Author Topic: log file for "analyse volume" process  (Read 1825 times)

estefano

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Steven, thanks for a fantastic piece of software that I get to use for free.  At first I was just looking for a simple media player and MusicBee "just worked" without a fuss.  As my needs have grown, I've found that MusicBee has been able to handle anything I've needed it to.  E.g., streaming to my Roku device.  Most recently I wanted to get the volumes of my mp3s playlists leveled out on my phone.  I found out MusicBee has device sync, .m3u support, replay gain tagging, and volume leveling on sync.  Awesome.

My request is that a log file be generated containing the output of the "analyse volume" window.  It would be wonderful to investigate some of the extreme +/-gain settings after processing my library.  But that's arduous because "analyse volume" window doesn't sort results or let me copy-paste its contents.  I suppose that if you don't have time or inclination to make a log file, then either sorting or copy-pasting the results window would be nearly as good.

I'll also take this opportunity to relate my experience with replay gain clipping, for the benefit of future forum-searchers.  I've read most of what's been written on the subject in these forums.  I agree with your stance that clipping isn't a major issue because the vast majority of the time you can't hear it.  MusicBee just applied a range from -18.1dB to +34.4dB to my library, although without a few outliers it's primarily -15 to +20.  I listened to the tracks with the highest clipping warnings and for most of my music genres I couldn't detect any clipping artifacts with my ears.  However, clipping was definitely audible to me for many of my classical mp3s.  So I'm going to re-level just the classical part of my collection. 

TL;DR:  MusicBee is amazing.  I'd like a persistent or at least sortable record of replay gain calculations.  Replay gain clipping isn't a concern for most people, unless they listen to a lot of classical music.  Thanks.

frankz

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+1.  It'd be nice to at least see what it's going to do before it does it even if a log isn't possible.


redwing

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Then what are you gonna do with those log files?

Probably it would be more useful if MB supported "Clipping?" field that shows a dB number that needs to be adjusted to prevent clipping something like "album -2.3 track -3.2" by calculating with existing RG tags. This can be manually done by exporting existing RG values to spreadsheet, doing some math and calculate the figures, and then copy them back to a custom field, but if MB could support the new field by auto-calculating the value that would be more convenient.

estefano

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Then what are you gonna do with those log files?

I was going to use the log file in the same way I use the existing results window, just more efficiently.  That is, look at which files have the most severe clipping warnings and then decide whether to re-level them or not.  The only difference is that in the current situation I cannot close the results window until I manually scroll through 65,000+ files looking for clipping warnings and then pausing at each one to evaluate it.  I'd prefer to not have to manually scroll for that many hours before I do any more replay gain calculations.  (As well as being unable to close MusicBee or shutdown my computer.)  I'd rather have a permanent record of the warnings; one that I can auto-sort to reveal the most significant warnings in just seconds.  This would bring the workflow from hours to minutes.

That said, I may be doing it wrong.  If there's currently a better way to figure out whether the replay gain calcs caused _audible_ clipping in a large library I'd be very interested!

Your idea for a "clipping?" field sounds excellent and could potentially complement or replace my idea.  I just pitched a log file or copy-to-clipboard or a working sort function for the results window because it seemed like a pretty easy change as well as being the "right way" to handle the auto-leveling results from a UI perspective.

redwing

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Probably it would be more useful if MB supported "Clipping?" field that shows a dB number that needs to be adjusted to prevent clipping something like "album -2.3 track -3.2" by calculating with existing RG tags. This can be manually done by exporting existing RG values to spreadsheet, doing some math and calculate the figures, and then copy them back to a custom field, but if MB could support the new field by auto-calculating the value that would be more convenient.

This is now possible thanks to boroda74's support. I'll post a guide soon.

It's done: https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=9317.msg140321#msg140321
Last Edit: February 02, 2018, 08:58:25 PM by redwing

estefano

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This is now possible thanks to boroda74's support. I'll post a guide soon.
...
It's done: https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=9317.msg140321#msg140321

Well this was incredibly helpful!  Thanks to you and boroda74.  I've finally got all my music leveled how I want.  Also the ordeal of leveling everything exposed some other tagging issues in my collection, giving me a chance to fix those as well.