Songs-DB will probably never do what MP3Gain does, actually there's no reason for it. However, it is planned to store calculated levelling coefficients into tags, definitely into OGG tags, the situation is not so clear in MP3s, but probably APE tags will be used once they are supported in Songs-DB.

Jiri

Rusty,

After a little bit more digging, I see that MP3Gain makes the changes to the frames of the MP3 file and not the ID tags. This allows players that ignore the volume field in the tags to still play at a leveled volume.

I hope this is helpful. I'm learning all of this as I go, on the unending quest for well-organized, high-quality music.

Joe

Rusty,

Thanks for the response. From what I can tell, EphPod makes changes in the tags using an open source software product called MP3Gain (http://www.geocities.com/mp3gain/).

Of the two options you proposed, I would prefer the first since that would allow porting of the normalization to all players. From what I understand, you can also undo the normalization simply by stripping the tag, if you don't like it.

It's not a huge deal because if this is the case, I'll use this application to level all of my MP3s.

Otherwise, it may be worth incorporating some of MP3Gain's features into Songs-DB.

Just a thought. I'll keep doing some research and see if I can understand it a little bit better.

Joe

Joe, unfortunately, at the moment, volume leveling data is stored in the database and not in the tags.

There are 2 possible solutions for you (both would involve changes to Songs-DB):
1) SDB writes replay gain info to the tag. This is probably doable--we'd just need to get a better understanding of the format of the replay gain info that the ipod recognizes (I've seen a number of different recommendations for how this information should be represented).
2) Modify the export script to export volume leveling data. Then you could export a list of tracks to excel/csv/xml and somehow munge the volume leveling information into your ephpod program (not sure if that's possible or not--I'm not really familiar with ephpod).

One last question: does the iPod use the replay gain data to adjust the volume? or does ephpod convert the audio files on the fly to a leveled volume as they're being sent to the iPod?

What a phenomenal program!!! I just tried Songs-DB yesterday and purchased the Gold version last night. This is like the best of MusicMatch Jukebox, Moodlogic and MP3 Tag Tools rolled into one. Great job JHSoftware!

I started analyzing the volume in several of my playlists last night and tried it out by enabling volume leveling on the Songs-DB player. It worked very well, with no discernable change in quality (in fact, it seemed to enhance quality for some of the tracks).

In any case, I also use EphPod to syncronize my playlists onto my iPod. EphPod also uses the Replay Gain Volume Leveling standard. I am just wondering if I will need to do anything else to have the volume leveled once I sync up my songs to my iPod. Or does Songs-DB change the tag to allow any player that supports the standard to level the volume on playback?

Any help is appreciated.

Joe