MP3Gain "PRO", NOT brought to you by the author of MP3Gain Options

[Snelg]

For some reason, the folks who made the program SuperMp3Normalizer have chosen to re-name it "MP3Gain PRO".
I never spent a penny on advertising or anything for MP3Gain, so eh, whatever. Good luck to 'em.

I'm just mentioning it here to make it absolutely clear that I had nothing to do with "MP3Gain PRO".

And I guess I'll also point out the differences between MP3Gain and MP3Gain PRO:

• MP3Gain PRO isn't free (though there's a free trial version).
• MP3Gain PRO isn't lossless. There is no "undo changes" feature unless you back up your original files.
• MP3Gain PRO does do volume changes inside the mp3 file. So it's really more of a compressor and normalizer. That's actually pretty nifty, if it's the functionality you need.

-Glen

This post has been edited by Snelg: May 26 2009, 01:34

[gorgekko]

Pretty lame move on their part. I think I'll stick with MP3Gain.

I realize your effort is open source, but surely you have some sort of legal recourse, should you decide to pursue it, right?

[Canar]

This thread is third on the American Google search results for MP3Gain Pro. Slander it how you like. This was a low blow on their part and they deserve all the negative publicity in the world.

Idiots.

[Snelg]

Turns out the guy behind MP3Doctor and its offshoots (including MP3Gain PRO) is just that: a guy, not a company or even a partnership. Had a good email chat with him. Nice guy.
Long story short, it's all cool. I wasn't really upset in the first place, and I still don't think using that name is a great idea on his part, but that's his call. Like I said before, "eh, whatever".

[2Bdecided]

Glen,

I think you'll be a bit less happy if you start getting support calls for this software!

It's important to stress that MP3Gain Pro has nothing to do with MP3 Gain!.

Cheers,
David.

[Snelg]

I think you'll be a bit less happy if you start getting support calls for this software!

Yep. The first thing I did was add a note on the main MP3Gain page about that.
And now there's a similar note on the Mp3Gain PRO website. Like I said, he's a very nice guy.

[Canar]

Perhaps my initial reaction was overly negative. I just had flashbacks to the Mr. Questionman / Audio Identifier fiasco and wanted to do anything in my power to make this go away. Confusing users is not a good thing.

[gorgekko]

Perhaps my initial reaction was overly negative.

I don't think so. Ultimately it's up to Snelg and he seems cool with it but MP3Gain is hardly some new entrant to this space. It's a little hard for me to believe that the cat behind MP3Gain Pro isn't trying to ride on the coattails of a very respected piece of software that is absolutely free, does its job perfectly and has been around for years.

[bilbo]

If the mp3gainpro guy WAS really a "nice guy", he would have immediately changed the name of his program! He knows what he is doing and just wants to promote his program, possibly at the expense of MP3Gain

This post has been edited by bilbo: May 26 2009, 19:50

[carpman]

Agree. If MP3Gain was a commercial application, this would be a straighforward trademark issue, with the MP3Gain PRO guy getting done for passing off. i.e. He wouldn't risk it if it was MS MP3Gain, so he's taking advantage of the fact that MP3Gain is not wrapped up in IP protection. That's nice.

C.

[Ron Jones]

If the mp3gainpro guy WAS really a "nice guy", he would have immediately changed the name of his program!

A nice guy probably wouldn't have made the claim that Mp3Gain PRO "makes you [sic] music sounds [sic] better" either.

Mp3Gain PRO: It is makes you music are sounding better!

[2Bdecided]

It's an automatic translation from German, but it does sound like it's claiming that it's a newer, better thing than mp3gain, while nothing it has nothing to do with it.

Cheers,
David.

[me7]

Mp3Gain PRO is a program capable of improving significantly the volume of your mp3 files. Surely you've noticed that there are two basic problems regarding the volume level of mp3 files:

1. The volume level between two mp3 files is notoriously uneven. Therefore you need to move up or down manually the volume control on your audio player.
2. The volume level of a given song has passages where the volume is very low compared to the rest of the song.

Both situations are unpleasant. It's frustrating having to continuously raise or lower the volume control when listening to music.

Wait a second...is he fueling the loudness war? Claiming that dynamics in music are unpleasent? What a nice guy.

EDIT: it gets even better

the old method (used by classic Mp3Gain, for example)
.
.
.
The old solution for normalize or boost the volume level, which uses volume peaks to normalize the volume of a song could be considered obsolete now?

Yes, absolutely

This post has been edited by me7: May 26 2009, 23:49

[carpman]

I ran a pretty dynamic track through it to see what it does.
Track = Mahler's Symphony No.2 in C minor - Urlicht [ORIGINAL LAME 3.98 -V 2 MP3]

Firstly, I put in a LAME 3.98 -V 2 MP3, and according to foobar2000 I got back a LAME 3.93 CBR 192 file. It did leave the original and produced a new file with "_normalized.mp3" appended to it.

Ultimately, it's a dynamic range compressor and transcoder (at least I think - perhaps someone who knows more can confirm). I can't think of a better way to professionally ruin your music.

Simply put, MP3Gain is defeating the object of loudness mastering, and MP3Gain PRO is endorsing it - saying "all your music can sound this crap!"

I hope I'm wrong, perhaps someone else can confirm.

Here's the input and output files [EDITED to 30 secs, and encoded to FLAC], for your listening pleasure.

Original MP3 LAME 3.98 -V 2 [Replay Gain 85.7 dB]
MP3Gain PRO Output - LAME 3.93 CBR 192 [Replay Gain 94.2 dB]

C.

EDIT: ps. I used auto-normalize, which is the recommended setting.

This post has been edited by carpman: May 27 2009, 00:09

[gorgekko]

Canar's initial urging for criticism is now even more appropriate than ever. It's bad enough to take the name of a popular and useful tool, worse to take that name and promote the loudness war as a good thing.

If I ever had any inclination to use MP3Gain Pro, it has absolutely disappeared.

[MichaelW]

Well, I think a compressor might have one legitimate use, which is processing highly dynamic music (e.g. classical) for playing in a car or other noisy environments.

Name surfing, though, is surely bad--though from the stuff on his site, he seems to be under the misapprehension that "MP3Gain" is a generic name for a technology.

[2Bdecided]

Name surfing, though, is surely bad--though from the stuff on his site, he seems to be under the misapprehension that "MP3Gain" is a generic name for a technology.

Stranger still, he doesn't seem to know (or care?) that "mp3gain" is a non generic name for "ReplayGain applied to mp3 files".

mp3gain pro doesn't include ReplayGain, and more bizarrely, the "normalise" feature doesn't even attempt to match the loudness of the files - it seems to just apply a user defined gain change. That functionality existed in software even before mp3gain and ReplayGain! It'll happily let you catastrophically clip the file without warning.

The "AutoNormalize" function applies dynamic range compression with quite a fast time constant - however, there's a limit on how much it boosts the gain. The result is that files which are quiet become louder, but are still not as loud as files that are already loud! Files that are already loud become a little louder, but with audible pumping as the DRC changes the gain in real time to prevent clipping.


The AutoNormalize function would be useful in some circumstances if it worked properly. However, this software transcodes - and transcodes VBR to CBR - and does it without telling you - and when you've finished, quiet tracks are still quieter than loud ones - and loud ones get mashed.

Nice GUI though.

If the author wasn't name surfing, I'd be interested in helping improve this.

But then again, if the author wasn't name surfing, we probably wouldn't have heard of it or be discussing it here, so he's already got what he wants.


The fact is, given that it's trancoding, there's nothing special happening here. You can already do this job, and do it better, with other software. foobar2k for example!

For newbies, I suppose the GUI and ease of use will appeal, but that probably doesn't make up for the fact that quiet tracks stay quieter than louder ones.


Cheers,
David.