In-App Album ReplayGain Editor

[EthelTheFrog]

ReplayGain is essential to my listening experience because, for no good reasons, the Loudness War is still a thing. Unfortunately, ReplayGain scanners, though better than nothing, are never perfect. Varying dynamic range levels can trip them up, and it doesn't really make sense to normalize the loudness of, say, a death metal album and an ambient synth album. Typically, these error margins are acceptable because it usually only takes a few seconds of listening and a few volume level adjustments to find the sweet spot. However, this isn't always the case. One of my all-time favorite albums is raison d'être's Mise en Abyme (2014). This is a dark ambient album whose first track is a 12-minute slow build. Here, the error margins of the ReplayGain scanner aren't acceptable. I want to set the volume at the outset and know that the climax 10-ish minutes in is going to be at the right volume. Thankfully, the album is mastered at the K-14 level, so I can turn off ReplayGain, set the volume at the level that the ReplayGain scanner seems to approximate (70% in Poweramp with DVC enabled with my Hiby R5 and Campfire Audio Andromeda's), and listen away.

Obviously, not every album is mastered at K-14. But I would still like my ReplayGain to be more accurate so I don't have to adjust the volume level. To this end, I have discovered that, at least with my setup, 1% on the volume knob is equal to 1 dB. So, if I listen to an album (without a ReplayGain tag) and the comfortable listening volume level is 62%, I'll edit the ReplayGain tag to -8.00 dB to match the 70% of the K-14 level mastered albums. I do this in Yate (on Mac), but then I have to delete and re-upload the files onto my DAP. It would be very helpful if I could edit the album ReplayGain tag in the app to effectively bake-in the volume level without having to reconnect my DAP to my computer.

Edited March 9 by EthelTheFrog