Play all songs at same volume/Peak volume normalization on the fly for all tracks Option for Poweramp

[Useronly168]

Hi there,

I've been using doubletwist's player "Play all songs at same volume" option & AIMP's peak volume normalization on the fly for all tracks option as I have around 20,000 songs with varying volume & it would be impossible to adjust the volume knob manually for each song. I find Poweramp has the best quality sound and without noises n clipping & would like to use it instead of the above players. Would Poweramp be able to add this function so that all songs play at the same volume on the fly? I can't use Poweramp atm due to all songs being either very soft or very loud suddenly. Replaygain is not useful at all for me since I need constant normalization instead of a one time dB adjustment. Please take a look at the above two players as they offer this option as a simple tick in options & it's a must for me!

 

Thank you.

[MotleyG]

2 minutes ago, Useronly168 said:

Replaygain is not useful at all for me since it needs constant normalization instead of one time adjustment

I don’t understand what this means. RG is done once. The player then uses the RG settings to adjust the playback level when engaged. There are two levels for Replaygain, album and track. These are determined when you set the levels in whatever software you choose (some

do not have an a option), with a target (-18 is typically default but unless you plan to use a lot of DSP like EQ you can set it higher, I.e. -12dB).

On the fly normalization uses a lot more processor horsepower that portable devices can’t manage well.

[Useronly168]

I find every song has quiet, normal, loud, very loud parts and replay gain can only average them out with a one time adjustment. Doubletwist n AIMP has an option that constantly raise or lower the db as needed to target volume, and it's very important if i need all parts of each song at similar volume.

As for resource usage, I use them on a low end android 11 device and it's very smooth and no impact on performance or battery. This feature is very important for those that needs same volume for all songs n all parts of songs.

[MotleyG]

2 hours ago, Useronly168 said:

I find every song has quiet, normal, loud, very loud parts and replay gain can only average them out with a one time adjustment. Doubletwist n AIMP has an option that constantly raise or lower the db as needed to target volume, and it's very important if i need all parts of each song at similar volume.

This is kind of the opposite of what Poweramp is designed to do as a premium player. The efforts are to ensure the songs are played with the best fidelity to best reproduce what the artist intended you to hear. This includes the dynamics of the music. I can't speak for the dev if they wish to implement an option for this, but I have no intention of ever turning this on.

[Useronly168]

If it is added as an option, different users in different listening environment can enable/disable it as needed. In my listening environment the background is noisy and I can't hear the quiet part, and the loud part is too loud, that's why i need to normalize the entire song to the same volume.

[andrewilley]

It is something that has been requested before, also known as Normalisation, Compression, or AGC (Automatic Gain Control). It basically reduces dynamic range on-the-fly by increasing the volume of quieter passages and reducing louder ones, so the whole song gets tweaked to about the same sort of level. Not exactly what the recording engineer envisaged when carefully crafting the levels of course, but it can be useful for noisy environments such as in-car listening where quieter more subtle content can be simply get drowned out.

Andre

[Peibyn]

On 9/6/2022 at 3:55 PM, andrewilley said:

Normalisation . . . basically reduces dynamic range on-the-fly by increasing the volume of quieter passages and reducing louder ones, so the whole song gets tweaked to about the same sort of level. Not exactly what the recording engineer envisaged when carefully crafting the levels of course . . .

@andrewilley Yes, I think it's important to respect the volume levels within a recording (within a track), which the artist(s) and the recording team have intended and have agreed upon.  If they have wished for a section of a track to be quiet and another part very loud, then that must be respected as the experience they wished to provide.  To equalise both the quiet and the loud parts so that they are of roughly equal volume would be to corrupt the intended listening experience.  People who listen to music in their cars and who therefore wish all quiet sections to be loud, so that they can be heard above the car's motor, simply have to acknowledge they are listening in an environment which is far from ideal, and they will have to reach for the volume knob - which ought not to be a great difficulty for them.

There is a form of "normalisation" which I believe is possible.  It is to pre-gauge or pre-measure the volume range within an entire track and move that entire range either up or down in volume so that it's central level is the same as that of all other tracks in a collection.  By this method, a track of loud music which has been processed so that it is reproduced at a low volume will be raised in volume, while a track of music which is very loud overall will be lowered in overall volume.  The result is that one is not continually reaching for the volume control, to raise the volume of a track the soft passages of which are so quiet that they can barely be heard and the loud passages of which are simply not truly loud, or to lower the volume of a track the soft passages of which are rather loud and the loud passages of which are excessively loud.

The "Samsung Music" app and the "VLC" app seem to achieve this kind of normalisation.  I wonder how they do it.  Other apps may achieve it too.

I hope the splendid Poweramp, which I love for other reasons, can achieve this as well.

[andrewilley]

40 minutes ago, Peibyn said:

@andrewilley   It is to pre-gauge or pre-measure the volume range within an entire track and move that entire range either up or down in volume so that it's central level is the same as that of all other tracks.

That is already supported via ReplayGain data, which can be included in the audio file tags in advance.

Andre

[MotleyG]

16 minutes ago, andrewilley said:

That is already supported via ReplayGain data, which can be included in the audio file tags in advance.

Agreed, ReplayGain is the most effective way to "normalize" the playback output. This is especially useful when playing back in any shuffled mode. This can easily be done with software like foobar or dBpoweramp, and the results can be applied in many players including Poweramp.