Question about normalizing volume on iPod

[iriverdude]

There are two ways of normalising files, either physically or in metadata. If your MP3 player does not support metadata type, you need to use physical side of it.

 

[member1982]

Quote:

Originally Posted by mojo /img/forum/go_quote.gif From the list of equipment you list in your signature and the fact that you have over 1000 posts to your name, I'm surprised you are even asking those questions. LAME is almost universally hailed as the best MP3 encoder bar none.

I only recently discovered the Portable Source Gear... With a name like LAME, i simply cannot believe it is the best its probably the lamest

Also im not that anal into the music files format, is there music? yes does it sound good? yes then why bother to make it better especially with the source, i personally like headphones / some form of lossless or 320KB/s mp3s which audibly would change more if u change headphones... not because of your source.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mojo /img/forum/go_quote.gif As for not normalizing, don't you find it annoying to have to change volume all the time when the track changes? When I'm out and about I don't want to have to constantly adjust the volume, I just want to set it going and forget about it. Even Apple realised this, which is why they introduced SoundCheck which is basically just an inferior version of ReplayGain.

Yes i have found it annoying, and started to use mp3gain which helped me alot Some CDs had 92db, some had 98db, that is a big audible difference between those.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mojo /img/forum/go_quote.gif The problem with iTunes is that you can't do SoundCheck after the fact, it has to be done when ripping a CD. If you buy a track from Amazon in MP3 format, you are stuffed.

yeah i found songs even on itunes seems about too loud for me... the db must be going through the roof or something.

Quote:

Originally Posted by mojo /img/forum/go_quote.gif Maybe that's how they intended it to be. After the recent announcement of the new iPod Shuffle that doesn't even support normal headphones I wouldn't put it past them.

Well thats the thing it might be dumb to you, But there are still a great deal of people that just use the stock ear buds, and when they had enough they would again buy those ones that can support the shuffle. And the third party adapters are coming as well...

 

[iriverdude]

member1982 I cannot understand your reasoning, it's not like you have have £20 headphones. I cannot listen to mp3 of ANY bitrate on quality gear, even 320kps. It just sounds...wrong. For example I'm on the PC with B&W 601 and if I flick between the same album flac and high bitrate Mp3 it's startingly obvious. I've ripped a few to high bitrate OGG and it sounds so much better than Mp3.

 

[member1982]

yeah i cant understand that my self 320KB/s doesnt really have that much difference for me. What is your source, and headphones.

i know 128KB/s might sound really bad, but 320KB/s is ok. Everything is clear enough. ok i'll try to listen to it really closely between 320KB/s and Applelossless, my main music types are just well everything that is fairly new. I dont know perhaps you guy should try iTunes encoder? I have some songs that are like a alternative / pop with lots of frantic combo of instruments plus vocals good to test.

And yes i'll try some other encoders to test the differences.

 

[iriverdude]

Quote:

What is your source, and headphones.

I told you, B&W 601 speakers. Also noticeable on the other systems too with considerbly better quality gear. I spent some time a while ago deciding on mp3 versus ogg, and various bitrates- lossless was around but hard drives weren't big enough to store my entire music collection, so used ogg 350kps for a few years. Ogg always sounded better, especially on lower bitrates. 128kps mp3 is horrible, but 128kps ogg is still very good.

Do you have another source? The ipods are well known to have poor quality headphone amps.

itunes is not installed I won't install that bloatware POS. LAME is superior encoder

LAME MP3 Encoder

 

[naddy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by iriverdude /img/forum/go_quote.gif There are two ways of normalising files, either physically or in metadata. If your MP3 player does not support metadata type, you need to use physical side of it.

Which players support which? I have the sony A8XX series, does that support the metadata type? How do you normalise physically? And what does mp3gain do? I was under the impression, it only modified metadata and not physically, is that correct?

 

[iriverdude]

Try mp3gaining two albums you know that have low and high gain. Oasis What's the Story...is quite hot @ -12.5dB according to Replygain. Browsing cold albums and most are classical albums.

If the two are the same, then your Sony doesn't support metadata volume adjustment. You will need to use old style of increasing or decreasing actual waveform.

MediaMonkey can do both meta and waveform, choose "level track volume" Apple have own levelling system, of course it's own type rather than taking in RG :-/ At least with RG all of my sources support it- Squeezebox, PC (Winamp, Foobar, Mediamonkey) Iriver.

 

[member1982]

Quote:

Originally Posted by iriverdude /img/forum/go_quote.gif I told you, B&W 601 speakers. Also noticeable on the other systems too with considerbly better quality gear. I spent some time a while ago deciding on mp3 versus ogg, and various bitrates- lossless was around but hard drives weren't big enough to store my entire music collection, so used ogg 350kps for a few years. Ogg always sounded better, especially on lower bitrates. 128kps mp3 is horrible, but 128kps ogg is still very good. Do you have another source? The ipods are well known to have poor quality headphone amps. itunes is not installed I won't install that bloatware POS. LAME is superior encoder LAME MP3 Encoder

Yeah my other sources are the computer sound card of course.. And when that is played i dont notice a major difference. Sure slight detail issues with clarity etc but i dont do critical listening just sit there and listen to music, its always like now doing something else.

Try headphones between different file sizes on the same source even mp3s thats encoded by iTunes. Unless you have tried before, if youre just basing this on other people's opinions... They can be biased, probably like mine right now because i have really done extensive testing on LAME, and tried to download it, the download timed out... (*sigh*) Haha just downloaded the developer package, im sure the average user will be absolutely baffled at the layout of the website... http://sourceforge.net/project/showf...p?group_id=290!?????

And yes i know about LAME etc, but if im happy with it how much better can LAME be? When im already satisfied with 320KB/s on my portable? Aslong as my brain is happy and fooled by the lower "acceptable" quality through my TF10 then its ok

 

[member1982]

Quote:

Originally Posted by iriverdude /img/forum/go_quote.gif Try mp3gaining two albums you know that have low and high gain. Oasis What's the Story...is quite hot @ -12.5dB according to Replygain. Browsing cold albums and most are classical albums.

at 100db the album just sounds too loud and lacking in details, im on the computer mostly and when it is cold at about 89db.. i have to turn the volume up quiet high but the problem is if there is something like an msn message or anything else type of alert, it can get quiet loud... and annnoying. So had to increase the db to 96db which is nice.

 

[iriverdude]

I don't need to mess around with itunes, it's not asio and the mp3 encoder isn't good as LAME.

Quote:

critical listening just sit there and listen to music,

Nope not critical listening, the PC setup is pretty low end, but if I flick tracks whilst browsing net I still can hear the difference. As for lame encoding you just need lame_enc.dll

Not that I bother with MP3 anyway, vorbis sounds better. I guess I don't need to state that itunes doesn't support vorbis?

 

[mojo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by naddy /img/forum/go_quote.gif I was under the impression that mp3gain only changed tag values also and not the actual waveform. If you go to their site, that is what they claim?

It's not quite that simple. With MP3 encoding the waveform is split into many very small parts which each have their own gain level. It is this gain level that mp3gain changes, which is why it can only change the volume in 1.5dB increments since that's what the MP3 encoding uses.

By changing the gain levels any MP3 player will play back at the modified level. Since the ReplayGain data is stored in the tag, the changes can be undone easily. So, it does affect the decoded waveform, but in a different way to modifying say an uncompressed WAV or lossless FLAC file. In theory it shouldn't have much impact on the sound quality, especially if the decoder can produce output with more than 16 bits.

 

[mojo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by member1982 /img/forum/go_quote.gif at 100db the album just sounds too loud and lacking in details, im on the computer mostly and when it is cold at about 89db.. i have to turn the volume up quiet high but the problem is if there is something like an msn message or anything else type of alert, it can get quiet loud... and annnoying. So had to increase the db to 96db which is nice.

I turn off sounds in everything anyway, but there is another solution to this. You can have two sound cards, one for speakers that MSN etc can use and one just for music.

Quote:

Originally Posted by naddy /img/forum/go_quote.gif Which players support which? I have the sony A8XX series, does that support the metadata type? How do you normalise physically? And what does mp3gain do? I was under the impression, it only modified metadata and not physically, is that correct?

See what I wrote above, but the short answer is that only RockBox and I think Cowon and Meizu support ReplayGain directly. There is an option in WinAMP to convert ReplayGain data to SoundCheck data for iPods, or I think there is some kind of tool for iTunes as well.

For unsupported players (including iPods) you can use mp3gain to modify the MP3 files directly. What you need to do is run mp3gain on all your MP3 files, and you probably want the "album" mode. Hint: you can just select your main music folder in mp3gain and it will automatically scan all the files and sub-directories inside it. You can then just select all files, right click and choose "Album analysis". This will check every file and write the ReplayGain metadata for you. It might take a while if you have a lot of music.

After that, you can copy the music to your iPod as usual using iTunes or whatever. Keep in mind that if your iPod already has music on it, you need to delete it and re-copy it. You can then open mp3gain again, and this time select your iPod's drive. Then select all files and choose "Apply Album gain". It will now modify all the music on your iPod to make it all the same level. You need to do this again when you copy new music to the iPod, but mp3gain will automatically only do it to new files.

There is another guide here but if you remind me again next month (away from home at the moment) I'll do a full guide with screenshots.

Quote:

Originally Posted by member1982 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I only recently discovered the Portable Source Gear... With a name like LAME, i simply cannot believe it is the best its probably the lamest

It is the best, period. Because it is open source, the best minds available have contributed to it and improved it to the point here for 99% of music at the default --alt-preset-standard setting it is indistinguishable from the original in ABX and other tests.

Of course it isn't that simple because the decoder also has an effect, but in theory any decoder that meets the standard (and WinAMP/Foobar's do) should be "perfect". I don't think anyone knows what decoder the iPod uses or how accurate it is.

 

[Jube]

Sorry to revive an old threat but I still have a question about this. Does iTunes support metadata leveling? I do not want to lose sound quality in my music, and my understanding is that metadata leveling is the way to go. If I enable soundcheck in iTunes will it do metadata leveling or physically alter the files?

 

[Achmedisdead]

Quote:

Sorry to revive an old threat but I still have a question about this. Does iTunes support metadata leveling? I do not want to lose sound quality in my music, and my understanding is that metadata leveling is the way to go. If I enable soundcheck in iTunes will it do metadata leveling or physically alter the files?

I don't know how it works.....so just to be on the safe side, my iTunes library is a duplicate of select parts of my LAME MP3 library. I let Sound Check do whatever it does, so all the stuff on my Touch is roughly the same volume when I shuffle, and I know my original files are saved elsewhere too.

 

[Jube]

Quote:

I don't know how it works.....so just to be on the safe side, my iTunes library is a duplicate of select parts of my LAME MP3 library. I let Sound Check do whatever it does, so all the stuff on my Touch is roughly the same volume when I shuffle, and I know my original files are saved elsewhere too.

That's a good way to do it. I'm actually probably going to do the same. MediaMonkey with the iTunes.dll plugin and a cache folder so that what itunes sees is just a duplicate of a subset of my library.