Author Topic: Questions on Running Analyze Volume Tool  (Read 6095 times)

wgabriel10

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Hiya everyone! New-bee here on Music-Bee!

My only past experience with music managers and libraries has been with Windows Media Player and Winamp. I had been looking at other applications for something better and decided that MusicBee looked to be more-than-suitable for my uses. So far, I have been very impressed!!

I've been using MB for a few weeks on a library of around 900 songs now, and like others, I have the problem of varying volumes among the different tracks.  I am treating all songs as individual tracks -- no albums. So far, I just have played with using the "Volume Adjustment" feature that is part of the Tag Editor -- Settings feature. This is getting more difficult to do the larger my library becomes. Also, I am very inexperienced with changing Tags, especially those that affect playback aspects.

So, I am looking to run the Analyzer Volume tool to adjust all tracks to some baseline volume and then apply an adjustment to just the tracks that I think should be louder (in most cases) or softer.

Before I do this, I have some questions to ask of those "in the know". So far, in searching the forum I have not found any definitive answers to #1.

1) Before I run Analyze Volume, do I need to go into any tracks that I have modified and reset the Tag Editor "Volume Adjustment" to 0 dB? I would assume Yes.

2) As I understand it, I can use another music manager like Foobar to perform any new volume adjustments that I may want to make to the ID3V2.3 tags. Also, I got the impression that I can use the application MP3TAG to do this too, which in my mind is simpler than loading up a copy of Foobar, which I see no other use for personally. Is this true about MP3TAG?

I think I understand what-all Analyze Volume will do to the track files, but if I have any questions, I will ask them here. Right now I am trying to determine whether to use the "0 dB" baseline for Analyze Volume's -9dB to +6dB range or to set it to -3dB to provide more upper range adjustment. At least this is what I am presently thinking, as I suspect that most adjustments I may want to make would be for increased volume on the Rock and Pop tracks especially.

Thanks ahead of time for answers to my questions and any helpful hints you may provide.

Gabe


redwing

  • Guest
They are two different things. Read this post: http://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=9087.0

Technically, I think, the RVAD field values won't affect the process or result of volume analysis, simply adjusting playing volume of the track.

The baseline for volume analysis has most to do with the clipping issue. If you search with the term, you will find relevant posts.

Alumni

  • Sr. Member
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  • Posts: 1007
Hello and welcome,

I would recommend analyzing your library on an album & tracks basis. Albums are supposed to vary in volume from track to track.

It's a good idea to remove all replay gain values from your files before starting fresh in MusicBee.
An easy way to do this is using mp3tag and a custom action to batch process your files. Here's what my action looks like...

Remove Fields:
REPLAYGAIN_ALBUM_GAIN; REPLAYGAIN_ALBUM_PEAK; REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN; REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK

Personally I keep volume adjustment at -6dB since that covers all genres of music with little or no issues.
If that is too low for your needs, as a minimum I would advise -3dB to avoid possible clipping.
Last Edit: January 02, 2015, 03:34:04 AM by Alumni

wgabriel10

  • Guest
Thanks for the quick replies!

Redwing -- Yes, I had determined that Volume Adjustment and Replay Gain were 2 separate items and that Vol Adj was RVAD. It was finding out whether or not the Volume Adjustment setting "other than 0dB" affected the Analyze Volume process that seemed important. It would be nice to know definitely whether it does or it does not. I had performed a number of searches, but could find no definitive answer (in my mind) so far. I'll try some more. Thanks for the post link.

Alumni -- Thanks for the tips on ensuring that any other tags which could affect RG are removed. So far, I have not seen any instances of these tags, but I have not checked every track. I don't have any Albums at all right now -- tracks only. I've read about the need for analyzing both. It is nice to know that MP3TAG can perform a global removal. I've never used it yet. I think I like your advice about the -6dB volume adjustment. Just for my own clarification though, when you said "volume adjustment", you are talking about the Volume Adjustment under Tag Editor -- Settings (RVAD), aren't you? I am wanting to make sure that you are not talking about setting the Analyze Volume baseline setting to -6dB before performing the analysis for Replay Gain. That's down to 83dB from 89db, I think. Sorry, but some of these terms get confusing to me at this point in time.

Thanks, again!!   Gabe

Alumni

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wgabriel10, I was referring to Tools/Volume Analysis rather than Tag Editor/Settings/Volume Adjustment.
So in my case everything in my library is analyzed with negative gain at -6dB, and these replaygain tags are written into the files.
I've never used the volume adjustment setting but I'm guessing this value is only stored in MusicBee's database.
Last Edit: January 02, 2015, 06:01:33 AM by Alumni

redwing

  • Guest
Redwing -- Yes, I had determined that Volume Adjustment and Replay Gain were 2 separate items and that Vol Adj was RVAD. It was finding out whether or not the Volume Adjustment setting "other than 0dB" affected the Analyze Volume process that seemed important. It would be nice to know definitely whether it does or it does not.

Just tested, and it doesn't affect as I expected.

I've never used the volume adjustment setting but I'm guessing this value is only stored in MusicBee's database.

That's saved as a tag to the file.

wgabriel10

  • Guest
Sooper, y'all!! Many thanks for the help!

I remember reading a post in my searches where Steven had mentioned that RVAD was associated with the song file data and was not a Tag. Thanks for the test on whether or not it affects running the Volume Analysis Tool.

Good on the clarification on the -6dB being associated with the Volume Analysis Tool. After I was lying in bed early this morning trying to go to sleep, it hit me that "Hell, the Volume Adjustment under the Tag Editor is +/-100%, not in dB! I'll bet Alumni was talking about the Volume Analysis Tool!"