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Topic: Normalizing very old music (Read 16597 times) previous topic - next topic
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Normalizing very old music

Reply #25 –
Responding partly to Glenn, along different lines to saratoga, there are tools that analyze the sample value histogram of an entire lossless file (usually graphically) and can demonstrate undithered amplitude scaling and large amounts of clipping or peak limiting by discontinuities in the graph even if it's not at full scale, but that's beyond the scope of what this thread is about.
Dynamic – the artist formerly known as DickD

Normalizing very old music

Reply #26 –
Quote from: saratoga on
Quote from: Glenn Gundlach on
I have a question David. How is clipping determined?


Amplitude higher (lower) than + (-) 1.0 after applying a proposed gain change.

Mp3gain is not a tool for detecting clipping.  It can simply warn you if the gain changes you are about to apply are sufficient to avoid clipping.


I was curious about that too. Thanks for asking the question Glenn.
Alan

Normalizing very old music

Reply #27 –
mp3gain also flags clipping if the mp3 file contains signals that decode to more than 0dB FS (+1 / -1) even before you've changed them - because mp3 files can contain audio greater than full scale. wave files cannot. These particular mp3 files do not (judging by the graphs).

Some re-releases of old music are pretty terrible quality. Some are really good. I'd start with Past Perfect if you like faithful transfers, or Dutton/Vocalion if you like "improved" ones. I'd also start with Spotify and YouTube where you can listen to many old records for free.

Cheers,
David.

Normalizing very old music

Reply #30 –
Quote from: mirroropt on
I've been buying old 1920s music tracks from a popular site on line. After using MP3gain, I converted these into WAV files and then burnt them to a disc. The disc was supposed to be a gift for my Brother's birthday. Unfortunately the disc had distortion on some of the tracks probably due to LARGE differences in volume from these ancient oldies. Converting to a wav file doesn't help either, but I've burnt quite a number of discs with newer music (volume levels are more uniform) and they sound fine. Maybe I'm just not using MP3gain correctly.

An old friend suggested I try to find a way to alter the gain. That's easy to do if you're recording something, especially if you have a preamp. Doing it to an MP3 has got me puzzled. I don't mind if all the tracks are lower in volume. What program or app should I use and how should I use it. All suggestions appreciated ..... Thanks.

Old Nerd


I decided to edit my own post. ..... I see a number of good answers below, but there are a lot of hoops to jump through. I have two computers close to each other. I'm going to experiment by playing the original MP3 files from one computer to a Hitachi preamp. From there they'll get piped into Audacity on the other computer. I can watch the recording bars and adjust the preamp as needed. Wish me luck.

Normalizing very old music

Reply #31 –
But you have been given plenty of methods that will automatically normalise MP3s either by peak or by perceptual loudness. Manual adjustment should not be required. What is wrong with MP3gain and other such programs?

If your files are clipping, that is in them, not the normalising utility. Sending it through an entire another analogue signal chain is certainly not going to do anything to ameliorate that and is more likely to give you inaccurate figures for manual adjustment, something that, again, should not be necessary whatsoever.

Normalizing very old music

Reply #32 –
I would also recommend mp3gain, it does a fair job on majority of tracks and is completely free and pretty awesome!

http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/

Normalizing very old music

Reply #33 –
My comment may be unfair. I haven't been paying close attention and might be missing something important, but this reminds me of an incident with a recently new neighbor. She asked me if I had internet service, which I obviously do, dial-up over the regular phone lines. She has something that sounds like a cell phone service connection wherein she has a small receiver that plugs into the mains power and re-broadcasts to her desktop, laptop and cellphone.

This worked well for her where she lived before but she is getting nothing here. She said the company told here that may be trees or some such are blocking the signal and she may have to adjust something. She said she has tried her laptop and cell phone in various places, in the yard, in front of the house, half way down the block, but nothing improved.

I tried to explain that the plug-in box was the internet receiver and its location was the only important consideration. I know another person with the same, or a similar service, that can only get it to work by hanging the box in the middle of the kitchen window. Cell phone reception is also poor withing his house, but is fine one step outside the front or back door. She needs to try other locations. Take it outside for a test.

She seem mystified by this but said she would try. Some days later I asked if she had any success. She said no. Then she explained how she had walked up and down the block with her laptop, trying to find the signal, but to no avail.

Not the computer! The receiver box has to come outside.
It can't come outside. It has to be plugged in.
There should be an electrical outlet on the patio. If not, use an extension cord. Just try it to find out if the house itself is blocking the signal.

This seemed too unreasonable for her. She finally gave up on the service without trying the receiver in other locations. Maybe she will try the phone line (at about 1/300th the bandwidth).

Normalizing very old music

Reply #34 –
We never found out where the problem was.

The only thing we know for certain is if the posted screen shots are from the .wav files after mp3gain and decoding, then it looks like there's no clipping in the file sent to the CD writing program.

We never found out if mp3gain thought it was clipping.

We never got an audio sample of the original, or the version after mp3gain, or the decoded wav, or a rip from the problematic CD.

We don't know what was used to burn the CD.

We don't know what was used to check/play the finished CD.


So all we can do is speculate. We haven't yet speculated about the CD burning, or the CD playback.
We haven't had much speculation about how bad the quality of the original files is, but given the comment from mirroropt about "Ticks, pops, and various recording levels" they sound pretty ropey. You'd never get that from Past Perfect, Pristine Audio, Dutton, or any of the other reputable companies.


Apart from some situation where you need to ride the gain in real-time, and you can't make a PC program do that for some reason, I can't think of a worse solution than re-recording an mp3 from one PC to another in the analogue domain via a pre-amp. Still, if nothing goes wrong and it works for you the result could be more than good enough.

Cheers,
David.

Normalizing very old music

Reply #35 –
Hello David,

Your comments were good. They pushed me into action. Sometimes we need that.

It's definitely the end of processing the files. First, the original MP3s that I downloaded have some problems with different volume levels. One in particular sounds louder and rather like someone boosted the bass. Another two of them are just louder. If you drag these very old sound files through this process or that they get a hair worse. You have to really listen. (not too bad). I took the most troublesome piece and converted (no burning, just converted) it to a WAV file using an older program called BONC encoder. The options on it are WAV output, FAAC, FLAC, LAME and OggVorbis. I've used it for doing most of my music. Works nicely. The WAV file sounds acceptable when played on the computer with Windows Media Player. The straw that breaks the camel's back is burning the WAV files to a disk with an older version of NERO. I took the finished disk to the player in the living room and you could hear distortion. I brought the disk back to the computer (double check) and got the same results. Most obvious on the louder pieces. So there's nothing wrong with my vintage sound equipment (love it) or the new player.

A digression: I bought a brand new disc player. Plays only regular CDs or MP3 discs. It's kind of a throwback to the late 90s. Nice readout and all that. I like it.

Is that helpful ? What do you make of all this ?

Thank you David                      (glad I had some extra coffee today - Tea is good too)

Normalizing very old music

Reply #36 –
Quote from: mirroropt on
The WAV file sounds acceptable when played on the computer with Windows Media Player. The straw that breaks the camel's back is burning the WAV files to a disk with an older version of NERO. I took the finished disk to the player in the living room and you could hear distortion.


Burning PCM to a CD is a lossless operation, so if you hear distortion, something is wrong.  Either the CD didn't burn right, the hardware is broken, etc.  I don't think anyone can tell you which is the case without knowing more.

Normalizing very old music

Reply #37 –
@AndyH-ha:

I'm getting sort of like her as my brain and body age. Can't keep up or retain things. It's very frustrating. You'll get there and then you'll understand, that you can no longer understand ! I guess - First, ya just want things to work. Second, how much technology (that will become obsolete) do you want to learn ? Last, being proficient with technological things doesn't mean you are wise. ........ Alan
I wish there was a forum here for miscellaneous topics. I'd like to add more comments.

Normalizing very old music

Reply #39 –
A sample -- of the original purchased file, non-processed -- would be worth far more than a world of comments. A simple program like mp3DirectCut (freeware, very simple, not new technology http://mpesch3.de1.cc/) would let you excise a portion (30 seconds or less) that you find distorting, and attach it to the forum for other people to investigate what is really going on. This will create new output, leaving your original unchanged. This way people with a lot of experience can duplicate your process and see where, or if, anything goes wrong.

Normalizing very old music

Reply #40 –
Quote from: saratoga on
Burning PCM to a CD is a lossless operation
Only if the PCM is 44.1kHz 16-bit, and only if you have "normalise audio" unchecked. Some old versions of Nero had that checked (on!) by default, so all tracks get peak normalised - shouldn't clip though. Some old CD burning software would upsample lower sampling rates (e.g. 24kHz) to 44.1kHz simply by repeating samples - that adds horrendous metallic high frequencies.

I doubt either is the problem here. Just saying.


Quote from: AndyH-ha on
not new technology
I'm liking the re-assurance!

Cheers,
David.

Normalizing very old music

Reply #41 –
Quote from: greynol on
Sure the GUI is all snazzy, but does this really justify using lossy compression when the destinaton format is audio CD?

EDIT: I assumed the sources for these tracks were lossless.  The original post did not explicitly specify either way:
Quote from: mirroropt on
I've been buying old 1920s music tracks from a popular site on line.



Mirroropt: Amazon doesn't tell you. They just say MP3