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Topic: replaygain vs normalization (Read 5442 times) previous topic - next topic
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replaygain vs normalization

hello
i am using cdex 1.5 for ripping and encoding my cds with musepack enc 1.14
till now i was using normalization from cdex, but now i am confused
what should i do? turn off normalization and apply replaygain after encoding?
i am not expert  in digital audio so i prefer to use presets and auto options
is it safe to use replaygain with --auto option?
what is --smart --auto option?
thanx in advance
michun

replaygain vs normalization

Reply #1 –
Quote
what should i do? turn off normalization and apply replaygain after encoding?

Yes.

Quote
is it safe to use replaygain with --auto option?


Yes. Just make sure to process each album on it's own, to get correct album values.

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what is --smart --auto option?


--smart can skip albums that are already ReplayGain'ed.

replaygain vs normalization

Reply #2 –
I thought about this too. Isnt the normalisation process before the mp3 encoding helping the quality of the mp3 file? (because the normalisation increases the dynamic of the song)

so that for a perfect rip one should analyse the music, then normalise and encode it to mp3. Then restore the original volume with the help of mp3gain....

That would be some work, especially as i dont know how to analyse the wav files that i ripped before encoding the mp3.... (and doesnt the encoding influence the heard volume level...)

hope anyone has more insight to audio than me

Chris

replaygain vs normalization

Reply #3 –
CiTay is clearly the expert on this subject, but I thought I'd at least share what I've learned so far...

Normalization is a lossy process for adjusting the gain of an audio file.  Anything it puts below the noise floor upon gaining down a track is lost.  If you try gaining up the same track, you'll have forever lost the audio that originally existed between the pre-gain noise floor and the post-gain noise floor.  Only noticable on a track with one or more *very* quiet passages, but more noticable if the normalization was fairly steep (greater than, say, 5 dB).

ReplayGain (or the MP3Gain variant) is lossless.  It makes adjustments to the metadata inside the MP3 file (there's a better way of describing this part, I'm sure), but does not lose a single bit of actual audio data.  Hence, if you gain down a track with ReplayGain, anything pushed below the noise floor still actually exists in the file.  If the track is ever gained up again, that portion of the audio would be perfectly restored to its pre-gain state.

Therefore, IMHO, ReplayGain/MP3Gain is the better way for basic gain adjustment, at least for lossy encoding formats.

I personally use MP3Gain (v1.4.1 back-end) with the "album gain" setting, and prefer it because:

- It's lossless, and can be adjusted up or down over and over (if desired) without losing any sound data.
- No hardware support is required.  Adjustments made with ReplayGain/MP3Gain will work on any music player compatible with the encoding format (MP3, MPC, AAC, etc.)
- I can simply configure it and then dump one or more tracks/directories into it and in one click it will analyze each track for current gain and any clipping that might exist, then apply whatever gain adjustment necessary to correct to the specified level (default=89.0 dB).  If it gains too much or not enough, then I can always re-gain it since the process is lossless.
- Using album gain beats what normailization does (IMO) because tracks that are "intended" to be quieter or louder than other tracks on the album retain that aspect.  I can gain multiple directories at once, and tell MP3Gain to treat each directory as a seperate album for the purposes of applying album gain.
- Since adjusting gain losslessly is the last step in my DAE process, I don't have to know or care where any clipping may have been introduced, whether upon dynamic compression of the original audio track in the recording studio, or during lossy encoding...as long as I can adjust out any clipping and level the volume across albums in the final product without losing any audio data.

(This is all assuming, of course, that ReplayGain works with other lossy formats much the same way MP3Gain works with MP3s.)

I hope this helps, and if any of these points are found to be incorrect, please let me know...

replaygain vs normalization

Reply #4 –
Quick question then....

I would I go about removing the mp3gain information?  Or does lossless not imply easy to reverse?

The reason I ask is that before I used mp3gain, I assumed it worked like replaygain and simply added tag information.  Now I'm curious how to reverse the effects of an mp3gain.

replaygain vs normalization

Reply #5 –
To remove gain adjustments in MP3Gain, anyway, you simply select Modify Gain - Undo Gain Changes.  This removes all adjustments that were previously made, no matter how many times the gain was adjusted.  This, howver, doesn't affect normalization changes.  ReplayGain I think would have a similar option.

As for how to remove all aspects of ReplayGain or MP3Gain from an encoded audio file, I don't know whether they simply update an already existing tag in the encoded file and therefore there's really nothing to remove, or if they indeed write "new data" into the file...
 

replaygain vs normalization

Reply #6 –
Quote
To remove gain adjustments in MP3Gain, anyway, you simply select Modify Gain - Undo Gain Changes.  This removes all adjustments that were previously made, no matter how many times the gain was adjusted.  This, howver, doesn't affect normalization changes.  ReplayGain I think would have a similar option.

This doesn't seem to be the case, at least not with mp3s that were mp3gained with the 1.0 version.

I have a couple mp3s that I KNOW were pulled down by 3 dB.  undoing it doesn't seem to change it though.

replaygain vs normalization

Reply #7 –
the latest version is capable of automatic undo, not 1.0