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Topic: Does ReplayGain work with WMA files? (Read 3858 times) previous topic - next topic
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Does ReplayGain work with WMA files?

Background:

The majority of my library is classical and is ripped as FLAC from within FB2000 or downloaded as FLAC. The rest on my library is pop music that, for reasons that made sense at the time, were ripped as WMA with WMP. I applied ReplayGain across the entire library as albums per tags. For normal listening, I set ReplayGain to albums.Because most pop music has little or no dynamic range, I did not notice a problem. However....

I have a playlist that is mixed classical and pop that I use to demo speakers. So that all of the tracks would be at relatively the same level, I set ReplayGain to tracks. All of the FLAC tracks do indeed play at the same level. The WMA tracks pay ~6dB low. Changing ReplayGain from track to album to off makes no difference. Checking the file properties shows ReplayGain listed properly. I converted the WMA files to FLAC and ReplayGain performs correctly.

Is this an inherent property of WMA or a problem with FB2000, or, of course, have I missed something?

Bob

Does ReplayGain work with WMA files?

Reply #1
I don't use wma very much Bob, but I can't repeat your results here?

Not sure what version of WMP made them, (properties say "codec profile wma v2"), but I've got a small handful of wma tracks. They all seem to behave normally with replay gain in foobar. Just tested converting one to flac, wma version RPGed at -3.29dB and the flaced version RPGed at -3.286dB, both play as near as I can tell at the same volume (track gain selected). Just to be sure I manually edited the wma version to -13.29dB and sure enough it played about 10dB quieter. So nothing unexpected here.

Does ReplayGain work with WMA files?

Reply #2
I don't use wma very much Bob, but I can't repeat your results here?


Thanks. Those WMA rips were done several years ago and I have no idea what version of WMP I used. Obviously the answer is to convert the WMA tracks to FLAC or rerip them within FB2K. I'll convert what I need immediately and hum over what to do with the rest. I assure you that I will never rip to WMA again!

Bob

Does ReplayGain work with WMA files?

Reply #3
Long shot, I don't even know ffmpeg's support here, but have you tried

ffmpeg -i filename.wma -acodec copy filename_new.wma

(which, if ffmpeg supports it, should copy the wma stream to a new file without any transcoding)
and then check if the new files are more well-behaved?

Does ReplayGain work with WMA files?

Reply #4
Those WMA rips were done several years ago and I have no idea what version of WMP I used. Obviously the answer is to convert the WMA tracks to FLAC or rerip them within FB2K.

Maybe you should double check your procedure, as encoding WMA to FLAC is not such great idea for various reasons.

I take you are saying that WMA track and same track encoded as FLAC have same replaygain values, but WMA track plays at 6dB lower volume?
I can't reproduce that here, and if you are assured that there is no flaw at your side, I can further assist with better way of mass correcting WMA replaygain values instead making FLAC copies.

Does ReplayGain work with WMA files?

Reply #5
Maybe you should double check your procedure, as encoding WMA to FLAC is not such great idea for various reasons.

I take you are saying that WMA track and same track encoded as FLAC have same replaygain values, but WMA track plays at 6dB lower volume?
I can't reproduce that here, and if you are assured that there is no flaw at your side, I can further assist with better way of mass correcting WMA replaygain values instead making FLAC copies.


Actually. it's worse that that. The WMA and FLAC files have the same ReplayGain values, but ReplayGain has no affect when playing my WMA files. These are WMA lossless, so converting to FLAC shouldn't affect the SQ. In a conversion like this, does not FB2K convert to WAV and then convert to FLAC?

Bob

Does ReplayGain work with WMA files?

Reply #6
OK then, if you are not tied with some WMA device, FLAC is better choice for lossless archiving anyway
AFAIK foobar converter pipes PCM stream to encoder directly

BTW, I can't reproduce your problem with lossless WMA too

Does ReplayGain work with WMA files?

Reply #7
These are WMA lossless, so converting to FLAC shouldn't affect the SQ.
It’s a matter not of “shouldn’t” but won’t.

Quote
In a conversion like this, does not FB2K convert to WAV and then convert to FLAC?
What does that matter? Anyway, whether or not a temporary file is used, any conversion always includes an intermediate stage of uncompressed PCM.

These are both fundamental aspects of audio compression.

Does ReplayGain work with WMA files?

Reply #8
These are WMA lossless, so converting to FLAC


... would resolve everything. Use foobar2000, bit-compare the FLAC and the WMAL, and verify that your conversion results in precisely the same audio. There's hardly any reason to use WMA lossless (or is it?)


There's a huge difference between WMA lossy and WMA lossless, and hardly anyone uses the latter, so you would have saved us (including yourself) a bit of time and hassle had you given this information in your original posting.

 

Does ReplayGain work with WMA files?

Reply #9
OK, I am sufficiently chastised. In any case since others cannot duplicate the problem, I assume there is something flaky in my files, so I will fix them.

Thanks,
Bob