How to raise the track level without clipping?, like the 'Amplify' effect in Audacity Options

[DigitriX]

Hello guys,

I have many 24/96 Vinyl rip albums and as you know most of the rips are very 'quiet', which isn't a bad thing at all.
I would like to be able to play them in Foobar with a level evenly raised (so I can preserve the song's dynamic range) to the point before clipping occurs and I want this to be done for each track individually. Just like what the 'Amplify' effect in Audacity does - sees the highest peak of the song and according to it, raises the whole song's level evenly to the point before clipping happens.
I've tried with the "track / apply gain and prevent clipping according to peak" combination, but there are differences between the dB levels given by Audacity and ReplayGain and right now I am trusting Audacity, because I can actually see what's going on with the track's spectrogram.

Please help.

[Rollin]

So you want to raise peaks level to 100% (0dB) and save full dynamic range? What you want is "peak normalization". It cannot be done in realtime.
You can calculate needed amplification level and manually edit replay gain tags.
E.g. track has peak level -10 dB: Needed amplification level=0dB-(-10 dB)=10 dB

This post has been edited by Rollin: Nov 25 2012, 14:54

[Kohlrabi]

And why don't you just stick with the ReplayGain target level?

[DigitriX]

And why don't you just stick with the ReplayGain target level?

Because I get different levels from Audacity and Foobar for the same song. Example:

Audacity: 2.8 dB
Foobar: 1.2 dB (Track gain) and 0.72 (Track peak)

And this is confusing me?!?!

[lvqcl]

20*lg(0.72) = -2.85dB. This means that you can raise the volume by 2.85 dB.

[DigitriX]

20*lg(0.72) = -2.85dB. This means that you can raise the volume by 2.85 dB.

Sooo... I just have to put manually ONLY the 0.72 in the 'Track Peak' tag field? Is that correct?

[DigitriX]

Okay, after a little test, I draw a conclusion that both Track and Peak gain levels should be in the RG tag (otherwise nothing changes), and it should be set on "track / apply gain and prevent clipping according to peak" in the Preferences.

So I guess I just need to do a "Scan per-file track gain", apply the levels and listen with the settings mentioned above.

Am I correct?

Thanks for the help, guys!

This post has been edited by DigitriX: Nov 25 2012, 21:52

[mjb2006]

Pretty much. There's no harm in doing an album gain scan, in case you change your mind one day, which you may decide to do if you get tired of tracks that are supposed to be quiet being cranked up too loud. An album gain scan will result in both track gain and album gain tags being stored. Which tag gets used depends on the player's setting, which you discovered allows you to choose.

For LPs I would select all tracks and do the scan on the whole album. For 12" singles I would do the scan on a per-side basis, as that's how they tend to be made (e.g. one loudly mastered track on one side, and 2 or 3 tracks on the other, mastered less loudly to allow for longer duration).

The "...prevent clipping according to peak" setting is exactly what you want. It means if the RG tag says to raise the volume, it might not be raised by the full amount specified by the RG tag; it will only be raised as far as it can be before clipping would occur.

In something like 12000 tracks I checked in my collection, only a few dozen met this criteria (a peak too high to permit the full application of track gain)... they were mainly very quiet classical pieces with crescendos.

[DigitriX]

Thanks, mjb2006!

I do an 'album scan' for things like 'The Dark Side Of The Moon' and similar, where preserving the whole album level is crucial.

Thank you guys for your help. It's appreciated!