[condor]

@thelord, thanks. I think I am getting what you are saying - let me try both mp3gain & wavegain on some tracks & see the amplitudes. A difference may just be possible.

But I didnt understand the logic of the approach you used for your CD extracts. Your original track seemed more suitable - when I apply the explaination you have provided in the first part. You didnt want to alter the original wav's ? Any reason for that ?

[thelord]

Yep, didn't want to alter the original wavs. The reason is that I use different gain settings for different equipment. Let's say I'd keep ~95dB for music on my cellphone and ~89dB for home and car audio. So having wavs at original amplitudes made more sense. Also there is a theory that most compression algorithms (LAME etc) use the amplitude as one of the factor for assigning bits. Altering the wavs amplitude could then also alter the way the compressed files are created. So original wavs are more true-to-the-source.

Originally Posted by condor

But I didnt understand the logic of the approach you used for your CD extracts. Your original track seemed more suitable - when I apply the explaination you have provided in the first part. You didnt want to alter the original wav's ? Any reason for that ?

[navin]

Originally Posted by condor

I'm checking out Wavegain, and have this doubt : What is the difference between Wavegain and Amplification. Amplification is possible through most utilities. So how is this different ? What does wavegain do differently ?

What do you mean by amplification?

Produts like Wavegain allow you to "normalise" the playback levels of all your MP3 so that they all have the same "average" level. You do this in the encoding stage. Users of EAC/LAME can use the "--scale" function. "--scale" is considered superior to Wavegain (though wavegain is used to calculate scale) but really I wish Sam/B&T and the Pros offered their inputs as the the practical differences as I am coming to the conclusion that I am unnesscarily tediously stupid about these processes and their practical difference and maybe what I am professs is only splitting hairs.

While the Wavegain/--scale processes are lossy (in so much as they do tend to disfavour the low level bits) so is MP3 (as a medium) so my belief is that it really does not affect the perceptablity of the loss. For my lossless files I do NOT aqpply any preprocesssing (wavegain) as I can do teh same in foobar (using vlevel - VLevel - About ).

Wavegain is a simple method to sort apply some intelligent normalization (based on the RMS value of the signal) to the MP3 music while it is being encoded. I belive it is of good practical use. However if I were to recommend an process I'd say use EAC and "--scale". I can hear a difference and so can many other nuts like me but for the general public (those who use iTunes, Windows Media Player etc..) I really dont know.

You can also use MP3gain on MP3s that are already processed and achieve what is about the same result. Most claims (I have not verfiied this as I do not use Wavegain but use --scale instead) say that MP3gain is better than Wavegain as it (a) MP3 specific (while Wavegain is generic (b) is applied post encoding process and (c) can be manually scaled.

Post the release of Wavegain there are other products (like levelator) that claim to be superior (I have not tried them) but since Wavegain is the most accepted of these "normalization" processes this is what I'd recommend for the non-EAC users.

I hope this helps.

Here are my arguments for MP3 (EAC users feel free to copy them)
EXEPATH=D:\lame-3.96.1\lame.exe
ARGUMENTS=--preset extreme --id3v2-only --pad-id3v2 --ignore-tag-errors --scale %x --ta "%a" --tl "%g" --tn "%n" --tt "%t" --ty "%y" --tg "%m" %s %d
FILEPATH=D:\mp3\%a\%g\%n - %t
EXTENSION=.mp3
FILETYPE=1
APPLYREPLAYGAIN=false ;;;;;;;;;; mp3gain stores it's information in APEv2 tags.
REPLAYGAINEXEPATH= ;;;;;;;;;; Using mp3gain with ID3 tags will cause the tags
REPLAYGAINARGUMENTS= ;;;;;;;;;; to disappear on some players (ie, Foobar).

..and for lossless (WavPack)
EXEPATH=D:\wavpack-4.2\wavpack\wavpack.exe
ARGUMENTS=-hm -w "Artist=%a" -w "Album=%g" -w "Track=%n" -w "Title=%t" -w "Year=%y" -w "Genre=%m" %s %d
FILEPATH=G:\wav\%a\%g\%n - %t
EXTENSION=.wv
FILETYPE=1
APPLYREPLAYGAIN=false
REPLAYGAINEXEPATH=
REPLAYGAINARGUMENTS=

Enjoy!

[navin]

Originally Posted by thelord

Wavegain on the other hand works with the raw PCM wave file and applies a gain (+/- dB) on the actual sound. This means that the changes done by wavegain are not strictly speaking, lossless.

So I extract the WAVs as it is, compress them to mp3s and then apply MP3Gain.

Originally Posted by condor

You didnt want to alter the original wav's ? Any reason for that ?

Condor, the rationale is to have as good / corect a source as possible. MP3gain is post encoding-process, Wavegain is a pre-enocding process.

The Lord, Have you compared the Wavegain output to the MP3gain output. I have not and would like to know if there are any preceptible differences in the real world. I suspect that since MP3s are lossy in nature the diffences might be negligible.

[Epic]

Hi GTO,

Very interesting thread and I will be trying this out tonight. However, I believe this is to normalize the volume of the entire song collection in iTunes and in turn on the iPod. Is there anyway to normalize the sound of all the songs on the PC (all track in My Music floder) too or does iGain do it automatically?

[condor]

navin : What do you mean by amplification?

Navinji, by amplification, I was refering to the option that the audio utilities have. If I look at the waveform, pre & post "amplification", it looks something like a gain in the waveform. If I "amplify" too much, there is clipping.

[navin]

Originally Posted by condor

Navinji, by amplification, I was refering to the option that the audio utilities have. If I look at the waveform, pre & post "amplification", it looks something like a gain in the waveform. If I "amplify" too much, there is clipping.

Which audio utility?

Originally Posted by Epic

Is there anyway to normalize the sound of all the songs on the PC (all track in My Music floder) too or does iGain do it automatically?

Does not iTunes have this feature. I wont know as I use Foobar. Try Foobar or Songbird.

[anurag_p80]

Try Foobar or Songbird

Or MediaMonkey. Intuitive and reliable. You can also update tags for your collection, and maintain it just so

[condor]

Navin, I use audacity. Find it Easy to edit the audio clips.

OT, I still find problems in getting tape hiss out of the track.

[GTO]

Originally Posted by Epic

Is there anyway to normalize the sound of all the songs on the PC (all track in My Music floder) too or does iGain do it automatically?

I guess that's what iGain actually does. It normalises the volume of the song file itself. No matter how you play the MP3s, their volume output will be more or less equal.

[Epic]

Hey all,

Got my music normalized on iTunes through iGain and I was pretty disappointed with the results. Followed the step by step process but when I played my iPod through my Pioneer 6950 the sound was not at all levelled. Yes, Sound Check was off on iTunes and on the iPod. Very frankly, my music sounded much better & levelled before iGain. I have also noticed that certain tracks which had good sound quality did not sound good after iGain. The tracks sounded way better on the iPod before iGain with 'Sound Check' turned on. I will be going back to original for sure.

Anyone experienced this or have I screwed up somewhere??

[Epic]

Hey guys,

I undid the changes of iGain and then applied the 'Sound Check' to all tracks in my iTunes library. This took almost 2 hours for the 2815 tracks in my library. Then synced it with my iPod and it sounded way better. But 'Sound Check' on my iPod is turned off. I didn't like the sound if I turn on 'Sound Check' on the iPod. Basically, I believe I am using the original sound of the track without any 'normalization' and I seem to like it better.

I am sharing just my personal experience and tastes.

[navin]

Originally Posted by Epic

Basically, I believe I am using the original sound of the track without any 'normalization' and I seem to like it better.

I am sharing just my personal experience and tastes.

THis is why it is much better to normalize the levels while ripping MP3s.

[GTO]

Originally Posted by Epic

Followed the step by step process but when I played my iPod through my Pioneer 6950 the sound was not at all levelled.

If you followed the step-by-step procedures, there is no reason for any inconsistency in volume levels. 90% of my collection is perfectly normalised. The other 10% are Apple Lossless files (non-MP3) that iGain cannot normalise. Are any of the tracks from your collection Non-MP3 files?

I have also noticed that certain tracks which had good sound quality did not sound good after iGain.

Strange. iGain does NOTHING to the actual song / MP3 quality. It merely changes the volume tags.

I am sharing just my personal experience and tastes.

Everyones got their own preferences . As long as you are happy, that's what counts.

[spadix]

First of all, thanks to GTO for starting this thread! After reading this, I set out to normalize my collection too. It started yesterday morning and has still not finished (combination of very old hardware, lots of files, HDD-based iPod which takes a long time to sync, and a bunch of files incompatible with mp3gain/aacgain which meant frequent manual intervention).

So I'm yet to "trial" out the normalized collection. I hope to not find any issues because I don't want to spend another half a week rolling back the changes and re-syncing .

Just a quick update - mp3gain now comes with its own GUI, which looks very similar to the iGain GUI.

This is for those who have large collection of MP3s but don't use iTunes.

Apologies if this point was already covered in this thread. I couldn't find any mention of it.

Regards,
spadix