do you use replaygain in album mode for singles ?

2003-03-05 15:19:44

when encoding singles do you use still the album mode in replaygain (vorbisgain)? i think the album mode in replaygain is intended to keep the balance of a quiet track and a loud track of an album. so that a quiet track of an album is still quiet and not that everything is equally loud. but on singles it's quite different as the tracks don't belong together (most of the time) like the do on an album.

do you use replaygain in album mode for singles ?

Reply #1 – 2003-03-05 15:40:23

[censor]
blah....

do you use replaygain in album mode for singles ?

Reply #2 – 2003-03-05 21:03:19

well, I only encode full albums, and even when listening to a crapload of tracks in shuffle mode I still use album gain.  Why?  Well, so songs that were meant to be quieter are still quieter.  I don't want some ballad to blast at the same volume as Rob Zombie if the ballad was meant to be and was recorded at a much quiter volume.  And using album mode accomplishes that.  Everything's still close enough in volume to not worry about using track mode anyways.  And you still get a slight amount of variation in volume between tracks rather than always the exact same volume, which can get boring/tiring.

do you use replaygain in album mode for singles ?

Reply #3 – 2003-03-05 21:56:59

I thought;

"ah, stupid pole, of course no one will use album gain on 99% of singles"

of course looks like the (at the moment rather limited input) is in the opposition.

Way i see it, an album is mastered and produced so all tracks combine to produce an ambience and feel thoroughout the album, which can be rather dependant on percieved levels.

A single is one track with either remixes, demo's or unrealeased songs, they were in no way concieved together and therefore bear no relationship with each other. ALso i never came accross a CD with tracks running throgh continuously form one to the other where a volume disscrepency could be heard.

I do the same for compilation albums from the same artist as well.

Just may opinion, can someone couter act it and provide a good explanation why they use album gain on singles?

Cheers,

Kristian

do you use replaygain in album mode for singles ?

Reply #4 – 2003-03-06 00:43:13

Not here. I rarely ever use album gain mode. I listen to my music mostly randomized, and have no real reason to use any sort of normalization except for clip protection.

do you use replaygain in album mode for singles ?

Reply #5 – 2003-03-06 00:57:04

Album Gain: Albums from one artist (no compilations)
Track Gain: Singles, Compilations of one or various artist (eg: greatest hits from an artist or compilations from various artists like "The Best Of Disco Ever", etc.)

do you use replaygain in album mode for singles ?

Reply #6 – 2003-03-06 01:02:27

Most of my music is very recent, so there's really no need for me to use ReplayGain since they're already all about the same loudness (very loud  ).  It's just the occasional older song that plays a bit quieter.  The only reason I'd change the output level at all would be to avoid clipping.

do you use replaygain in album mode for singles ?

Reply #7 – 2003-03-06 01:45:56

Even on singles CD's, I'd think the recording engineer processes (or re-processes) the songs so that they have the correct loudness in relation to each other. Hence quiet tracks on a singles CD really are meant to be quiet, and loud tracks intentionally loud.

Edit: Okay, I took a listen to a friend's singles sampler CD that I encoded a while back, titled "Lilith Fair New Music Sampler (1999). Some of the tracks were arbitrarily loud or quiet, but in general the "quiet" acoustic songs were quieter than the "loud" rock'n'roll tracks, like they should be. So both album-based replaygain and track-based replaygain sounded awkward. Perhaps singles CD's made for wider distribution would be mastered better.

do you use replaygain in album mode for singles ?

Reply #8 – 2003-03-06 02:15:39

My WinAMP playlist on my work machine stands at about 4700 (not bad considering I ripped and encoded them all during working hours, heh heh). I have replaygain set in album based mode. Why not title based? Because I think the shuffled tracks blend together better this way. I don't want every track to have the same normalized volume. Some tracks should be quiet but if you use title based mode these tracks will sound too loud in relationship to other tracks (even if they are shuffled).

do you use replaygain in album mode for singles ?

Reply #9 – 2003-03-06 12:54:58

I have never encountered an original cd where the volume of the different tracks was way different.

Some tracks are supposed to be loud - other quiet. If you process the entire cd, then you might get a relative gain and keep the proper loudness. Having a quitet track blast your speakers and a loud track whisper is simply wrong.

do you use replaygain in album mode for singles ?

Reply #10 – 2003-03-06 14:00:08

There's another issue which no one has mentioned. ReplayGain is much more consistant and reliable in album mode than in track mode. There are some individual tracks which it simply gets wrong. This doesn't happen nearly so often with entire albums.

Cheers,
David.