .. so if a file has 13dB it means (13 - 7,56) and if i play another file the output - volume changes again .. so, help please !! : ) .. thank you
/edit:  .. i found out how to check the dB .. but not the other stuff yet, so thx for help!!
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Yeah, of course you can use replaygain on a DAP. So long as you change the volume of the file the player has to play the file at whatever level it reads it. You can't use a tag based replaygain system though unless the player - portable or otherwise - supports it.

I am in a similar situation to you. I have a large number of mp3s as well as a few wma files I "inheritted" from a friend. All my new mp3's are encoded with permenant  album gain i.e. I lower all the volumes of every album to 89db so that they sound the same on my player (a creative zen touch). I actually do this in a single step using several programs together (eac, wack, wavegain, flac encoder, lame) but you can also achieve this by ripping the files and then using mp3gain, which is a lot simpler. This is exactly whay I intend to do to all my old mp3's.

wma files pose more of a problem. As far as I know, there is no program that can permenantly reduce their volume without losing quality. If you find a program which can do this, please let me know 

The only possible solution I can think of is to convert them to wav files (which creative players support) and then use wavegain (the wave file version of mp3gain). This would obviously take up more space and battery life on the player and is not ideal. I don't think it would lose you any quality though (so long as you didn't then attempt to convert these back to mp3 or wma files, which would be bad). I am considering doing this with some of my wma files as I only have 1gb of them.

Normalize Volume

Reply #7 –
Another problem i noticed is that MP3Gain seem to overwrite the tags of my mp3's if i change the volume, no matter if its constant or just per tag .. and foobar don't .. is it possible to stop that, and to "save" the old tags? .. i think i use both id3v1 and id3v2 .. but im not sure cause i dont know how to find out in foobar where the information is written (v1, v2 or both) : (
.. and if i use the replaygain - tool in foobar and then copy the file on my DAP, the volume isnt changed, is it?

thanks and greetings
magni

/edit: and unfortunately i've about 6 - 8 Gb of wma's : \

Normalize Volume

Reply #8 –
Quote
Another problem i noticed is that MP3Gain seem to overwrite the tags of my mp3's if i change the volume, no matter if its constant or just per tag .. and foobar don't .. is it possible to stop that, and to "save" the old tags? .. i think i use both id3v1 and id3v2 .. but im not sure cause i dont know how to find out in foobar where the information is written (v1, v2 or both) : (
.. and if i use the replaygain - tool in foobar and then copy the file on my DAP, the volume isnt changed, is it?

thanks and greetings
magni

/edit: and unfortunately i've about 6 - 8 Gb of wma's : \
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To use mp3gain to modify the files rather than just the tags go to options > tags > Ignore. If you don't do this it saves the replaygain information to apev2 tags but puts blank fields in all the other categories. id3v1 or id3v2 tags should still be there, it's just foobar will attempt to read the (now blank) apev2 tags instead. To get the information to display again, remove these apev2 tags (using mp3gain's undo or another program).

If you only want to modify the tags I would recomend using foobar over mp3gain. To find out what sort of tags foobar is using go preferences > playback > input > standard inputs. It is apev2 and id3v1 by default.

And no, changing the replaygain information in a tag will only alter the volume on playback if the player can read that tag. Creative players (and most others) cannot. Changing the volume of the file will change the volume of the playback.


Edit: pitty about the wma's. I guess you could see if there's a program that can deal with them but I don't know of one. If they're unprotected lossless you can just change them into a format that you can replaygain. Other than that there's not much you can do.

Edit2: for your portable player that is. Foobar will happily replaygain them for playback on your computer (although it does seem to get a little grumpy when you try and modify their tags (i.e. a console message that pops up every time you try and do something. Restarting foobar deals with this). Also I've had issues with removing them from foobar's database. Now I'm sorted though (and not adding any more wma files thankfully) I don't have any significant problems).

Normalize Volume

Reply #9 –
Quote
Quote
ye i need it for my portable mp3 - player, so i'll try MediaMonkey .. but thanks donnie anyway, i think i'll use this for the music located on my pc : ) ..
and are there any risks when mass - normalize the files?? does the sound quality decrease or the file itself gets larger, or anything like that?! would be nice to know, because it's a quite large amount of audio - files and i unfortunately have no space on my harddrive to copy them first : ((

thanks!!,
and greetings
magni[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=360575"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]

I personally wouldn't suggest normalizing with media monkey as replaygaining is generally considered better. But then I haven't used media monkey or listened to the results of normalization so I can't really comment. Check to see whether the changes are reversible first. Also, I doubt there's any sort of album gain equivalent, which would rule this out as an option for me.[a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=360579"][{POST_SNAPBACK}][/a]
Um I think I'm not quite clear on the first post... my bad...

MediaMonkey by default performs replaygain on all tracks (mp3, ogg, wma, flac, etc) and will store the replaygain values in the metadata of the file. Thus the replaygain also works in other players. However, it also has the capability of permanently (irreversibly) change the volume of a track. It will warn you before it actually do it.

If you want to quickly replaygain all your tracks (warning! Looooooong time), after adding/scanning tracks into the library, click on the "Artist" node on the tree, select all the tracks you want to normalize (i.e. Ctrl-A), and select "Tools > Analyze Volume".

Of course you should select only the tracks that have not yet been replaygained  thus you're perhaps better off selecting only the Artist/Album tracks, or scroll downward and use the "My Computer" node and browse over to the folder where you keep your tracks.

Then, if you *really* want to irreversibly change your tracks... I suggest you copy your replaygained tracks to a temporary folder, and use the "My Computer" node to browse to that folder, select all, and use "Tools > Level Track Volume"

>> donnie: Unfortunately MediaMonkey does not support Album/Audiophile replaygain... 

EDITs:
1. Normalize tracks (i.e. irreversible processing) work only for MP3 files
2. For formats that don't support metadata replaygain (e.g. WMA), MediaMonkey stores the replaygain values in its database.
3. Best way to get album replaygain: Use suitable replaygain tool, then rescan the tracks. The album replaygain will be ignored, however.

Normalize Volume

Reply #10 –
Okay, thanks a lot to all of you!! .. i think i'll try out your suggestions on some temp - files before, and then i'll see whats the best solution, espacially for the DPA ..
so, you helped me a lot, thanks!!

greetings
magni

/edit: i got another question already  .. in foobar under /standard inputs/ i use the tags idv1 and idv2 (idv1 because i used winamp before with them and idv2 because the DPA's, i think need them, right?) .. but if i tag the files (e.g. with the freedb - tool or in the /show file info (special)/ - menu) and then copy them onto my DPA, it sometimes happens (espacially with new files, which i hadnt in winamp before) that the tracknumbers are all '0' and not 1,2,3,4 .. like in foobar : ( .. how can i fix this? .. or is it possible to copy the information written in e.g. the idv1 - tag into the idv2 - tag ?? because foobar didnt seem to do so :|
i've am example, if u dont understand what i'm pointing at: if i add a file with its information written in apev2 - tags into the 'default' - playlist or later into my database, what is foobar gonna do with that file, and which information will be shown?? .. and how can i e.g. copy the information (if its diplayed, dunno, and i can try cause i dont have a file with apev2 - and actually how i find out in foobar??) into another tag - type ??

thanks!

Normalize Volume

Reply #11 –
Quote
Okay, thanks a lot to all of you!! .. i think i'll try out your suggestions on some temp - files before, and then i'll see whats the best solution, espacially for the DPA ..
so, you helped me a lot, thanks!!

greetings
magni

/edit: i got another question already  .. in foobar under /standard inputs/ i use the tags idv1 and idv2 (idv1 because i used winamp before with them and idv2 because the DPA's, i think need them, right?) .. but if i tag the files (e.g. with the freedb - tool or in the /show file info (special)/ - menu) and then copy them onto my DPA, it sometimes happens (espacially with new files, which i hadnt in winamp before) that the tracknumbers are all '0' and not 1,2,3,4 .. like in foobar : ( .. how can i fix this? .. or is it possible to copy the information written in e.g. the idv1 - tag into the idv2 - tag ?? because foobar didnt seem to do so :|
i've am example, if u dont understand what i'm pointing at: if i add a file with its information written in apev2 - tags into the 'default' - playlist or later into my database, what is foobar gonna do with that file, and which information will be shown?? .. and how can i e.g. copy the information (if its diplayed, dunno, and i can try cause i dont have a file with apev2 - and actually how i find out in foobar??) into another tag - type ??

thanks!
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A portable player is more likely to support id3v1 than id3v2. If you retag a file (making sure you click update file after entering any information if you do this manually - although be aware that the mass-tagger function is very useful - ) then foobar will update the tags of the files according to the standard inputs you have selected (id3v1 aqnd id3v2). The only reason this would not occur is if you have the block tag updates option slected in the database preferences. Another thing to watch out for is that the tags are actually being entered into standard fields read by your player. Foobar reads all fields and will write to any you specify though these may not always be saved on the file if it doesn't support these. Wma files for example have both "track" and "tracknumber" fields by default.

If you have a file with apev2 tags and you open this with foobar it will read the information. This will only be transfered to id3v1 and id3v2 tags (if these are your input settings) if you make a change to the tags (where upon the tags will be silenly updated) or manually update the files (under properties menu). The same is true for transferring id3v1 fields into id3v2 tags. Bear in mind this is only for mp3's and wma files have thier own tag types.


Quote
>> donnie: Unfortunately MediaMonkey does not support Album/Audiophile replaygain... sad.gif


well I wouldn't use it then I'm afraid.

Quote
1. Normalize tracks (i.e. irreversible processing) work only for MP3 files


yup, same as mp3gain. I'd like one for wma files.

Quote
3. Best way to get album replaygain: Use suitable replaygain tool, then rescan the tracks. The album replaygain will be ignored, however.


not following this but it sounds like a pain. Foobar does both track and album gain and allows you to switch between the two.

Quote
Of course you should select only the tracks that have not yet been replaygained smile.gif thus you're perhaps better off selecting only the Artist/Album tracks, or scroll downward and use the "My Computer" node and browse over to the folder where you keep your tracks.


foobar lets you skip tacks in the database already with replaygain data.

Quote
Then, if you *really* want to irreversibly change your tracks... I suggest you copy your replaygained tracks to a temporary folder, and use the "My Computer" node to browse to that folder, select all, and use "Tools > Level Track Volume"


Or just use mp3gain, which does support album gain. Maybe media monkey can apply gain more accurately (higher than 1.5db accuracey) but this isn't massively important (though by prefernce I don't use this program).

I'm afraid I fail to see the advantage of mediamonkey. Foobar will also support replaygaining of any file type in its database. In addition these can be permenantly applied to files transcoded from those in the library e.g. flac -> mp3 with accurate replaygain. As I've already said though, I don't normally use any of these functions as I have replaygain applied to my mp3 files automatically when I encode them.

Re: Normalize Volume

Reply #12 –
I don't understand the rationale behind the design of the audio volume normalization capabilities in foobar2000. They don't seem to have anything to do with how I listen to music and maintain my collection. Isn't the replay gain for a file dependent on the set of files analyzed? If so, does everyone spend hours computing the replay gain on all 25,487,248 of their files every single time they add another file to their collection, or do they compute it on some subset of their collection? What do "albums" have to do with anything? Do others listen to music an album at a time? Why do I have to modify the audio files to save replay gain information? If I have to modify the files, how do I manage the relationship between the modified files and copies backed up elsewhere? (Am I the only one who has copies of my music files on multiple devices and depends on knowing which files are current on each based on their timestamps?) 

I want to set replay gain for all files in a playlist. But if the files themselves are modified, don't I have to do that for every playlist every time I play it? (If a file is in more than one playlist and the file gets modified, then its replay gain for other playlists is no longer valid, right?) Why can't replay gain be determined for all files in  a playlist and stored in the playlist or otherwise associated with that playlist so that when I play that playlist, the volume doesn't change from one track to the next?

Re: Normalize Volume

Reply #13 –
>Isn't the replay gain for a file dependent on the set of files analyzed?
No, there's an agreed upon volume standard outside of your collection, to which RG implementations are calibrated.

> What do "albums" have to do with anything?
Album Gain tells the RG scanner to pretend an album is a single track. This keeps the artist's intended volume differences between tracks in a single album.

> Do others listen to music an album at a time?
I listen almost exclusively to albums at a time, but I've come to accept that there are weirdos who listen on "random" or who make tons of special playlists

> Why do I have to modify the audio files to save replay gain information?
Depends on use. Usually, it's a number in a tag that gets read and applied on the fly by a player that supports RG tags. Audio data of the file is not modified in this case.
If a player does not support RG tags, you'll have to "bake" the volume change into the files, which is permanent. But this is not the common case.

> and depends on knowing which files are current on each based on their timestamps?
Maybe you are? Music files tend to not change. They're not documents that you work on regularly. Maybe I misunderstand your usage.

> If a file is in more than one playlist and the file gets modified, then its replay gain for other playlists is no longer valid, right?
Don't worry, see point 1 about the standard reference volume.

Re: Normalize Volume

Reply #14 –
Quote from: Freon on
Isn't the replay gain for a file dependent on the set of files analyzed?
Track gain? No.
Album gain? No, if you calculate it correctly.

Quote from: Freon on
(If a file is in more than one playlist and the file gets modified, then its replay gain for other playlists is no longer valid, right?)
No, that's wrong.