Any plans for ReplayGain analysis to use the recent EBU-R128 standard ? [DONE]

[Pingaware]

I realised I've got a question that I've just assumed the answer to, and I might as well ask it now as we're on a ReplayGain discussion. I've been assuming that if an album gain value is calculated for a track, that value is used as the ReplayGain value by MB instead of the track gain value even when the track is not playing as part of the album. Is that correct Steven?

[dylstew]

I just learned what replaygain is 5 seconds ago.
Is it easy to turn it on and off? If so, I'd probably use it sometimes.

[redwing]

Yes, there's a setting to turn it on and off under Preferences> Player> Sound Effects.

[SimonBRT]

I realised I've got a question that I've just assumed the answer to, and I might as well ask it now as we're on a ReplayGain discussion. I've been assuming that if an album gain value is calculated for a track, that value is used as the ReplayGain value by MB instead of the track gain value even when the track is not playing as part of the album. Is that correct Steven?

if you have SmartGain selected (and values for both album and track gain for the file), MB chooses the appropriate replaygain depending on whether the entire album is playing or just individual tracks.

[Pingaware]

Okay, that raises an interesting question. Where is Smart Gain? (Couldn't see it on a quick flick through the settings - probably missing it stupidly though).

That wasn't the interesting question. This is - if MB warns about clipping, should you manually adjust just album gain, or track gain values for each track as well?

[SimonBRT]

You can choose between album/track/smart gain from the Controls menu.

I'm not the best person to answer the question about clipping.

[Pingaware]

You can choose between album/track/smart gain from the Controls menu.

I do tend to forget about the existence of various menus in MB. Cheers for that Simon. I already had smart gain selected as it turns out.

I'm not the best person to answer the question about clipping.

No, that question was more aimed at Steven than anyone else.

[redwing]

With the new support for RG 2.0, it would be great if there's an option to force volume analysis to any newly imported files. If the file already has RG tags, then those should be rewritten. Current option only forces it for files with no RG tags, so new files with RG 1.0 tags could be easily mixed to library without the user's knowledge. BTW is there any way to tell RG 2.0 tags from 1.0 tags just by looking at the file?

[Zak]

BTW is there any way to tell RG 2.0 tags from 1.0 tags just by looking at the file?

I doubt you could tell from the values, but I think the new analysis DLL includes a "ReplayGain Reference Volume" tag (or something pretty close to that) which the old one didn't.

[Steven]

I think dont MB writes anything to distinguish from the old replay gain (as is the case with files updated foobar).
I will check if hydrogenaudio has any suggestions on that but it wont be done for v2.3

[Pat]

Until now I used Foobar for replaygain calculation. And had the same issue of distinguishing values from RG1 and RG2 analysis from old and new albums. I initially created a custom tag: "Replaygain profile" with a value for RG2 analysis and empty for RG1. But it was too tedious to fill in manually. In the end I did a full re-analysis of my entire collection with Foobar's RG2 so the problem was no longer there.

[redwing]

Until now I used Foobar for replaygain calculation. And had the same issue of distinguishing values from RG1 and RG2 analysis from old and new albums. I initially created a custom tag: "Replaygain profile" with a value for RG2 analysis and empty for RG1. But it was too tedious to fill in manually. In the end I did a full re-analysis of my entire collection with Foobar's RG2 so the problem was no longer there.

A full re-analysis of the entire collection doesn't make the issue go away. Actually that was when the issue arose for me since now you have to keep an wary eye on new files to prevent any RG1 files from mixing to your RG2 library. In addition to the new option of forcing volume analysis to any new files, if there's "Files with inconsistent album gain tags" filter in Tag Manager, that'd be helpful in identifying such files with inconsistent RG algorithm.

[Zak]

...now you have to keep an wary eye on new files to prevent any RG1 files from mixing to your RG2 library.

Is it actually a problem? If both are based on a reference volume of 89dB won't they give tracks of roughly the same adjusted volume?

[redwing]

Differences are overall minimal, but they can be greater than 3dB depending on the track in my library. And I don't think they use the same reference volume level.

http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=ReplayGain_2.0_specification#Reference_Level_and_Gain

[Bee-liever]

@ Steven
As R128Gain has a host of options, I was wondering how it's been set to calculate the new ReplayGain values.
Is lib1770.dll running in default mode (EBU R128-2011 compliance) or is it using the '--rg2' switch to run in "ReplayGain2 compliance mode"?
If running in EBU R128-2011 compliance, has the loudness reference been set for compatibility with ReplayGain or with EBU-R128?

Any enlightenment would help me in my decision to keep or delete lib1770.dll.