Undo all replay gain tags?

[streifenleopard]

Hello,
I manage my music in MusicBee and automatically write volume leveling tags for album and title.
For a while I have wondered why my RPIcumHifiberry is not as loud as my CD player.
So I removed the tags from some files and, tadang, it's the same volume as my CDs.
Would you recommend to do away with all the volume leveling tags in the files? Shouldn't be too much work.
(Tag: TXXX/Replaygain_albumgain)
I have set LMS to intelligent normalisation or what it's called but I wasn't sure if it's reading the tags at all.

[garym]

Hello,
I manage my music in MusicBee and automatically write volume leveling tags for album and title.
For a while I have wondered why my RPIcumHifiberry is not as loud as my CD player.
So I removed the tags from some files and, tadang, it's the same volume as my CDs.
Would you recommend to do away with all the volume leveling tags in the files? Shouldn't be too much work.
(Tag: TXXX/Replaygain_albumgain)
I have set LMS to intelligent normalisation or what it's called but I wasn't sure if it's reading the tags at all.

You have LMS set to smart gain. This uses the ReplayGain tags to adjust volume. Just set this to none. You have to do this for each player within LMS settings. No need to delete tags. Or to remove just batch edit your files and remove all the RG tags. But really no need to remove.

[bakker_be]

You have LMS set to smart gain. This uses the ReplayGain tags to adjust volume. Just set this to none. You have to do this for each player within LMS settings. No need to delete tags. Or to remove just batch edit your files and remove all the RG tags. But really no need to remove.

Garym is 100% right in this. If you still want to remove the tags, I believe Foobar2k is the easiest. Just load all your music in there, right-click and remove tags (see screenshot below)

[w3wilkes]

So I removed the tags from some files and, tadang, it's the same volume as my CDs.

That will make the same album in LMS play at the same volume as its corresponding CD. However, you should find that some CD's are recorded louder than others. The intent of the RG tags is to make it so when you play multiple albums together the relative volume between albums should be about the same. If you're playing a playlist of multiple songs from different albums RG should make the songs play at relatively the same volume.

[streifenleopard]

You have LMS set to smart gain. This uses the ReplayGain tags to adjust volume. Just set this to none. You have to do this for each player within LMS settings. No need to delete tags. Or to remove just batch edit your files and remove all the RG tags. But really no need to remove.

Garym is 100% right in this. If you still want to remove the tags, I believe Foobar2k is the easiest.

Maybe this is the easiest way. One might ask though why I still need the tags then in the first place.

That will make the same album in LMS play at the same volume as its corresponding CD. However, you should find that some CD's are recorded louder than others. The intent of the RG tags is to make it so when you play multiple albums together the relative volume between albums should be about the same. If you're playing a playlist of multiple songs from different albums RG should make the songs play at relatively the same volume.

Yes, but this is not the case; I still have to constantly adjust the volume. I guess this is due to the fact that the writing of the replay gain tags took place over a long period of time (ie ten years or so) during which new files were added constantly. This makes the computation of relative values so difficult as they are based on comparison between these files.
Also I think it's difficult if you have different file types.

[slartibartfast]

Maybe this is the easiest way. One might ask though why I still need the tags then in the first place.


Yes, but this is not the case; I still have to constantly adjust the volume. I guess this is due to the fact that the writing of the replay gain tags took place over a long period of time (ie ten years or so) during which new files were added constantly. This makes the computation of relative values so difficult as they are based on comparison between these files.
Also I think it's difficult if you have different file types.

It shouldn't matter when the replaygain tags were calculated they should all be based on the same target volume. I use album gain for everything figuring that a quiet album track is meant to be quiet in all circumstances and sounds wrong when played back louder.
I also haven't used my CD player since getting Squeezeboxes [emoji2]

Edit. Is it possible that some of your tracks don't have replaygain tags? I have forgotten to add them occasionally and had to dash for the volume control.

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[garym]

Yes, but this is not the case; I still have to constantly adjust the volume. I guess this is due to the fact that the writing of the replay gain tags took place over a long period of time (ie ten years or so) during which new files were added constantly. This makes the computation of relative values so difficult as they are based on comparison between these files.
Also I think it's difficult if you have different file types.

As @slartibartfast points out, replaygain tag info is not based on a relative loudness of *your* tracks. Rather, the values are based on a target value (e.g., 89db or -18 LUFS, etc.). And this works across different file types (mp3, FLAC, etc.). I like his hypothesis that you probably have files WITHOUT replaygain values, thus the need to reach for the volume control.

Personally, I can't imagine playing my digital files without RG engaged. SmartGain is brilliant. It automatically uses ALBUM RG values if playing songs from the same album, but uses TRACK RG values if paying tracks from different albums.

[kidstypike]

Personally, I can't imagine playing my digital files without RG engaged. SmartGain is brilliant.

Totally agree, as most of my listening is random tracks, I couldn't imagine LMS/Squeezeboxes without Smart Gain.

[bakker_be]

Maybe this is the easiest way. One might ask though why I still need the tags then in the first place.


Yes, but this is not the case; I still have to constantly adjust the volume. I guess this is due to the fact that the writing of the replay gain tags took place over a long period of time (ie ten years or so) during which new files were added constantly. This makes the computation of relative values so difficult as they are based on comparison between these files.
Also I think it's difficult if you have different file types.

As others have said, Replaygain is calculated to an absolute target value, not relative to your other files. Having to adjust the volume may indeed point to some tracks missing tags, but I personally have another case in my library as well: some MP3's from back when I began this digital music journey (late 90's, early 2000's) were "normalized" through Windows Media Player, and unfortunately that wasn't done through tags but directly in the audio data itself. They're such a minor part of the collection though, that I've never bothered to do anything about it (also due to lazyness, all cd's have been boxed and stored for at least 15 years now )

[streifenleopard]

some MP3's from back when I began this digital music journey (late 90's, early 2000's) were "normalized" through Windows Media Player, and unfortunately that wasn't done through tags but directly in the audio data itself. They're such a minor part of the collection though, that I've never bothered to do anything about it (also due to lazyness, all cd's have been boxed and stored for at least 15 years now )

I don't have any of these but I have some files with a pretty low quality, some files I didn't rip myself and some files ripped from low quality cds. Maybe this contributes to the heterogeneity of my collection.

[garym]

I don't have any of these but I have some files with a pretty low quality, some files I didn't rip myself and some files ripped from low quality cds. Maybe this contributes to the heterogeneity of my collection.

maybe, but not necessarily. I have over 8,000 CDs. Even brand new, recently issued/mastered CDs can be very, very different in terms of 'loudness'. Thus my love of ReplayGain and SmartGain option in LMS.

[bakker_be]

maybe, but not necessarily. I have over 8,000 CDs. Even brand new, recently issued/mastered CDs can be very, very different in terms of 'loudness'. Thus my love of ReplayGain and SmartGain option in LMS.

Indeed, especially the smartgain option is invaluable as it maintains relative loudness if 2 consecutive tracks are from the same album (or if you're just playing an entire album), but it levels playback volume so a "random" playlist doesn't cause you to run for the volume

[slartibartfast]

Indeed, especially the smartgain option is invaluable as it maintains relative loudness if 2 consecutive tracks are from the same album (or if you're just playing an entire album), but it levels playback volume so a "random" playlist doesn't cause you to run for the volume

That's true but do you really want Pink Floyd's "Outside The Wall" boosted by 15dB if it turns up in a playlist? [emoji1787]. I leave mine set to Album Gain.

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