[quote="Lowlander"]You would want to avoid leveling in the first place and setup leveling in the Device Profile itself so your tracks on your PC remain untouched. This is because leveling could introduce audio artifacts to reduce audio quality. Other than that I assume you can level as many times as you want.[/quote]

Reading a link on this Wiki page: http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Replay_Gain&diff=21924&oldid=21922#MP3Gain


Brought me to this thread started a few years back: http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=34154

Not to keep dragging on the post for no good reason, but I found this really recent thread interesting to read since David Robinson of Replay Gain makes a few comments and info on the subject. Also, as he states [b]"No, the ReplayGain website is out of date - or more accurately it's just an archive of the initial proposal. It hasn't been updated since 2001."[/b]

Go here for the recent thread(talks about MM as well): http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=83397&st=0

Go here for an updated Wiki about the standard: http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php?title=Replay_Gain&diff=21924&oldid=21922#cite_note-0

I use 93db.

FYI, 89db is Audio CD standard by RED book and that is why it is used as reference.

[quote="nohitter151"][quote="load97"]I think I follow you, but why is the standard at 89db? As from reading/understanding stuff on here is that anything much higher would create clipping? [/quote]
Basically, yes.[/quote]

When I had track leveling set to 89db with prevent clipping on I really didn't find any files that weren't raised to 89db, which is good. That means my music collection will play back pretty darn close to each other.

I took a copy of my collection and raised it to 94db with prevent clipping on. Now I see a few files here & there that are less than 94db(90-93db). So those tracks just couldn't get raised enough without clipping. Though, there's [i]very[/i] few tracks I have that couldn't get to at least 92-93db.

Mainly talking, such as comedy etc that had some issue's, which is fine. Those tracks even being played from the original CD usually had to be cranked up to hear them anyway.

Still waiting for MM to finish track leveling, usually it takes a day or so to go through my collection.

Back from Hawaii(and Married)(& broke LOL)

From reading some really old posts, if I understand it correctly, prevent clipping will bring your track as close as possible to your target db without clipping(doesn't compress or limit as some people thought). IE, I'm at 89db now, but I aim for 94db. Now that track clips at 94db, and at 93db as well, so MM raises it to 92db and file plays fine(no clipping). So that leaves an offset of +2db(+ means quieter) in the track volume field(which is relative to the 94db target I set in MM).

Now, the tracks that don't clip at all, will usually be at +/- .9db or less from the target 94db.

Now that I have actually did track leveling, what should I do about the track tags? I originally Analyzed the volume and MM put that in the tag info for playback by players that read tags. When those players such as MM etc read the tag will they now play the song at twice the loudness or softness since the track its self is adjusted & the tag has the same info? I suppose it would just be best to clear/clean the volume leveling tags in the track to alleviate any confusion for the players?

I did screw around with Audacity 1.3 Beta to see the difference between a untouched track and one that has been track leveled to 2 different db levels. I don't know what a lot of the options do or much about the program its self even, but in my spare time I'll try to read up on it hopefully.


Dug up these really old threads/posts that appear to be from the inception of track leveling in MM. Thought they might be of some use to others in there search. Rusty's post on Wed Feb 18, 2004 states:
3) Level Track Volume: This functionality allows users to actually modify their _MP3s_ so that they are leveled to the Baseline Volume Level (without affecting playback quality). This is done using the same mechanism as MP3 Gain, and is very useful if you want to export MP3s to a portable player that doesn't have volume leveling of its own.

Heres the rest of the older threads etc:
http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=1303&p=5004&hilit=clipping+prevention#p5004
http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=7554&hilit=clipping+prevention
http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=7065&p=31199&hilit=clipping+prevention#p31199

Also, some from hydrogenaudio.org:
http://replaygain.hydrogenaudio.org/
http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=24527

And thanks for explaining. I understand what your talking about now.

Thanks again. Even though I don't understand everything on these forums I sure like to talk about stuff as I find it interesting and a learning experience. Helps give me new ideas to try.

Well, off to hawaii in 4 hours. Now I have some ideas to think about on the plane.

no when i was in the wav editor i had a song that was full of clicks. so i put it in there to see what was going on.
the spikes were off the top of the sine wave, so i played it with the prevent clipping checked.

and it did not click,

i then when back in the editor used the feature to normalize the song and i then raised the volume up to what it said
was the max with its amplify feature.
saved the song and played it in monkey got the same result as with the prevent clipping on.

so it sounds like prevent clipping = normalizing

now if you do that and still get clicks. then they might be really clicks or pops from the vinyl record when it was put in
the computer. in that case the audacity editor has a feature to remove them also.
:D

Interesting, hopefully he will chime in.

So you can hear clipping on your stereo when listening to those tracks, or just when viewing the file in a wav editor? Did you use the prevent clipping option?

clipping from what i can see in some of my songs in the wav editor is just a freak or rouge issue on well ripped songs.

but can be a pain in some poorly ripped songs. its mostly the song note or a few in a row that send the spike for its top volume past the top normal level of the song file.

so i think the prevent clipping just normalizes these freak notes when it sees them. or it normalizes the whole song for playback only.

but you should get some one else like a deejay to get more in to it. maybe Peke remembers? :)

What about burning MP3 Cd's, audio Cd's? The home stereo or in dash receiver in a car would do about how good? Avoid clipping does what exactly? Only raises or lowers volume to the extent it hears clipping. So if your target is 93db from 89, and clipping happens, it will only raise the song to 91db per say to keep from clipping?

Avoid clipping doesn't compress or deteriorate the song file does it?

I'll do some of my own testing of stuff as well, but I leave for Hawaii in two days so I don't have much time to try things. I also have too large of a collection to test each file out individually. Thanks for all the input so far guys.

the basicly that nohitter151 is talking about is simply that yes 89 is the normal for most audio players,
its a safe number of volume from the clipping that happens.

the clipping is up to the quailty of the sound cards the better the cards the less the clipping, so some cheap cards will clip at around 91 db's others will clip at around 100db's so 89 is a safe bet to use in covering all the cards. :D

[quote="load97"]I think I follow you, but why is the standard at 89db? As from reading/understanding stuff on here is that anything much higher would create clipping? [/quote]
Basically, yes.

I think I follow you, but why is the standard at 89db? As from reading/understanding stuff on here is that anything much higher would create clipping? Though, what happens when you check prevent clipping at that high of a level?