Does Replay gain work differtly in Media monkey, Foobar and Media Monkey given 2 differnt Results Options

[jimmanningjr]

Hey Anyone,
For the past 2 years I have been using Media Monkey to Organize and play my music collection which is now about 42,000 tracks about 75% of my collection has Replay gain Values....I am making the switch over to Foobar2000 and was about to replay gain the other 25% with it (Foobar) when I discovered that for the same album I was getting 2 different values...and it is making me wonder does Media Monkey use a different algorithm or is there something I am overlooking...both are set to tag by ALBUM with the track value put in there also. Here are my results:

Miles Davis /Jack Johnson Soundtrack/
Trk1 Right Off -FOOBAR--Album Gain -1.97db Trk Gain -2.49db
Trk 2 Yesternow-FOOBAR Album Gain -1.97db Trk Gain -0.87db

Trk 1 Right Off Media monkey--Album Vol=-7.9db Trk Vol= -8.4db
Trk 2 Yesternow Media Monkey--Album Vol= -7.9db Trk Vol= - 6.8db

Could someone shed some light on this for me.
Thank You

[greynol]

There is REPLAYGAIN_REFERENCE_LEVEL which was initiated by Josh Coalson.
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=46245

David touched upon this just yesterday saying it was a bad idea:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....st&p=721226

I have to agree. Notat, by using numbers against your ad-hoc reference, it is you who has broken replaygain.

Take this from someone who normalizes everything to 92dB prior to encoding. If you were to scan my collection you would see that my album gain would be -3dB. Playing these albums back in a RG-compliant player would bring the level down so they play at the standard reference of 89dB. If you wish to use something else you use a preamp setting. If you're worried about clipping with dynamic music, use the option that gives you clipping prevention. If your player doesn't provide these options then request that they get added or find one that does.

More links on the matter:
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=67823
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index....showtopic=76562

My take on this discussion is that MM has been unknowingly configured to give a different result, MM has a broken implementation (which I doubt), or apples are being compared with oranges because of different masterings or possible differences in HDCD decoding (as krabapple is alluding).

This post has been edited by greynol: Sep 4 2010, 18:22

[Notat]

Notat, by using numbers against your ad-hoc reference, it is you who has broken replaygain.

Take this from someone who normalizes everything to 92dB prior to encoding. If you were to scan my collection you would see that my album gain would be -3dB. Playing these albums back in a RG-compliant player would bring the level down so they play at the standard reference of 89dB. If you wish to use something else you use a preamp setting. If you're worried about clipping with dynamic music, use the option that gives you clipping prevention. If your player doesn't provide these options then request that they get added or find one that does.

My take on this discussion is that MM has been unknowingly configured to give a different result, MM has a broken implementation (which I doubt), or apples are being compared with oranges because of different masterings or possible differences in HDCD decoding (as krabapple is alluding).

MediaMonkey does not have a preamp setting. MediaMonkey does have clipping prevention. I'd like not to have to use clipping prevention because my understanding is that it lowers the gain of a track to prevent clipping. The tracks subject to this will not clip but they will be played at a noticeably lower level.

I guess I was trying to work around lack of a preamp setting by setting a different target volume. It does seem to work. What I don't understand about your comments is that if I have broken RG by using a non-standard target, why allow the target adjustable. MM is not the only application that allows you to adjust this. MM help system does not explain this setting and I don't see anything authoritative on the issue on the MM forms.

Can someone explain what this configuration does exactly?

[greynol]

I'd like not to have to use clipping prevention because my understanding is that it lowers the gain of a track to prevent clipping.

I thought this was exactly what you wanted to accomplish, or is there a problem with not being able to lower the playback volume of all the tracks so that the track with the loudest track does not clip?

MM is not the only application that allows you to adjust this.

With the exception of MP3Gain (which also provides for clipping prention) can you list some of the others?

I'd like to see if David's opinion regarding whether RG is a bit broken and/or how MM has implemented it.