List of recommended MPC settings Options

[Moguta]

I have noticed with several of my albums, that Foobar2000's ReplayGain stats shows album peak *above* 1.0

Are you sure that ReplayGain will not create audible clipping? In *every* case?

This post has been edited by Moguta: Jun 10 2003, 23:07

[CiTay]

Are you sure that ReplayGain will not create audible clipping?

Well, if you find a file where it's audible, that part of the post might be changed...

[DickD]

I have noticed with several of my albums, that Foobar2000's ReplayGain stats shows album peak *above* 1.0

Are you sure that ReplayGain will not create audible clipping?  In *every* case?

The peak above 1.0 is a result of the change of frequency components in the lossy compression, and it's common on modern peak-limited and dynamically compressed albums with all psychoacoustic lossy codecs. The same thing can happen with something as trivial as a low-pass filter. Although you're removing energy with the filter, the peak values can either fall or rise, because the peaks have little to do with the energy in the signal.

The reported peak value is the peak that will happen if NO replaygain is applied. So actually, clipping (usually inaudible) occurs regularly with lossy codecs like MP3 and MPC.

In almost EVERY such modern album out there, the ReplayGain suggested to hit 89 dB volume will be negative. This means that the peak value after ReplayGain is applied will be much lower, and almost always under 1.0

For example, if your album peak is 1.143200, an album gain of
-20 x log(1.143200) = -1.16 dB is enough to bring the peak down to 1.000000 so it's no longer clipping (assuming you have the RG preamp set to 0.0 dB (89.0 dB SPL target volume).

I have a Rachmaninov CD in .MP3 (Lame APS) that's already about 89.0 dB but clips during a full-orchestra peak. That's fine at 87.5 dB target volume (in mp3Gain) and I couldn't ABX a difference where it clipped at 89.0 dB anyway, so I could have left it as it was. I'll probably get around to reripping to Musepack some day.

[Frozen Fire]

... also fixed all broken links.
EncSpot link seems to be broken...

[CiTay]

EncSpot link seems to be broken...

Yeah, the original site is down... using another link now.

[Moguta]

Make sure it is obvious that the --xlevel command should always be used in tandem with the --quality setting. It is only stated in the oak-red sidenote, which some people are likely to pass over.

[rejj]

Additional command line options (example):

--quality 6  --xlevel --artist "%a" --title "%t" --album "%g" --year "%y" --track "%n" --genre "%m" %s

(this is from the first post)
Why do you use --quality 6 here? Many people will cut&paste this line right into EAC. If you want to reccommend that people use q5, perhaps you should change this example line to use --quality 5 instead. There are enough notes in this thread (both in the first post and also the replies) telling people that they should only above q5 if they notice a problem with a particular sample... but if they see --quality 6 in the example they may think "well, he is using q6, so I'll just do that too".

[Pio2001]

That's right, getting MPC, I went here to setup EAC, and wondered if quality 6 was needed. I had to remember all threads were quality was discussed, in order to decide and go down to quality 5.

[CiTay]

Why do you use --quality 6 here? Many people will cut&paste this line right into EAC. If you want to reccommend that people use q5, perhaps you should change this example line to use --quality 5 instead. There are enough notes in this thread (both in the first post and also the replies) telling people that they should only above q5 if they notice a problem with a particular sample... but if they see --quality 6 in the example they may think "well, he is using q6, so I'll just do that too".

So, why not? I often use --quality 6 myself. The thread is merely a recommendation; you should make up your own mind about what to use, based on the advice given there and elsewhere on HA. I wrote "example", and that's the way it's meant... use it as a starting point, do some digging on HA if you like, compare bitrates, maybe even try some ABX testing yourself. There can be no ultimate solution for everyone. And frankly, i don't see anything wrong in using --quality 6.

[AstralStorm]

Higher quality seems to transcode better. Maybe this is the answer, who knows.

[zegilles]

Higher quality seems to transcode better. Maybe this is the answer, who knows.

I rather use quality 7 for transcoding, otherwise quality 5 is fine for me.

[user]

ok, if some people write here their personal settings, I tell mine, too:

MPC --quality 7.5 --ms 15 --xlevel

according to *

Reason:
for Archival (& Listening, of course !) purpose.


q7 or q8 are still small in size (you have to compare to lossless),
but these qualities offer a quality for actions, which are normally forbidden for lossy codecs:
- Transcoding to high quality mp3 eg., or like somebody else tested: to atrac for portable MD !
- applying DSP to lossy music, ie. Logic7 / DPL2 decoder (Logic 7 for me).


MOD: no links to sharing group guides please.

This post has been edited by Jan S.: Apr 18 2004, 13:56

[David Nordin]

I prefer "mppenc --xlevel" myself, I find standard no less transparent than any other preset. I could for example ABX standard from original at some weird case, and insane from original etc. but then again not standard from insane.
standard works fine, and from my findings it's just as good to transcode from as any other preset.

[kl33per]

Many people will cut&paste this line right into EAC.

This is exactly what I did, damn. I didn't read any other posts first cause this was the 'recomended settings' post. If --quality 5 is enough in almost all cases, it should be changed.

[R.A.F.]

MPC --quality 7.5 --ms 15 --xlevel
Reason:
for Archival (& Listening, of course !) purpose.

For archival purposes a lossy codec (and even if it's the probably best one like MPC) never never is good enough. Because there's always missing something in the music-datas after having done the encoding-process. Lossy codecs are always a compromise in size/quality. This we have to put always in our minds. If you want perfection (and for archival you need it) there's only one: LOSSLESS.
My advice: Go to the extremes ! For transferring musics thru the internet, you need a good lossy codec, which generates short files: So, MPC --q5 --xlevel should be your favourite choice. And for archiving your musics for home-use take FLAC or Monkey's Audio (only go to "High"-compression, because all levels above need too much processor-time to en- and decode, without offering much more smaller filesizes).

This post has been edited by R.A.F.: Jul 2 2003, 20:37

[user]

I have added to the How to about replaygain, the part 2 about creating replaygain.txt files in a batch.:



About Replaygain a basic:

How To...

1.

Recursively go through a directory structure and apply ReplayGain to all MPC files,
considering each directory as an individual album ?

Download Sweep and Replaygain. Extract them to your path (e.g. C:\Windows).
In a command-line window (so-called DOS-box), type: sweep replaygain --smart --auto *.mpc

Already replaygained albums will be skipped, due to the --smart option. Sweep starts to scan in the current directory of the DOS-box, going through all subdirectories. To process only a specific path, use the well-known DOS commands (like d: or c: or cd..) to go to that directory (for instance, cd "c:\mpc\my downloads\") and then use the command sweep replaygain --smart --auto *.mpc to process all subdirectories from there.



2.


How to

Create replaygain.txt files for a lot albums in 1 step,
considering each directory as an individual album ?


Make a text file by an editor, *.txt,
copy following commandline into that file:

replaygain --listallreport *.mpc > "replaygain --auto album.txt"

Save this file with following name:
replaygain.bat.txt
Rename it to:
replaygain.bat

Copy this *.bat file to your "Windows-Path" (where sweep.exe, replaygain.exe etc., are located, too)

This *.bat file needs to be created only once in your life...
So don't worry...

Now the procedure:
- Open DOS-Box, go to the main folder/directory, where your albums are located, you want to add the replaygain.txt file to.
- type: sweep replaygain.bat [enter/return]
and now a file ' replaygain --auto album.txt ' is created in each album-folder.
That's it !

This post has been edited by user: Jul 7 2003, 12:45

[CiTay]

Added --xlevel to all recommendations, simplified some other stuff.

[Pio2001]

I Splitted the tag question to http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=11596

[Pio2001]

Decode question splitted : http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=11645

[xmixahlx]

TO ADD:

LINUX RESOURCES:

players: XMMS, BMP, LAMIP
xmms-musepack plugin
lamip-inputmpc plugin
bmp-musepack plugin

Debian Packages:
http://rarewares.hydrogenaudio.org/
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=10340


GRIP FOR *NIX (v3.x.x)

(will be put into an actual guide, soon...)

(for scsi emulation of ide)
CONFIG>CD
cdrom device: <scsi device> (i.e. /dev/scd0)

CONFIG>RIPPER
Ripper: grip (cdparanoia)
(disable) Disable paranoia
(disable) Disable extra paranoia
Disable scratch:
(disable) detection
(disable) repair
Rip file format: ~/%A - %d - %t - %n.wav (e.g. "led zeppelin - coda - 03 - i can't quit you baby.wav")

CONFIG>ENCODE>ENCODER
Encoder: other
Encoder executable: mppenc (or mppenc-static, ~/bin/mppenc-static, /home/user/bin/mppenc-static - make sure executable is in $PATH or an absolute path is given)
Encoder commandline: --quality 5 --xlevel --artist "%*A" --title "%*n" --album "%*d" --year "%*y" --track "%*t" --genre "%*G" %w
Encode file format: ~/%A - %d - %t - %n.mpc (e.g. "led zeppelin - coda - 03 - i can't quit you baby.mpc")

** CURRENTLY, XMMS MPC PLUGIN DISPLAYS TITLE, ARTIST, ALBUM CORRECTLY
** full list of switches here: http://www.nostatic.org/grip/doc/gripswitches.html

CONFIG>ID3
(disable) Add ID3 tags to encoded files (preference, id3v1 is possible)
(disable) Add ID3v2 tags to encoded files (Musepack does NOT use id3v2 tags!!)

[edit: removed image URLs as they don't exist any more ]

later

This post has been edited by xmixahlx: Oct 4 2004, 04:08

[Opeth]

how do i on the fly encode with cdex?

thx

[CiTay]

how do i on the fly encode with cdex?

CD Drive -> Ripping method: Paranoia, full

Generic -> ID3 Tag Version: None

Encoder -> Parameter string: --quality 5 --xlevel --artist "%a" --title "%t" --album "%b" --track "%tn" --genre "%g" --year "%y" %1 %2

Encoder -> File extension: mpc

Encoder -> On-the-fly encoding: [x]

CDex configuration

(Courtesy of Volcano)



P.S. "My Favorite Lame Preset alt-preset fast insane":

There is no "fast" insane, only --alt-preset insane.

[Q!]

CD Drive -> Ripping method: Paranoia, full

Generic -> ID3 Tag Version: None

Encoder -> Parameter string: --quality 5 --xlevel --artist "%a" --title "%t" --album "%b" --track "%tn" --genre "%g" --year "%y" %1 %2

Encoder -> File extension: mpc

Encoder -> On-the-fly encoding: [x]

that only works with pre-1.05 versions of mppenc.

[CiTay]

that only works with pre-1.05 versions of mppenc.

You mean the on-the-fly part? Sorry then, I don't use CDex myself...

[torok]

The link to the Winamp plugin is dead.