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Topic: How To Use Mp3 Gain ? (Read 403380 times) previous topic - next topic
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How To Use Mp3 Gain ?

Reply #50
mp3gain claims to be a lossless change to mp3 files, yet it changes their volume level & I do not see any sort of "undo mp3gain."  Sure, people could use a constant gain of 0.0, but a whole lot of people aren't going to understand that doing that effectively undos the mp3gaining.

Also, would it be worth it to make an option that applies the max gain for no clipping, only to files that would clip after being regularly mp3gained?

Something more technical... how does every standard MP3 player/decoder realize the MP3 gain value stored in the MP3?  Is it some typically unused field in MP3s, or what?

How To Use Mp3 Gain ?

Reply #51
The current (non-public) beta version of MP3Gain does have an Undo feature - it stores the necessary information in an APEv2 tag. Also, it can store ReplayGain information which is compatible with foobar2000.

And the "don't clip when doing track gain feature" is also already implemented and works beautifully.

I suppose Glen will release it within the next few weeks.

--
Regards,

Dominic Jefferies
Snelg Software Inc.
MP3Gain inofficial spokesman 

How To Use Mp3 Gain ?

Reply #52
Sweet!

Actually, a question occured to me... *CAN* the current mp3gain undo gain manually?  Or is the mp3-gain-amount information not recoverable from the MP3 file with the current version?

And I'm still curious how mp3gain manages to work with every mp3 decoder.  What does it modify that every dencoder can recognize?

How To Use Mp3 Gain ?

Reply #53
Quote
Actually, a question occured to me... *CAN* the current mp3gain undo gain manually? Or is the mp3-gain-amount information not recoverable from the MP3 file with the current version?


If you know the gain changes you applied to the files (you can have MP3Gain save all gain changes to a log file), you can reverse it by manually applying a constant gain of the same value *(-1). If you don't have the logging feature enabled though, you're stuck. (For many modern albums, the original volume is one 1.5 dB step above the max no-clip volume.)


Quote
And I'm still curious how mp3gain manages to work with every mp3 decoder. What does it modify that every dencoder can recognize?


Take a look at the supplied help file, the way MP3Gain modifies MP3 files is nicely explained there. It modifies the Global Gain field of each frame header.

How To Use Mp3 Gain ?

Reply #54
Quote
I suppose Glen will release it within the next few weeks.

Arg, I'm too impatient!
*paces the room, waiting for the new mp3gain to be released*

How To Use Mp3 Gain ?

Reply #55
I have an Archos Jukebox Multimedia 020. This is a portable MP3 Player.

Does anyone have any suggestions for the use of MP3 Gain for use in levelling for portable MP3 Players like this? I currently have songs at all sorts of levels, and one minute I am straining to listen, next I am nearly deaf from the loudness on the next random song.

I know there is Album Gain, Track Gain, and all sorts of no clip max gain, etc. Really I want one thing only. If I am listening to all of my songs on the player, I want them to sound all about the same volume.

What is the best settings for this? If someone has already come up with some good settings for this, and can share them, I would greatly appreciate it.

On a side note, why is it that some of the CDs I have converted to MP3 have all of the songs recorded as 100% gain in EAC? From reading this thread, it seams that this would be a bad idea. Is it just cheap CD manufacture?

Thank you
David

How To Use Mp3 Gain ?

Reply #56
Quote
I have an Archos Jukebox Multimedia 020. This is a portable MP3 Player.

Does anyone have any suggestions for the use of MP3 Gain for use in levelling for portable MP3 Players like this? I currently have songs at all sorts of levels, and one minute I am straining to listen, next I am nearly deaf from the loudness on the next random song.

I know there is Album Gain, Track Gain, and all sorts of no clip max gain, etc. Really I want one thing only. If I am listening to all of my songs on the player, I want them to sound all about the same volume.

What is the best settings for this? If someone has already come up with some good settings for this, and can share them, I would greatly appreciate it.

On a side note, why is it that some of the CDs I have converted to MP3 have all of the songs recorded as 100% gain in EAC? From reading this thread, it seams that this would be a bad idea. Is it just cheap CD manufacture?

Thank you
David

Well, if you simply use album gain, then all your tracks will be approximately the same volume (or at least closer than before) but the quiet songs will still remain quiet as intended, and the loud songs loud. I think this is a better setting than just track gain, because that would make all the songs the same volume, regardless of whether they were supposed to be quiet or not. Of course, using album gain also has the benefit of being able to play back a single album with all its dynamics intact.

So use album gain.. Oh, and don't mess with the 89dB default. It works best.

How To Use Mp3 Gain ?

Reply #57
Quote
- Outdated info, taken down for a complete re-write -

CiTay

Any progress on the rewrite?  I've never used MP3 Gain, and I'd like to make sure I do it correctly if I am to try it out.  Thanks.

How To Use Mp3 Gain ?

Reply #58
I totally agree with Jebus the best way to use mp3 gain is to leave de default level volume so almost any

mp3 won´t clip and to use album gain because every file sounds at it´s natural volume level.


Also I want to say that mp3 gain is very useful if you are an mp3 user, try it, if you haven´t done it yet!

How To Use Mp3 Gain ?

Reply #59
I have never used this mp3gain before and was wondering if my soundcard drivers Auto Gain Control does the same thing as mp3gain. here is picture of the option http://www.tolley8.freeserve.co.uk/audio.PNG

How To Use Mp3 Gain ?

Reply #60
Quote
I have never used this mp3gain before and was wondering if my soundcard drivers Auto Gain Control does the same thing as mp3gain. here is picture of the option http://www.tolley8.freeserve.co.uk/audio.PNG

Certainly not. Replaygain has to scan the whole file (or an album in AlbumGain mode), it can't work on-the-fly.

How To Use Mp3 Gain ?

Reply #61
Okay i think i understand now. I read the windows media player 9 help files and it can add volume leveling values to Windows Media files or MP3 files so they all have the same volume level. So mp3gain does the same thing right? and does anyone know what Auto Gain control is in my sound drivers? Thanx

How To Use Mp3 Gain ?

Reply #62
Quote
Okay i think i understand now. I read the windows media player 9 help files and it can add volume leveling values to Windows Media files or MP3 files so they all have the same volume level. So mp3gain does the same thing right? and does anyone know what Auto Gain control is in my sound drivers? Thanx

Yeh, WMP9 does essentially the same thing as replaygain (NOT mp3gain), in the sense that it adds tags which contain volume information. MP3Gain adjusts the files instead. I personally prefer to use MP3Gain in album mode and just turn off the WMP9 one because frankly I don't know how good it is, and in addition I want the files to sound the same even on portables (which obviously can't read the WMP9 tags).

The Auto Gain control probably just limits all the tracks to the same peak level, as most normalizers do. Problem is, peak level is a poor indicator of average volume.

How To Use Mp3 Gain ?

Reply #63
Auto Gain Control reduces/increases gain to match some give value
basing on the gain of recently played audio.
Tends to destroy dynamics. It can work in realtime.

ReplayGain reduces/increases gain so that the audio percieved volume is same across tracks.
(Near -6 db at 1kHz, sensitivity of the ear at given frequency computed using A-weighted curve.)
Doesn't destroy dynamics, can't work in realtime.
ruxvilti'a

How To Use Mp3 Gain ?

Reply #64
Am I right in assuming mp3gain is the same thing as Replaygain in foobar ?

So as an alternative to using mp3gain I can just Replaygain with foobar and get the same results, yes ?

How To Use Mp3 Gain ?

Reply #65
Quote
Am I right in assuming mp3gain is the same thing as Replaygain in foobar ?

From what I've understood foo only stores the replaygain info in the database whereas MP3Gain actually alters the global gain field of every frame in the mp3 file.


How To Use Mp3 Gain ?

Reply #67
Hi, I have some questions regarding MP3Gain.

Let's say I rip a CD with EAC, encode it with LAME, and then use MP3Gain to adjust it.

As an alternative, I'd rip the CD with EAC, use MP3Gain (or something similar, if MP3Gain doesn't support WAV), and then encode it with LAME.

Would there be any differences between the resulting MP3s?


/Agitator
/Agitator

How To Use Mp3 Gain ?

Reply #68
@Agitator,
This has been discussed many times before:
here

How To Use Mp3 Gain ?

Reply #69
Thanks, I looked for something like that, but didn't find it.
Guess I'm blind 


/Agitator
/Agitator

How To Use Mp3 Gain ?

Reply #70
I've used MP3GAIN for quite a while, and I've studied the open source code a good bit.  I'm no MP3 encoding expert, but I *do* have one observation:

I am very tired of seeing MP3GAIN being described as a "lossless" process -- If you eq a file to be at lower volume than that at which it is originally encoded, using MP3GAIN or anything else, you will of necessity lose the softest pasages.  So, for example, if I take 6db off a recording, anything that was recorded at the level of 6db or less in the original recording will, indeed, be lost.

I fear what people mean when they say MP3GAIN is "lossless" is that it's non-"destructive" of the original file info -- the MP3GAIN process can be reversed.  But this does not make the gain adjustment LOSSLESS.

The assumption here is that MP3GAIN doesn't do any compression... that it does a simple adjustment of the gain (which, from my examination of the code, seems to be correct).  Or, am I missing something?

Thanks,

PeterGV

 

How To Use Mp3 Gain ?

Reply #71
I just started MP3Gaining my files, but I couldn't find:

Options\Each Folder Is Album (tick)

Or most of the other options listed in the first couple posts..

How To Use Mp3 Gain ?

Reply #72
Quote
I just started MP3Gaining my files, but I couldn't find:

Options\Each Folder Is Album (tick)

Or most of the other options listed in the first couple posts..

This option has been gone for quite some time.

You have to load one folder at a time and adjust it.
I'm the one in the picture, sitting on a giant cabbage in Mexico, circa 1978.
Reseñas de Rock en Español: www.estadogeneral.com

How To Use Mp3 Gain ?

Reply #73
Actually, not so
If you load up a folder, each subfolder will be treated as a seperate album gain analysis.
Been doing it today - you can run it and check.

if you want to go automatic get case's sweep command utility and put in the command line to mp3gain to do album gain analysis through your files

How To Use Mp3 Gain ?

Reply #74
Ahh. Thanks. I queued up my entire folder with subdirectories of albums. It works perfectly. Each folder is treated as an album.