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Topic: Viewing clipping analysis--graph, real-time? (Read 1454 times) previous topic - next topic
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Viewing clipping analysis--graph, real-time?

Hi all,

After reading the FAQ's and searching a bit, I have not really seen an answer to this question.  So here goes--

I have started encoding using EAC, LAME, and Mp3Gain.  Now Mp3Gain automatically detects clipping, and that's well and good.  However, it doesn't show WHEN the clipping occurs in the song, or HOW FREQUENTLY the clipping occurs.

So, if my guess is right, you could have a file with one small glitch that's much louder than the rest of the music, due to a bad rip, noise in the original recording, noise from an LP transfer, etc...and this one small imperfection will cause you to want to reduce the gain excessively so the song no longer "clips."  Even though this clip is due to a glitch that would sound bad anyway, and not affect the overall quality of the song....Yes, I know one could fix this problem at the source, but sometimes it's not convenient or possible to access the source material to do so.

Are there any more sophisticated ways to do clipping analysis in such a situation?  Two ideas I had in mind were:

1) a software utility that shows a time-based graph of the mp3 output levels. 

(I have expensive audio editing software like Steinberg Wavelab, but I think this is a special analysis because it has to do with the decoded output...but I'm not that experienced, maybe that's a possibility?  It seems like the process would be overkill though...I just want to get quick and dirty)

Perhaps this functionality could be added to future releases of Mp3Gain itself.  So you can see exactly where, when, and how often the clipping occurs.

2) Any way to view clipping in the mp3 player itself?  Perhaps it would do some kind of graph, or view the output levels in realtime.  (I currently use Winamp 2.81 but would try something else just for this ability).


Jonathan