Replay Gain discussion (moved from release build thread)

[Fitzian]

On 6/26/2022 at 9:04 AM, CarlFredricksen said:

What I (also) don't understand completely is Replay gain for "Album" or "track" . I always thought, that choosing "album" would cause that every song of an album/folder would have the same highest volume. But when I compile an album myself from different sources and save it in one folder, and the tracks in it have different volumes, the quietest track is not aligned with the loudest. I tried this once by saving the same song at different volumes. But the volume differences always remain. The songs are not played at the same volume. 

Is there a way to align this? 

‘Album’ preserves differences in dynamics across the number of songs you selected with a ReplayGain Scanner utility.

‘Track’ tries to level out the differences in dynamics from song to song.

The exact gain values (in dB) you should expect when using either mode are plain to see in the track metadata.

There’s PLENTY of documentation regarding ReplayGain out on the web.

[andrewilley]

2 hours ago, CarlFredricksen said:

 Replay gain for "Album" or "track" . I always thought, that choosing "album" would cause that every song of an album/folder would have the same highest volume. But when I compile an album myself from different sources and save it in one folder, and the tracks in it have different volumes, the quietest track is not aligned with the loudest.

ReplayGain is processed based on one of two possible pre-embedded tags. These tags are calculated in advance, and permanently encoded within each audio file.

The Track value is set based on that individual track's own maximum peak level.

The Album value is set for the maximum peak value for any track in the album group. Every track in the same album will have the same number, so the gain won't vary track-by-track but stay the same throughout the whole album. This is so a song that is meant to be played quieter than the rest of the album stays quieter.

You select which of those two tags you want PA to apply via the Replay Gain settings page.

The Album version is only worth using while you are listening to a whole album. If you are listening to individual tracks from different albums, use the Track option.

Andre

[CarlFredricksen]

8 hours ago, andrewilley said:

ReplayGain is processed based on one of two possible pre-embedded tags. These tags are calculated in advance, and permanently encoded within each audio file.

The Track value is set based on that individual track's own maximum peak level.

The Album value is set for the maximum peak value for any track in the album group. Every track in the same album will have the same number, so the gain won't vary track-by-track but stay the same throughout the whole album. This is so a song that is meant to be played quieter than the rest of the album stays quieter.

You select which of those two tags you want PA to apply via the Replay Gain settings page.

The Album version is only worth using while you are listening to a whole album. If you are listening to individual tracks from different albums, use the Track option.

Andre

Thank you very much for your explanations. It makes things much clearer for me.