I just reformatted my PC and moved from 0.9.1 to 0.9.2. My media is all tagged FLAC with replaygain tags. Most things work but recently I've noticed that while watching the output/peaker meter on my soundcard (E-Mu, using ASIO drivers), about 95% of my music is limited to what looks like -10dB, the way I expect with replaygain applied. But with some albums the limit is most definitely a good 5dB louder.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the whole aim of using replaygain "album gain" to keep all the dynamics within the albums intact, but for the maximum volume of all albums to be scaled to the same absolute volume (I'm using the default 89dB), so that you don't have to go jumping for the volume control every second album, and so that newer "hot" mastered albums sound cleaner (at least that's what I've found from listening).

The fact that the volume scaling by RG is obviously (visually and by listening) applied perfectly to 95% of my music makes me think some strange is happening with the few albums that don't appear limited (and also that the rest of my audio setup, eg soundcard drivers etc are configured fine).

This really bugs me, as RG used to be great and I never had to touch the volume, now I have to tap it down a few dB on some albums. Very strange. I suspect that more information would be required to solve this problem but I'm not sure what's desired. Just reply with what you want to know, hopefully someone has an idea! The rest of my audio setup is exactly the same as previously (ie before the reformat and before upgrading Foobar). And I'm 100% sure the problem doesn't lie in another part of the setup, since as I said before nearly all the music is fine.. just the odd album isn't limited and sounds too loud).

I've rescanned files which had their RG info originally applied by 0.9.1 and they get the same values for album and track. I've also (just now) downgraded back to 0.9.1 and it makes no difference between versions. Again leads me to think something strange has happened with the RG tags. But one of the "bad" albums was created yesterday via:
EAC>WAV, Foobar>FLAC, Foobar> + RG tags.

Thanks for any help in advance.

are you using "track gain"... or "album gain" mode for playback...?

with track gain I would expect them to remain fairly consistent... but with album gain there could be differences...

Album gain. But I disagree with you. The albums should have the same *peak* volume using album gain RG. If you turn off RG and just set foobar's volume to -10dB (on tracks with and without RG), that would get rid of the "hotness" from newer albums and clean them up a bit, but it would also make the "good" old albums much quieter at the same time. RG adjusts those albums that actually need the cut, and leaves (or only slightly adjusts) those old albums that had a good overall volume (e.g. Most Dream Theater CD's get like a 0.5 or less cut, whereas any new generic pop usually gets -10db, and this happens on all my music too, as we'd expect). And the intention is that they all end up having the same 'absolute' maximum.

Track gain should not be used on albums at all, only on single tracks where it is impossible to calculate how "loud" they should be compared to the other tracks on the album they came from.

My problem is, although the RG numbers look right, some of my music is simply 5dB louder even using RG (viewing my output meters AND just using my ears). I'm still experimenting, but I don't know what else I can do without delving into code, a job which I think is much better left to those in the know

Try to lower the preamp for all files WITH rg to -5dB....... does the problem still happen? If no, then you are - like me - one of those users for whom the 89dB-target is too high.

I use track gain at work where I seldomly have whole albums to listen to... at home I use album gain... both are applied, I just set foobar to use the one appropriate to my location...

but IIRC, using album mode would not put all the tracks at the same peak (it attempts to maintain the dynamics between each track gain level)... so when played each would still have a slightly different level as they can not all be at the target and still maintains their respective differences... playing in track mode would remove those dynamic differences but play all the tracks at a consistent volume... please correct me if I'm missing something..

but it seems as though I may not have understood the stark differences you getting... is it precisely 5db... or does it vary slightly..?

I have one album in WMA and it sounds louder than other in 0.9. This is the only music I have in WMA, so I thought this was something with WMA playback. After reading this thread, I took a look and it also sounds like 5dB difference.

@ setting it to -5dB even for RG'ed files. This will not work because then the 95% of my albums that sound fine will now be a bit quieter than the 5% of albums I'm adjusting the volume for! Thanks for the suggestion anyway.

@ but IIRC, using album mode would not put all the tracks at the same peak (it attempts to maintain the dynamics between each track gain level)... so when played each would still have a slightly different level as they can not all be at the target and still maintains their respective differences... playing in track mode would remove those dynamic differences but play all the tracks at a consistent volume... please correct me if I'm missing something..

Sorry but I disagree with this completely. For about 95% of my albums, which have all kinds of dynamics in them, the maximum volume is most definitely limited to a point on my soundcard's output: 10 (I expect this means -10dB. And yes.. as you say when the music is quieter, the level is below this imposed limit. But this also happens with the other albums which (at their loudest) go over the limit. The dynamics are supposed to be kept as you say, but the maximum volume of all of the albums is meant to be the same in RG album mode, and it should be 89dB for all of them. Not 89dB for most, and different for some. If RG can get the absolute maximum volume perfect for 95% of files then I don't see why it shouldn't be able to get it right for 100%.

but it seems as though I may not have understood the stark differences you getting... is it precisely 5db... or does it vary slightly..?

OK I'll explain in more depth: Most of my music (albums) output a signal which, on my soundcard output, are visually (and just by listening) limited to a marker @ 10. it goes from 0 at the top to 10, then 20 etc. So it's -10dB I expect. And for most albums the signal NEVER ever goes above this line no matter how loud they were without RG.

But with these 5% of albums that aren't quite right: the volume hangs AROUND that same volume (-10dB) in general, but during stronger parts, it obviously peaks much higher than the 10 I see for everything else. Anywhere between 3dB and 7dB over. but usualyy the louder parts will br 5db louder than the limit imposed by RG on everything else. Sometimes it drops below the 10, but so does the "OK" music: this is just quieter sections of the music (dynamics). But in the "bad" albums, I don't believe the volume should go above the 10 marker, no matter how loud they are or what dynamics they have, as the other good albums range from metal to pop to folk to god knows what else, and they are all fine! Supertramp's Breakfast in America is sometimes too loud. Strapping Young Lad's self-titled album is fine. Most Kraftwerk is fine, but Tour De France Soundtracks goes over the limit. Metallica is fine, Infected Mushroom goes over (on several albums). From this we can see there is no real relationship between the type of music that is peaking too high and the stuff that is fine.

I've tagged and retagged, installed and uninstalled. Configured Foobar multiple times. Uninstalled my E-Mu drivers. It's really annoying as I want to see every file limited at that same ideal volume.

I thought it might have been the dreaded over compression of metal and heavier albums (eg Greenday or Machinehead) keeping their volume at that particular -10db level, but then Supertramp is a DCC Gold album and not compressed out the wazoo, neither is Infected Mushroom really. In fact, my Machinehead albums sound and look fine lol

Maybe some of u also have soundcards (better yet, the E-Mu 0404 like I have) where you can watch the playback levels of several of your albums. You'll need to watch only a few sections of music with any kind of dynamics for it to peak out too high if your's is doing it.

I'm using FLAC level 8 and RG set to 89dB for RG'ed and -10 for non-RG'ed. and before anyone asks, yes all the files I'm referring to are RG'ed . If I remove the RG tags, it uses the -10 as expected. Thanks for the suggestions, maybe someone can try this and confirm what I'm seeing.

I get the impression you don't fully understand how replaygain works.
It does nowhere limit the level of the sound. It calculates a gain level that would most of the time give the same loudness impression. For very high dynamic music this is a bit of a problem and although RG usualy does a good job, for some exceptional files it might be off.

And, on a similar subject, replaygain does not always prevents clipping. For modern loud (or loud mastered) music it does, but not always so for high dynamic music. In foobar2000 however, you can select under playback preferences -> Replaygain -> apply and prevent clipping. Maybe that is what you're looking for?

OK.. sorry, not "limit" I shouldn't have used that term. I used that term because for all the music I know I hear as the same volume (because of RG), when I watch the output, none of it goes above that "magic" -10dB volume. I know it is only because of a scalar multiplication of the sound signal by the gain album value (in my case).

What you said about RG "usually does a good job" has me interested.. do you have albums that despite being RG'ed, are still loud enough in volume compared to all your other RG'ed music that you need to turn down the volume (of external amp etc) when you reach that album? I could understand if RG isn't 100% perfect since it's working on "perceived" volume. But intil recently, I've never had to change the volume at all while using RG. And now that I'm finding I have to, it's quite annoying. It's nearly a big enough difference in overall volume that it's nearly not worth bothering with RG and just set the overall foobar volume to -10dB to deal with most of the newer "hot" albums (which is why I started using RG in the first place).

Thanks for the help.. it's just frustrating when it was perfect and now it isn't quite right. And I'm picky, especially when I know it CAN be right

I'll continue fiddling and reading.

what I was trying to get atwas.... in album gain mode, not all tracks are attenuated to the same peak volume (as they are in track gain mode)... so some tracks will be louder and some will be softer... look at a whole albums worth of replay gained files... the album gain value is consistent across all tracks, but track gain levels will be both above and below the album gain level on a track to track basis... so applying the album gain during playback will not produce volume levels that are consistent...

it sounds as though you want a maximum peak gain level for all albums to be the same... yet if your using album mode you'll still have some above (and below) that level... for almost all cases I would think a 5db increase is larger then there should be (so there still may be an issue)... but try looking at the track gain values...here is an example:


above you can see that if I use RG in track mode I will get 89db gain level playback with the track gain value... well if I only apply album gain then some of those tracks (such as "new milenium") will still be approx. 1.25 db over my reference level... and some will be brought lower then 89db (when album gain exceeds track gain)

as I said the 5db+ differences your hearing/seeing seem pretty extreme so there maybe something we're not considering... but look at the track gain levels for the affected tracks and see if there is any correlation there...

I don't have any of the albums you listed at work (though I have the dream theatre ones at home), so I can't see how they act on my setup till I get home on sunday...

Peace
Ross

Thanks, I appreciate you looking into it in detail. I understand everything you've said so far and agree with most. However, I'll show you what I have issue with using images (thanks for the idea!)

First of all, yeah i understand that "applying the album gain during playback will not produce volume levels that are consistent" WITHIN A CD... Correct. But between CDs the maximum absolute volume should be very very close! Until recently, while applying album gain, I was able to set the volume i wanted and forget about it, even after an album change. Now I can't because I'm getting big variations in maximum volume on some *albums*. So don't worry, I know how track/album gain works.

Below is a picture of one of the tracks that is too loud. It was backed up from CD using EAC. Converted, tagged and replaygained with Foobar 0.9.1. Then played. On the left is my E-Mu 0404 soundcard mixer/monitor. I have no effects or anything, simply monitoring WAV and ASIO output. Foobar is only using ASIO. And I'm using album gain.


This is at one of the loudest sections of an Infected Musrhoom song. You can see that the output is WELL above the 10 marker. So much so that if u look closely, u can see the mixer is complaining that the channels are maxed out (from the red lights above). I have to click on those dots for them to go away (it acknkowledges the fact that you've seen they were maxed out at some point). This was from track 03, and the RG values for this album are:



Next album is one that is fine: Strapping Young Lad's self titled album. For this album, the output meter never ever goes above the 10 mark you can see in the image. This is where all my fine albums appear to max out. When there are quieter sections in the music, of course it drops off a little. The albums which are playing with a louder maximum volume do the same in that they have quieter sections. It's just that when they ARE loud, they are at the unacceptable higher limit. I have tried to determine if the bad albums are all reaching the same upper limit or if it's random (ie related to the music, not some common faulty setting). I can't tell so far. Anyway here is an example of a good album and where I want all my music to max out as far as volume, no matter how loud they are (what I want RG to do! To make all my CDs have a common maximum reference volume of 89dB, which from what I can tell, appears to line up exactly with that 10 mark / -10dB on my E-Mu mixer):



Here are the gain values I got for that SYL album:



Now, you might say "well duh, the SYL album is a heavy metal album and has a higher negative adjustment". But, isn't the whole point of those scalar album gain values to bring them all close to the same volume BETWEEN CDs, yet keep the dynamics of each track within each album?
My understanding of RG in album mode is: you get quiet album A from the 80s. It only gets maybe -1dB to have an overall volume of 89dB. Then you scan something new like SYL and it gets -10dB cos it was mastered way too "hot". Now, that -10 is supposed to bring that album to the same (maximum!) volume at it's loudest sections, as the 80's album. And then the same for anything else you scan. If the scalar amount RG comes up with doesn't make the albums have roughly the same overall maximum volume (ie leaving the dynamics WITHIN each cd from track to track), then it isn't working!

As you can see, I'm getting a crazy maximum volume on some albums (where the volume can completely max out the meter, now that I've found a few more than do it), yet on the fine albums, they all max out at that -10dB marker like soldiers! Not a single toe stepped over that line. This is what's completely stumps me, that it can get so many of the albums perfect on that line and I can safely just set the volume I want for the first thing I listen to and be fine for everything that day (actually i used to be able to set once and forget it forever after!). But now I'm getting these albums which appear to refuse to follow the rules. If I remove RG info, these albums basically max out the output meter non-stop as you would expect. So RG *IS* being applied, but I don't think it's correct as for some albums it's toe'ing that line (the way I like), for others it goes a lot higher depending on the volume of the song at the time.

Hopefully you can see what I'm saying now, I don't think I can make it any clearer. And I believe I understand how RG works. I know that if I set it to track mode, all my songs will peak at the same value and it'll sound like the radio. And using album gain as I do now, some tracks are inherently quieter as they are intended to be, while others hit that maximum (which I expect is the 89dB volume aimed for by Foobar's calculations). I believe that the 89dB volume is what Foobar aims to have as your max volume, and it scales the volume of the whole album using the album gain. There will always be variations in the volume depending on the song at the time. It's just that maximum volume that I'm really trying to nut out and figure why some albums are way louder. Both the "playback" images in this post were taken exactly at points in songs where the volume was the loudest for that particular track (and I picked songs that were representative of the whole aulbum, not quiet filler tracks). I know some will argue that it's hard to take the pics correctly to show what I intend, but these two albums both have sections of pretty much "full on volume"... you know, where you can tell it doesn't get any louder than that on the CD. I took pictures at those points.

Phew!

the point of album gain is ensure you don't really need to change the volume much between tracks in a specific group, rather than across groups.

Its more along the lines of saying you want to make a mix cd, and don't want to adjust the volume in your CD player between tracks, or listening to all of an artist's work in order by album release.

in order for foobar to do what you are expecting it to do, it would need to keep the album gain info for all the albums on a given playlist in memory rather than what it does now, loading the RG info on a per-track basis. Or scan all the files in a given playlist as a single album

I'm not familiar with the songs, so I just put in my 2 cents.

RG does try to limit the peak amplitude. That would be normalizing. What it does is try to make the average effective (e.g. RMS) loudness the same.

If a track has very silent portion and very loud portion at the same time, the average effective RMS may be lower than the 89 dB, causing a + value. This may even cause the loud segments to clip! Of course this is somewhat unlikely, but possible.

But then again, it's only my 2 cents

Edit: Whoopsie. A typo. "RG does not try to limit the peak amplitude," I should've written.

OK I've figured out something, but I don't like it...


I agree with this part if by "groups" you mean albums.


I assume this is a typo and you meant to say "RG doesN'T try to limit the peak amplitude". Because you then say what it does (and that part is correct). I'm not sure if you've read all the above, but yeah I admitted I used an ambiguous phrase earlier on. I'm aware of the difference between RG (pure linear scaling of all frequencies) and normalisation (screws with the quieter audio information with respect to the loudest peak) and corrected how I was expressing myself.


This I disagree with! I don't get why you are saying this when we have already established that the album gain value associated with each album is supposed to scale their maximum volume (and as a result, all the rest of their dynamics AT CD LEVEL, not track level) to the same value selected in Foobar (89dB). Also, there is NO point whatsoever in scanning all tracks from sets of multiple albums, as if you use album gain on this set, you get the same differences between albums that you would get if you didn't use RG at all! And the track gains are exactly the same as if you scanned the albums individually. Because it will analyse and scale all the songs individually according to the quietest song and the hottest songs you have in your collection and calculate to reach the 89dB. However, here is the interesting (annoying to me) part: When scanning multiple albums as ONE album, as suggested by you, I can see that the peak amplitude reached by all the albums is now the same. This is what I wanted to achieve in my soundcard mixer. BUT, the albums which were quiet without RG use now sound definitely quieter than the albums which were louder without RG. That is because it is now calculating the maximum peak (and therefore the 89dB) according to those loud albums, and the quiet ones all get scalled down accordingly to match, nearly like they were just quiet songs on an album (where it IS the desired result, but here it isn't).

But this MUST be incorrect use of RG for two reasons:
1) The quiet albums STILL simply sound quieter compared to the loud albums. If you're using album gain, I believe that all albums should then have the same (via my ears and via monitoring output levels) max amplitude, and the dynamics of all the tracks within each CD remain, as they are scaled accordingly. But it doesn't. This is incorrect behaviour of RG since as stated by others in this post, it is supposed to make the average loudness of all the albums the same in album gain mode.
2) And this is the main reason I believe scanning multiple albums as a single album to achieve a "better" RG album gain is incorrect: this requires REscanning your entire collection each time you add a new album!!! That is absolutely rubbish and MUST be wrong. The whole point of that 89dB value is so that as you add new albums you can just scan them and the album gain will be based on that value you chose when you set up Foobar.

So yeah, the peak amplitude reach when scanning multiple albums is "perfect" when monitoring the output meters. It never goes above that limit. But more importantly, the sound levels to the ears are definitely inconsistent between albums, much along the lines of if RG wasn't being used at all!

No matter what happens, I don't intend to rescan my entire collection each time I add a new album. So, currently my best solution is that suggested by Lyx. I've set my overall Foobar output to -5dB to stop the albums which STILL appear to max out my soundcards digital output. I've adjusted my amplifiers volume to account for this, and I'll continue to use album gain. The albums which sounded too loud are now sitting around the -10dB when at they're loudest, as desired. The albums which were fine before now LOOK like they are coming out too quiet, but SOUND ok. It annoys me that the output monitor doesn't entirely match up visually with what my ears are hearing. I think someone said before that RG doesn't deal very well with some albums, after more investigation, I've found that in general, albums which have a larger dynamic range are the ones that are coming out with a hotter max volume. Heavy metal and stuff that probably has less dynamics (ie all loud) are the ones that are "well behaved" and don't go above that upper limit I like to see on the peak meter. Problem is, those CDs now sound a bit quieter. EG Linkin Park's Hybrid Theory (on average) sounds quieter than Madonna's Confession on a Dancefloor. This part really irks me. LP has an album gain of -10.x, and Madonna -8.x. I guess I've just gotta put it down to Foobar's RG calculations not being as accurate as I'd like. It's a LOT better than not using RG and albums playing at completely different volumes, I just wish is did it better (and I don't want to go manually adjusting album gains). Unless someone has any new ideas I think this thread as been run into the ground and I'm tired of trying to "fix" it. Thanks to all who helped me.

That would be peak normalisation, not Replay Gain. And no, normalisation is linear scaling as well; maybe you're confusing it with dynamics compression?


You're wrong, and I'm surprised nobody seems to have pointed this out. (This thread is full of text, and difficult to read, so I might be wrong, but if it's there, I'm still surprised it isn't very noticable.) Peak amplitude says nothing about perceived volume.

Replay Gain normalises perceived volume, not peak amplitude. If you want peak amplitude to be constant, use maximum pre-amp for RG-scanned files and scale down tracks that would clip. The downshot of this is that the perceived volume *will* fluctuate, and you'll have to reach for the volume control.

I would urge you to stop looking at the VU meter. Instead, you should listen to the audio.

You're thinking of peak normalization. Replaygain puts very little restriction on the peak value, since the peak value often does not correlate with percieved loudness.

Edit: And it helps to be concise when you want free tech support. Judging by how no one until the last couple posts even noticed that your premise was off, I can only assume people weren't actually reading through all those huge blocks of text.

Granted @ peak normalisation. I think someone else brought up normalization, when I avoided using the term because I know it's not what I was trying to achieve. And yes Mike Giacomelli, I did actually rephrase myself when it was pointed out my firsts terms were incorrect. But yes I think one or two ppl didn't read the whole thread before answering. Maybe because I was too verbose initially, but I was just trying to make myself understood *runs away*

Even now that I'm ignoring the output meter, I'm just having trouble believeinf that I can still tell a noticeable difference between albums in what I perceive with my ears, which is what RG is supposed to correct/alter. I thought the albums would all be much closer to the 89dB "perception" it aims for, with none of these "rogue" albums I have. Thanks all.

1. Perception is a tricky matter, which is why we have TOS #8. You might have been tricked into thinking that some files are louder, when really they aren't. Lookinig at that VU meter might have been a mistake.

2. I think I remember reading that RG calculations can be off by +/- 1 dB.

Yeah, my bad. Edited my posting.

May I offer a hypothesis?

It might be the case like I posted above, i.e. a track/album with an extremely loud segment, with many quiet segments around it. The RG value will then be +. But fb2k tries to prevent clipping, so it does not apply RG. Try instructing fb2k to not prevent clipping. If my hypothesis is right, your albums will have same perceived loudness. Badly distorted due to clipping, but same loudness.

You're f***ed up there, I'm afraid

I've played with the gain settings so much it's not funny. Using prevent clipping or not had no effect that I could hear.

RE track with very loud segments, then quiet ones around it, this is happening on multiple albums in songs with good mastering (ie lots of dynamics and varying volume) and also in songs where it's just full on blasting (ie poorly mastered heavy metal). It's not a function of song volume.

I wouldn't be worried if the volume variances were +/- 1dB. But they are sometimes in the vicinity of up to 5-7dB, enough to make me reach for volume.

What if you use track gain on playback?


There's your trouble, I think.

With album gain, a single quiet track from a generally loud album would sound quieter, and a single loud track from a generally quiet album would sound louder.

Also, RG analysis does not calculate how loud songs (or albums) should be, compared to other tracks; it calculates how loud songs (or albums) currently are, compared to a fixed reference level.

Then I'll lose all my dynamics between tracks when listening to a whole album (as I usually do). I don't intend on doing that. Soft songs will sound as loud as the loud songs. Track gain is not the solution I'm after. I already know that. To satisfy curiosity though, I played back the albums I've been tesing using track gain, and the obvious volume difference still remains! All songs from the 'problem' albums are louder than the other albums.

The following is only true if you add the extra words in brackets. But anyway, I'm talking about loud tracks from different albums, so it doesn't really help figure out this problem:



If you were to take the loudest songs from two different albums (doesn't matter if the albums are loud or quiet overall), and play them both using album gain, they should sound very close to being the same volume at their loudest points, because RG is meant to make them sound very close (to your ears, regardless of output meters etc). But I obviously get the loudest songs from multiple albums sounding like they have very different volume levels (definitely maximums but also in general). This is the reason I use overall loud tracks from different albums when testing for this volume difference. There's no point testing moderate or quieter songs if I want to see where the volume is peaking out for that particular album.



This I also know. It goes "ok this cd from the 80's has a maximum of about 80dBm so it's a bit quiet and this new heavy metal album has a maximum of 100dB, so when I playback the 80's cd, I'll add 9dB to bring it up to the reference level the user has chosen (89), and with the heavy metal album I'll subtract 11dB from it's volume so it also sounds about the volume the user wants.

When some people on here talk about RG affecting perceived volume level, it nearly sounds like they think it's doing all kinds of magical voodoo stuff with normalisation and junk.. it's not! In album mode, all it's doing is multiplying the volume of the original media by a pre-calculated factor to make it playback at the same volume as every other album in your collection. Because it is simply a volume adjustment, when I apply album mode, all the dynamics remain, and I expect the maximum volume of all my albums to peak out at *roughly* the same volume. How else is it going to stop u reaching for the volume between albums? It can't. The other reason I expect the maximum volume to peak at the same place for all albums is because on 95% of my albums that I'm happ with, it does! And this is why when some albums are visually and audibly being played back a good 5-7dB louder than the rest, there is an obvious problem.

I wouldn't really worry about this problem any more though, several people seem keen on telling me I'm using RG incorrectly, or expecting the wrong kind of behaviour from it. I refute this, because I'm comparing the perfect behaviour of about 200 odd albums, with about 10-20 which behave differently. I believe the 200 albums are fine and they playback as I want and expect, no reaching for the volume whatsover, and these include, old and new music, across all genres. So I use them as reference for the problem albums (which also vary in release date/genre). If it was more like 50/50 then I would definitely question how I was using RG. But right now, I dont.

I'm just going to go in and use my ears and adjust the RG album gain on those albums that I hear as being too loud at their loudest points.

That was not a suggestion per se, but an attempt at further diagnosis. Anyway, you're still being vague. How did you measure loudness? By measuring maximum loudness?


Not really. It's still true without *your* added parts.


No, you should abandon your thoughts about loudest points, because RG is not peak normalisation. You've been told this over and over.


RG is *not* about maximum volume.


RG is not about maximum volume.


RG is not about maximum volume.

What is RG about? It's about *average* volume.

Wow, there's an echo in here...

I listened through my collection and found that there are significant differences in the average volume I perceive across many albums. A minority of albums are too loud and I need to turn down the volume because the difference is loud enough to hurt the ears, while the others are perfectly acceptable. These are facts, regardless of anything else. Therefore I've come to the conclusion that Foobar either doesn't calculate or implement Replaygain information as well as it intends to, to reach a common average volume.

NOW, as far as replaygain NOT affecting maximum volume. I would like you to slowly and carefully read this.

Consider: What operation do you think Foobar performs on the audio files, considering it has only the audio you give it, and a single scalar RG number (whether it's track OR album gain). It SCALES it.

Therefore, when Foobar scales the output by the scalar RG value calculated earlier, everything is either shifted up or down in volume.

This Includes:
1) the quiet stuff... minimum perceptible volume
2) the moderate stuff... everything that isn't minimum or maximum volume
and
3) MAXIMUM VOLUME. RE THE LOUDEST STUFF

I appreciate that you have tried to help kjoonlee, but don't treat me as an idiot when it is you who has missed what I have now said repeatedly. Never did I say that RG affects only maximum volume. A high post count does not give you any right to talk down to people.

I have no more to say on the matter. As far as I care, this thread can be locked/closed/disintegrated, as it didn't help me and won't help anyone else who hears what I hear.

/me shrugs.

I have never ever thought you said that RG affects only maximum volume. You had missed my point, which was that RG is not based on maximum volume.

I would just like to see a list of albums (with artists) that fall into your "problem" category... and preferably name as many as possible as to increase the actual chance I'll have one or more of them... that way I can compare hear the results myself (which WOULD help for understanding)...

Well, I've noticed that ReplayGain does have trouble with some albums. They are usually poorly produced anyways, though. Mushuggah's Chaosphere sounds quite low when RG is applied. The Dillinger Escape Plan's Miss Machine is also quite low. Perhaps your music is similar to those, and the other albums are produced well (more level).

Here's a solution to those few albums not being cooperative: adjust them manually (that's what I did, anyways)!

*edit*
Oh good, I still had a couple Meshuggah MP3s on my HDD. Not only is the peak horrible on it, above 1.00, with RG applied, it sounds significantly lower as I remembered. Check out Chaosphere to witness the problem the person may be having.

*edit*
Alrighty, I noticed that the 15 minute track (the number is not in the MP3) may be messing up the album's RG adjustment. This may be the case with many of the 'problem' albums (in Meshuggah's case, yes, the album does have problems, production and mastering problems....anyways...). My point is, look at the adjustments and find which song is ruining the entire album from being level with your others. Run the RG scanner on the others as an album, excluding the oddball(s), then scan the remaining as an album. This should fix your problem.

rosshmusic, good idea.

This will be exhaustive, to try and get some common albums:
Albums in bold are the louder ones. Of the good ones, there IS some variation between -5dB and -10dB. In this list, poorly produced metal which I would expect to have most of it's output at very close to the maximum volume (because of over compression), comes out dead on -10dB during the loud parts (ie most of the time). Intrestingly, an example of an album that sits dead on -10dB for me is Coldplay's Rush of Blood to the Head, so it's not just heavy metal that behaves "well" for what I expect from RG (even though it's not the best production). Stuff with what I think is good production and dynamics can range up to -5dB, and obviously varies to lower volumes with lulls in the music. That range is ok. Albums in bold are the bad ones that are either really getting up there in volume (ie centring around -3dB usually and peaking at higher volume, or clipping the digital output and hitting 0dB at their worst times.

The "+---" is simply cos I copy pasted from a tree function and couldn't be bothered ditching it.

The bad album's in general act up in the loudest parts of the songs. I haven't gone naming songs as I only had to skip through the album for an "active" part of the song and could tell immediately. Anyone could hear it, as long as they don't just click on quiet "filler" tracks, or ballads etc. Just "repesentative" songs.

+---A Perfect Circle - Mer De Noms
+---A Perfect Circle - Thirteenth Step
+---ACDC - Back In Black (Remaster)
+---Air - 10,000Hz Legend
+---Air - Moon Safari
+---Air - Premiers Symptomes
+---Air - Talkie Walkie
+---Ajattara - Tyhjyys
+---Alice in Chains - Greatest Hits
+---Amon Amarth - Fate Of Norns
+---Amon Amarth - Once Sent From The Golden Hall
+---Amon Amarth - The Avenger
+---Amon Amarth - The Crusher
+---Amon Amarth - Versus The World (Ltd Viking Edition)
+---Anathema - A Fine Day To Exit
+---Anathema - Alternative 4
+---Anathema - Eternity + Bonus
+---Anathema - Judgement
+---Anathema - The Silent Enigma
+---Arch Enemy - Anthems of Rebellion
+---Arch Enemy - Doomsday Machine
+---Arch Enemy - Wages of Sin (2 CD Edition)
+---At the Gates - Slaughter of the Soul
+---At the Gates - Terminal Spirit Disease
+---At the Gates - The Red in the Sky is Ours
+---At the Gates - With Fear I Kiss the Burning Darkness
+---Ayreon - The Human Equation
+---Ayreon - Universal Migrator Part 1
+---Ayreon - Universal Migrator Part 2
+---Baroque Guitar Favourites
+---Bathory - Blood Fire Death
+---Bloodbath - Resurrection Through Carnage
+---Bush - Sixteen Stone
+---Children Of Bodom - Hate Crew Deathroll
+---Coldplay - A Rush of Blood to the Head
+---Coldplay - Parachutes
+---Coldplay - X & Y
+---Cradle of Filth - Damnation and a Day
+---Cradle of Filth - Nymphetamine + Bonus
+---Crowded House - Recurring Dream (The Very Best Of)
+---Daft Punk - Discovery
+---Daft Punk - Homework
+---Dark Tranquillity - Character
+---Dark Tranquillity - Damage Done
+---Dark Tranquillity - Haven
+---Dark Tranquillity - Projector
+---Dark Tranquillity - The Gallery
+---Dark Tranquillity - The Mind's I
+---Death - Individual Thought Patterns
+---Death - Spiritual Healing
+---Death - Symbolic
+---Death - The Sound of Perseverance
+---Depeche Mode - Ultra
+---Dimmu Borgir - Death Cult Armageddon
+---Dimmu Borgir - Enthrone Darkness Triumphant
+---Dimmu Borgir - For All Tid (Remastered Digi)
+---Dimmu Borgir - Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia
+---Dimmu Borgir - Stormblast
+---Dire Straits - Brothers In Arms
+---Dream Theater - A Change of Seasons
+---Dream Theater - Awake
+---Dream Theater - Images and Words
+---Dream Theater - Octavarium
+---Dream Theater - Scenes from a Memory
+---Dream Theater - Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence
+---Dream Theater - Train of Thought
+---Dredg - Catch Without Arms
+---Dredg - El Cielo
+---Duran Duran - Greatest Hits
+---Entombed - Wolverine Blues
+---Faith No More - Album of the Year
+---Faith No More - Angel Dust
+---Faith No More - Epic
+---Faith No More - King For a Day, Fool for a Lifetime
+---Garbage - Garbage
+---Garbage - Version 2.0
+---Gordian Knot - Gordian Knot
+---Gorillaz - Demon Days
+---In Flames - Colony
+---In Flames - Come Clarity
+---In Flames - Jester Race & Black Ash Inheritance
+---In Flames - Whoracle
+---Incubus - Make Yourself
+---Incubus - S.C.I.E.N.C.E
+---Infected Mushroom - B.P. Empire getting up there in volume
+---Infected Mushroom - Classical Mushroom
+---Infected Mushroom - Converting Vegetarians
+---Infected Mushroom - IM The Supervisor
+---Infected Mushroom - The Gathering
+---Jack Johnson - In Between Dreams
+---Jean Michel Jarre - Magnetic Fields
+---Jean Michel Jarre - Metamorphoses
+---Jean Michel Jarre - Oxygene (MFSL)
+---Jean Michel Jarre - Sessions 2000
+---KMFDM - WW3
+---Kraftwerk - Autobahn
+---Kraftwerk - Electric Cafe Boing Book Tschak is crazy loud
+---Kraftwerk - Radio-Activity
+---Kraftwerk - The Man Machine
+---Kraftwerk - Tour de France Soundtracks
+---Kraftwerk - Trans-Europe Express
+---Kreator - Enemy of God
+---Lacuna Coil - Comalies
+---Lacuna Coil - In a Reverie
+---Lacuna Coil - Karmacode
+---Lacuna Coil - Lacuna Coil
+---Lacuna Coil - Unleashed Memories + Halflife
+---Led Zeppelin - Remasters
+---Linkin Park - Hybrid Theory
+---Machine Head - Burn My Eyes
+---Machine Head - The Burning Red
+---Machine Head - Through The Ashes Of Empires + Bonus
+---Madonna - Confessions On A Dance Floor
+---Madonna - Ray of Light
+---Martha Argerich - Chopin - The Legendary 1965 Recording
+---Martha Argerich - Rachmaninoff 3, Tchaikovsky 1
+---Massive Attack - 100th Window
+---MDFMK - MDFMK
+---Metallica - ...And Justice For All (DCC Gold)
+---Metallica - Kill 'Em All
+---Metallica - Load
+---Metallica - Master of Puppets
+---Metallica - Master of Puppets (DCC Gold)
+---Metallica - Metallica
+---Metallica - Reload
+---Metallica - Ride the Lightning
+---Metallica - Ride The Lightning (DCC Gold)
+---Michael Oldfield - Tubular Bells
+---Midnight Oil - 10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1
+---Midnight Oil - 20,000 Watt R.S.L
+---Moonspell - Memorial (Special Edition)
+---Moonspell - Sin Pecado
+---New Order - Get Ready
+---New Order - Waiting for the Sirens' Call
+---Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral
+---Nirvana - Nevermind (MFSL)
+---Oasis - (What's the Story) Morning Glory
+---Obituary - The End Complete
+---Omnium Gatherum - Years in Waste
+---Opeth - Blackwater Park
+---Opeth - Damnation
+---Opeth - Deliverance
+---Opeth - Morningrise
+---Opeth - My Arms, Your Hearse
+---Opeth - Orchid
+---Opeth - Still Life
+---Ozzy Osbourne - The Essential
+---Pantera - The Great Southern Trendkill
+---Pearl Jam - Rearviewmirror
+---Pearl Jam - Ten
+---Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon (MFSL)
+---Pink Floyd - The Wall (MFSL) Track 5, disc 1 (title track) clips the output easily
+---Prodigy - The Fat of the Land
+---Queensryche - Empire (DCC Gold)
+---Queensryche - Operation Mindcrime (Remaster)
+---Radiohead - Amnesiac
+---Radiohead - Hail to the Thief
+---Radiohead - Kid A
+---Radiohead - OK Computer
+---Rammstein - SehnSucht
+---Rush - Moving Pictures (MFSL)
+---Sepultura - Chaos A.D
+---Sepultura - Dante XXI
+---Sirenia - An Elixir For Existence
+---Sirenia - At Sixes And Sevens
+---Skid Row - 40 Seasons (Best of)
+---Smashing Pumpkins - Adore
+---Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness
+---Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream
+---Soilwork - A Predator's Portrait
+---Soilwork - Figure Number Five
+---Soilwork - Natural Born Chaos
+---Soilwork - Stabbing the Drama
+---Soilwork - Steelbath Suicide
+---Soilwork - The Chainheart Machine
+---Something for Kate - Beautiful Sharks
+---Something for Kate - Echolalia
+---Something for Kate - Elsewhere for 8 Minutes
+---Something For Kate - The Official Fiction
+---Soundtrack - Batman Begins
+---Soundtrack - Blade Runner (Esper Edition)
+---Soundtrack - Blade Runner - Los Angeles November 2019
+---Soundtrack - Clockwork Orange
+---Soundtrack - Dune
+---Soundtrack - Finding Neverland
+---Soundtrack - Ghost in the Shell
+---Soundtrack - Ghost in the Shell 2 - Innocence
+---Soundtrack - Gladiator (2CD)
+---Soundtrack - Immortal Beloved
+---Soundtrack - L.A. Confidential
+---Soundtrack - Lord of the Rings 01 - The Fellow Ship of the Ring
+---Soundtrack - Lord of the Rings 02 - The Two Towers
+---Soundtrack - Lord of the Rings 03 - The Return of the King
+---Soundtrack - Memoirs Of A Geisha
+---Soundtrack - Munich
+---Soundtrack - Pirates of the Caribbean
+---Soundtrack - Run Lola Run
+---Soundtrack - Schindler's List
+---Soundtrack - The Omen (Deluxe Edition)
+---Soundtrack - The Sixth Sense
+---Split Enz - History Never Repeats (Best of)
+---Split Enz - Spellbound
+---Stabbing Westward - Darkest Days
+---Star One - Space Metal
+---Stone Temple Pilots - Thank You
+---Strapping Young Lad - SYL
+---Supertramp - Breakfast In America (MFSL)
+---Testament - Demonic
+---Testament - Low
+---Testament - Practice What You Preach
+---Testament - The Best of Testament
+---Testament - The Gathering
+---Testament - The New Order
+---The Haunted - The Haunted Made Me Do It
+---The Police - Greatest Hits Message in a Bottle especially is really loud during the chorus
+---The Prodigy - Music For The Jilted Generation
+---The Prodigy - The Experience
+---The Sisters of Mercy - First And Last And Always
+---The Sisters of Mercy - Floodland
+---Theory in Practice - The Armageddon Theories
+---Tool - 10000 Days
+---Tool - Lateralus
+---Tool - Undertow
+---Type O Negative - World Coming Down
+---Van Halen - Best of Both Worlds
+---Vangelis - Reprise
+---Various - The Number 1 80's Album Disc
+---Vivaldi - The Four Seasons
+---Wallflowers (The) - One Headlight (Single)
+---Whitetown - Your Woman (Single)
+---Within Temptation - The Silent Force
\---Yes - 90215

Also, listening through this whole collection with the intent to listen out of the "louder" albums showed varying "nominal" (ie the average volume that RG is meantto account for) output levels between albums I thought were OK. Like in the range of -10dB most of the time to -5dB most of the time. Which makes me think even more that RG just doesn't work as well as intended.

Funny.. from listening I would say it's possibly the well produced (at least to my ears, and listening without RG applied) albums that suffered slightly with RG. For my results, it looks like Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs remasters are commonly "at fault", but then so are some other "normal" release albums. All these were backed up from CDs. Maybe the MFSL CDs (and the other "at fault) albums have better production than most already, and RG is hindering them more than helping WRT perceived volume.. Beats me. I've resigned myself to the fact that although RG does go a long way to fixing the volume problem between CDs of different mastering vintage (ie quiet vs hot), I'll still be reaching for the volume now and then.

Could you please post a dump of your RG values by using the "copy command" function? You can use this string:

$if($strcmp(%tracknumber%,01),[%album%:] AP: %__replaygain_album_peak%', 'AG: %__replaygain_album_gain%$crlf())
TP: %__replaygain_track_peak%, TG: %__replaygain_track_gain%

You can select an album and issue the command.

Sure thing. haha it's ugly to look at, but here goes.

(Extremely long list removed by moderation, please put that data into a text file or something and upload it in the upload forum.)

Replaygain indeed has nothing to do with the max volume so much as the average volume or loudness IIRC. So if an album is made up of some loud tracks and some quiet tracks the overall replaygain values will most likely leave the loud parts louder than an all-loud album. Which could easily explain some being louder than others. Replaygain is not perfect and it's been discussed I believe.
And perhaps sl33py could could put that replaygain stuff in a codebox?

It's a weighted average.

I'm not sure about Duble0Syx's example, but tracks with a negative track gain and a positive album gain will certainly sound louder than usual on AG playback.

edit: I've reread his example, and it makes sense to me now.

(Extremely long list removed by moderation, please put that data into a text file or something and upload it in the upload forum.)

...taking a gander at the long lists....Oh my goodness! You really just can't manually edit those albums that annoy you wiht their volume difference? Heavy Metal isn't really a culprit for bad production; Rush of Blood to the Head isn't produced well either. I'm pointing out that some albums do have bad production (regardless of genre) and some just have really differing tracks! John Coltrane's A Love Supreme DELUXE has a Live section, and when I act as if it is one album (RG scan all of it, Live+original), the Live section is so loud that the original album sounds significantly lower compared to my other albums. Solution: manually edit the RG or run RG scanner with the louder files separately from the lower ones as I posted before (about Chaosphere). Use >scan selection as single album< Have you tried that, yet? If it didn't work...eek....I wish I could help more...

Example (not the best example, but it shows...):
Original (tracks 1-4) A Love Supreme: Album Gain = -5
Live (tracks 5 on) A Love Supreme: Album Gain = -6.22

Man... every time I try to paste a little more of the list (not all of it is there!) the forum screws up on me, must be a limit on post size. I also tried copying from where I last finished but it still didn't work.

Agreed, RE heavy metal, bad production etc, I know. Funnily enough, in my first attempt to paste the list, I commented on that very same Coldplay album and some other pop ones, but the comments got lost unfortunately.

I realise what you're saying about some songs just being louder, some of my albums are like that too... or the "bonus" discs where songs were recorded in different places and volumes came out wildly different. None of the albums that present problems for me have those kind of tracks though. In fact, most of the ones I think are problematic I thought/think have good production! eg Kraftwerk doesn't have too big a negative offset on Electric Cafe and the Man Machine.

RE manually editing... it's difficult because I like to use a really loud part of each album (what would hopefully equate to the the peak output on the whole CD), and use that as a gauge for the maximum volume I'd want to hear (or see on the output meter, which I still have strong trust in, because it's the only way of really seeing what maximum outputs are!). Finding a song or so from each album to compare "nominal" volumes would be a pain in the backside for the number of albums I have (much more music than what's pasted here). I just wish RG was a bit better at calculating it's gains to meet the same perceived volumes across albums. Cos it certainly doesn't sound the same across mine, and this would be independent of the 89dB, cos other ppl might another value.

For now I'm just using -5dB on Foobar's overall output volume to stop the worst albums clipping my output completely, 89dB on RG'ed, 0dB on un-RGed, and turning up and down slightly as needed. So right now, although I'm still adjusting volume, RG is saving my ears from being blasted out if I go from an old soundtrack straight to a new heavy metal album. Would be nice if it did the whole job though

It's too bad that you can't fix the problem. Well, at least the clipping is not present, now (which can be really frustrating, especially if you have good headphones). You know, you can always use Track Gain as the default in Foobar to gauge the desired volume. It is far more consistent than Album Gain. It seems that any way you go, it will be annoying. But hey, it's better than no RG! After using RG, I can't stand other media players that don't use it (pretty much all of them...hahaha).

Here's my setup that I find to work quite well:
*Keyboard with volume controlling main output (quick volume control)
*Foobar + KS with Source Mode = "album gain and prevent clipping according to peak"
*Non-RG albums = -9.5
*RG albums = -1.3
*keep volume just a tad below full output
*Adjust computer's Wave Out, etc... to roughly 30-40% so when going from Foobar to computer sound, it is mostly level...

...maye it'll work for you, maybe not... I can't help, so I guess there's no use in replying now....enjoy the tunes!

Thanks, yeah I already have very similar setup, sans the volume control (external amp), and I use ASIO.

Yes, there is a post size limit. Please put that data into a text file, and post it in the upload forum. Even though I don't see how this problem will be solved by looking at such an extremely long list. You have to consider the possibility that the ReplayGain algorithm is not perfect.

i could not reproduce what you're talking about when listening to Daft Punk - Discovery. i was only using my ears...
i prefer track gain over album gain though. it keeps all tracks at the volume i want. (but i switched to album mode to test Daft Punk - Discovery of course )

i noticed that volume can be very subjective at times; music i dislike (ie in a certain mood) will sound too loud, while another album sounds just right at the same volume. and sometimes music i really like can't be loud enough