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Topic: Reply Gain Winamp 2.x plugin (Read 4915 times) previous topic - next topic
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Reply Gain Winamp 2.x plugin

After doing some tests to determine how to get the playback volume for MP3s to be as even as possible on an old underpowered P166MHz Toshiba Libretto 100CT mini-notebook, it seems that Winamp v2.91 and Matthijs Laan's Replay Gain DSP plugin for Winamp2 is the only setup I could find that doesn't bog down the limited resources of the old Libretto.  I might have preferred to use Foobar2000, but I need the EQ for playback, and no amount of system tweaking seemed to get the EQ working without MP3 playback 'stuttering'.

But now I'm finding the speed of Matthijs's plugin for scanning a library of MP3s to be limited to only 2x real time.  Even for my relatively small library of around 3400 MP3s, that amounts to around 4 days for examining all files.  I'm doing that by seleting the null output plugin v1.1, out_null.dll in Winamp preferences under 'Plugins | Output', and then silently running a M3U playlist of the entire library.

Has anyone else found a way to speed up this process on older under-powered systems?  Have I missed some other Replay Gain plugin for Winamp 2.x? 

Can someone tell me how fast this plugin in Winamp 2.91 scans MP3s on systems with faster CPUs?  If it's still limited to compiling its database at 2x real time playback on faster systems, that's still pretty slow.

From what I'm reading on Matthijs's web page, this limitation may be a function of Winamp 2.91 itself. Here's what he says:

"I just came across a Winamp3 Replay Gain component by Peter Pawlowski at http://www.blorp.com/~peter/ (look for replaygain.exe). This component is much better than my Winamp2 plugin because it uses the vastly better design of Winamp3. This makes calculating Replay Gain values much less annoying than with my Winamp2 plugin because the file for which a Replay Gain value is to be calculated does not need to be played."

But the Winamp 3.x versions just don't get off the ground with this old system.  I'd really like to stick with MP3 playback software that has the library feature of Winamp 2.91.  2.91 is great for compiling M3U playlist files, setting EQ, has other features that I use frequently, and doesn't bog down the old system. 

MusicMatch 8.x is software I really like that offers the library feature, and uses uses XAudio's 's 'sound leveling' fairly quickly on faster systems.  I tried tracking down a Winamp plugin for XAudio sound leveling hoping I could find something to scan MP3s faster with, but couldn't come up with anything.

Now I'm wondering if there might be some Winamp 2.x MP3 playback volume plugin that I may be able to run on a faster system that would create a database file I could then copy to the Winamp on the old system.  Yes/No?

Shel
Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man

Reply Gain Winamp 2.x plugin

Reply #1 –
Well foobar's RG scanner is somewhat faster than most of the others, however it's not compatible with Winamp2. You could overcome this limitation by using MP3Gain, this program applies a losslessly reversable gain to the MP3 itself, so it's compatible with Winamp2. The fastest (not sure, since I haven't had a system that slow for ages) would be:
Using Foobar2000 to scan all the files for RG info. and then open them with MP3Gain to apply the gain foobar found to the MP3 files.
"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be misquoted, then used against you."

Reply Gain Winamp 2.x plugin

Reply #2 –
Quote
Well foobar's RG scanner is somewhat faster than most of the others, however it's not compatible with Winamp2. You could overcome this limitation by using MP3Gain, this program applies a losslessly reversable gain to the MP3 itself, so it's compatible with Winamp2.

I've often considered running MP3Gain set at 89db as the playback volume on my entire MP3 library.  But the idea of being able to apply the gain via data either stored in an external file, or in the ID3v2 tag, leaving the audio data itself unaffected has always been more appealing. 

I don't know whether or not software has been written that would let you choose between applying a +/- db playback volume setting from either embedded MP3 ID3v2 tag data, or from an external database file.  But that would be the road I'd like to go.

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The fastest (not sure, since I haven't had a system that slow for ages) would be:
Using Foobar2000 to scan all the files for RG info.

When I run  RG in FooBar on all selected MP3s on a playlist, I’m still getting a speed of 2x on the old system.  Would that go faster in a more powerful system?  And then, it seems Foobar is writing the RG volume info for ‘track gain’, ‘album gain’, ‘track peak’, and ‘album peak’ right to the MP3, but don’t see evidence of it in the tags using EncSpot. Is this going into a value for the ID3v2 tags somewhere? Maybe my EncSpot v2.0 doesn’t display this info.

But this is just what I’d like to do if I could then get a Winamp2 RG plugin to recognize the RG settings embedded in the MP3 by FooBar for MP3 playback. 

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and then open them with MP3Gain to apply the gain foobar found to the MP3 files.

I'm not quite sure how I would go about copying the volume data on 3400+ MP3s over to MP3Gain very easily, or quickly at that point.  Are you suggesting that I use Foobar’s 'RG Info Editor' to look at the RG settings in each MP3?

Shel
Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man

Reply Gain Winamp 2.x plugin

Reply #3 –
Quote
The Replay Gain and peak amplitude values of files are stored in
<Winamp DSP plugins dir>\replaygains.csv. You can import this file into Access,
Excel or any other database/spreadsheet you like. Of course you can also export
it again, e.g. when you have manually modified a certain Replay Gain value for
a specific file.


Sound like you can just scan them on a modern machine and then copy the data into winamp's DSP folder.

Reply Gain Winamp 2.x plugin

Reply #4 –
Quote
Sounds like you can just scan them on a modern machine and then copy the data into winamp's DSP folder.

I'm note sure if the Replay Gain DSP plugin for Winamp2 will playback any faster than 2x on a more powerful system.  If so, you're suggestion might then be one good approach.

Shel
Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man

Reply Gain Winamp 2.x plugin

Reply #5 –
If you are getting 2X on foobar too, it must be caused by the MP3 decoding, which  can't be made faster because of your system specs.
I think the main issue is the lack of MMX.
So I think you should scan them in a faster PC and copy replaygains.csv to the old laptop, or leave it scanning overnight.
"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be misquoted, then used against you."

Reply Gain Winamp 2.x plugin

Reply #6 –
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So I think you should scan them in a faster PC and copy replaygains.csv to the old laptop, or leave it scanning overnight.

I'll try setting things up on a P450 Win98 system tomorrow and see how fast both Winamp2 and Foobar2000 can process the files.

I'm still really interested in the possibility of finding a Winamp2 plugin that might be able to apply the Replay Gain values that Foobar writes right to the MP3 files.  That and whether or not any other Winamp2 plugins exist to even out MP3 volume playback in general.

I did find the in_xaudio MP3 input plugin for Winamp.  But the XAudio SDK necessary to compile it at the URL it's pointing to seems not to exist.

Shel
Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man

Reply Gain Winamp 2.x plugin

Reply #8 –
Quote
Quote
But the XAudio SDK necessary to compile it at the URL it's pointing to seems not to exist.

http://62.251.99.186/xaudio/download/

Thanks for the URL.  I'll try setting up the  in_xaudio Winamp2 plugin.  Any idea where to look for discussions/info on this plugin?  I didn't have much success searching Hydrogen.

I do have the Replay Gain DSP plugin for Winamp2 running at 8x now from a PII 450 based PC networked to my Libretto mini-notebook.  At 2x I calculated the process to take a full 4 days or more.  At 8x, the remaining MP3s ought to take about 18 hours.

Now I'm wondering if there's any way to transfer the volume settings created in the replaygains.csv file over to Foobar's ReplayGain function, and actually write this data to the MP3s themeslves.  That way I could choose between playback in Foobar or Winamp.

Shel
Geopoliticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man