Replaygain - Anyone know about it?

[ozbrit]

I was looking through some posts on another forum when someone suggested a facility for squeezebox where music volume from a playlist could be levelled. You know how different tracks from different albums/sources can vary in volume, well at this forum someone chipped in saying there is a squeezebox facility that can do this called "Replaygain". Hmmm! I wonder if this is factual, as I can't see anything in SqueezeCenter called replagain or anything else like it. Anyone know about it?

[tcutting]

I haven't used this (yet), but it IS real.
Replaygain requires something similar to tagging to be done, which then evaluates all the files on an album, and creates a couple of parameters, which I believe are added to the song files as tags. There is an album gain and a track gain (I believe). Squeezecenter then has a feature in the settings to choose how replaygain is used. I believe there is a "smartgain" setting which allows squeezecenter to choose the appropriate logic. The album gain is based on the average level of the tracks on an album, and the gain on the whole album is then adjusted by this amount. This allows the track-to-track variations on an album to be maintained. If, however, you are playing a mixture of tracks from multiple albums, it would use the individual gains for each track to make all the tracks play at about the same level.
Again, I haven't actually implemented this (yet) on my setup, but that's one of the next things I plan to do (and as a result, some of the information in this post may not be completely accurate).

[Moonbase]

Yep. It’s for real, has been enhanced lately (for non-clipping), and many (if not most) of us probably use it every day :-) And just in case your friend asks: Yes, it will do both »audiophile« (album) and »radio« (track) gain, and even has an additional (selectable) »smart gain« (automagic selection between track and album gain).

Also, SC even supports »SoundCheck«, the Apple/iTunes variant of Replay Gain, and the original RVA system. So you get the best of all worlds.

[bhaagensen]

Replaygain requires something similar to tagging to be done, which then evaluates all the files on an album, and creates a couple of parameters, which I believe are added to the song files as tags.

To be a bit more concrete the way replay gain is usually implemented (how it works) is that the replaygain data are added by your tagging software. These data appear as any other tags in your files such as artist, album etc, but are of course called something with replaygain. Many common ripping/tagging software includes the ability to calculate replaygain and add it to the file tags.

The Squeezebox then reads these data upon playback, and attenuates the volume accordingly.

[ozbrit]

Thanks for all that, so where do I look in squeezecenter to set the settings?

[Moonbase]

These are player-specific, so you can either use SC: "Settings" (at lower right) -> "Player" (tab) -> "Audio" (dropdown menu) -> "Volume Adjustment/Replay Gain" OR do it from each player’s menu (SC/SB: "Settings" -> "Audio" -> "Volume Adjustment").

[Uluen]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replay_Gain

[teeitup]

I followed the directions on this page and it made a world of difference. Just remeber to do a full rescan after you're done.

http://projects.robinbowes.com/apply_replaygain/trac

Good Luck,

[Rick B.]

Replaygain is absolutely great! You can add the tags using Foobar2000 (it's free).

[bephillips]

http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.php/RGFoobar

http://wiki.slimdevices.com/index.ph...ide_To_Ripping

One of the many great things about using SqueezeCenter