help with replay Gain

Support questions for Neutron Player only.
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wrongnoterod
Posts: 11
Joined: Sat Dec 26, 2015 5:34 pm

help with replay Gain

Post by wrongnoterod » Sat Apr 15, 2017 8:30 pm

I have a huge number of Mp3s and the overall volumes are quite different. I understand that somehow replay gain can be used to reduce the differences in volume.

I know how to turn replay gain ON in neutron but I cant understand what the settings do, or how to set them.

Does neutron automatically adjust the mp3, make it play louder or quieter, or, do the songs themselves have to be tagged somehow in advance, before replay gain can work?

I have a utility called Mp3gain which may help me but I also have a large number of flac files and Mp3gain will not work on these.

Any help would be appreciated.

Rod2
Posts: 20
Joined: Tue Feb 14, 2017 9:35 pm

Re: help with replay Gain

Post by Rod2 » Tue Apr 25, 2017 1:36 pm

Here is what I have determined after a lot of experimentation.

Replay Gain doesnt do a thing to a file unless it has been properly tagged. A file has to have its volume analyzed and then a track volume tag is written to it. Replay Gain then supposedly plays the file louder or softer, depending on what the volume tag says.

You can use various things to apply the volume tag. Mp3Gain will do it, and I use Media Monkey because it will also do flac files (mp3gain wont).
This is different that applying a volume leveler - that increases or decreases the volume of the file itself, and that permanently affects the file. Applying a volume tag does not, it only writes a metatag that Replay Gain reads.

Its not perfect, nothing is. But its pretty good. My ears are especially sensitive and so this is a must for me, as I dont like being surprised by a huge jump in volume from one track to another, and Replay Gain does a fairly good job of it. I noticed very loud songs are more successfully softened by Replay Gain.. very quiet songs dont seem to play quite loud enough, altho they are boosted. Thats just my opinion.

IF you only use mp3s, you might prefer to use Mp3Gain and just make sure you are always working on a copy of your original files. I used that for years and it was very good, probably better than Replay Gain. However it wont touch flac files.

I also tried the normalization function in Neutron and found it unsatisfactory.

About the controls in Neutron -

Current - shows the volume level tag amount in the currently playing song. This depends on how you have set up your volume analyzer. Normally the default is 89db, most CDs are at that default. So the tag tells Replay gain, this song is +3.2 or -1.6 or whatever it is, a different number for eac track. You cant change this number in the settings, it is only there to tell you what the tag is.

Then there are types of tagging - track gain or album gain. Theres a pretty good article on wiki about this under Replay Gain. I use track gain because all my music is on shuffle, I never listen to full albums. So I use track gain only.

The last setting, Apply Replay Gain if missing, means Neutron will boost, or soften, any track that does NOT have a volume tag, by your selected amount (enter a number to boost or soften). I didnt want it to do a thing with any track not tagged, so I left this at zero.

It does seem to work, altho it isnt perfect. Again, it wasnt quite as good as Mp3Gain but that doesnt work on flac files.

I hoped this helped. Some of this might be wrong but I'm still experimenting and learning.

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