Please explain the 'leveling' concept and its implications.

[Lowlander]

- You can only enable automatic analyzing of volume not level volume. Analyzing volume works on FLAC as well and only saves a volume offset in the tags which is used by the player to adjust the volume. You should be able to verify if this was done on your FLAC files by checking the Track Volume column.

- You can disable/enable volume leveling in the rip dialog itself.

- No, it won't change anything other than the Player volume by the value in the Track Volume or Album Volume field (depends on your setting). In the files it's just a tag, the audio isn't changed when using Analyze Volume.

[davidbspalding]

"Analyze album volume" adds another value into the volume leveling field that sets the proper playback leveling adjustment for the whole album. Not all players support this. Here's an example. The iPod "SoundCheck" feature only reads the track leveling adjustment, so during playback, one album track may change volume leveling from the previous. This is really -- appallingly -- noticeable when playing a full-length, continuous play ambient album -- with SoundCheck on, the mellow tones from T1 (leveling -3.5 db) may suddenly drop in volume at the transition to T2 (leveling -6.0 db). But if you enable album leveling values, the T1 and T2 leveling values may read -3.5; -4 and -6.0; -4. So a playback device like, say, Mediamonkey, will level all the tracks at the album leveling level of -4.0 db. You'll hear no abrupt changes in leveling as a result.

I usually don't use Soundcheck on the iPod because a problem in the firmware does leveling AFTER applying EQ adjustments, so that almost all of my music has slight distortion with any EQ. But I do track + album leveling because it's non-destructive to the tracks, and adds value to them when I play them on my computer.

Hope that helps some.

[PatMcQ]

I read this complete thread but still have some confusion...

1) During playback, how does MM decide between using Track Volume vs. Album Volume values if both exist in the track/file? Does Album Volume take precedence over Track Volume? I can't believe it's studying my playlist beforehand to know if I am playing more than one track from a particular album. If Album Volume does take precedence, how do I remove just that value from the track/file? I rarely listen to tracks as albums.

2) The Options dialog, under Volume Leveling, does not discern between just Analyzing tracks and permanently Leveling tracks. There's only a checkbox "Level playback volume". Is the only way to permantently level tracks during ripping or can it be done on existing selected tracks? How do I avoid permantently leveling tracks? I thought I was covered until I read this thread. Now I'm a little freaked out.

Thanks for the help. MM is good stuff.

[Lowlander]

1) Tools > Options > Volume Leveling allows you to set the Level Playback to per Track or per Album. Whichever you choose will be applied.

2) Only Tools > Level Track Volume will permanently level the tracks.

[PatMcQ]

Ugh! Sorry but MM4 has gotten me spooked again. Regarding my item 2 above, the Tools>Options>Volume Leveling dialog does not have a toggle to enable/disable permanently leveling tracks. It only has "Level ripped tracks" with a value of "Per Track" or "per Album". No checkbox there to turn the feature on or off. What does that mean then? How does one avoid peremantly leveling their tracks?

[Lowlander]

Don't use Tools > Level Track Volume (this still works the same as in MediaMonkey 4).

[Guest]

Thanks to everyone in the forum - I have learned much about this great tool - which seems to do exactly (well, ALMOST...<g>) what you would want it to do. Now, to give something back...

My interpretation of volume leveling (at least for MP3's):
Single web page that best sums it up: http://www.mediamonkey.com/wiki/index.p ... veling/4.0

Volume LEVELING on RIP to MP3 will alter the file LOSSLESSLY, but IRREVERSIBLY (it does not change the waveform - rather, it just updates the MP3 file with the adjustment value just like MP3Gain, but does NOT write an 'undo' tag like MP3Gain does - hence it is 'irreversible').

Analyze Volume: This analyzes and then just adds tags to the MP3 file (and MM library) for Track and/or Album (configurable) that tell a player (MMonkey or many modern devices) how to play the track back at the 'correct' volume - and is reversible.

In a perfect world (v 5? lol), MM would write that same undo tag like MP3Gain, so it is reversible - then there would be absolutely NO reason to not do album leveling when ripping.

In the meantime, if one wanted the same effect, one could:
- rip w/o leveling
- then MP3Gain it (album mode to preserve relative volume) - to write the reversible volume tag
- then 'analyze volume' in MM (album & track, although the album value will probably be 0 b/c MP3Gain already adjusted it)

Then, if you truly want track-leveled playback, you set the MM Player->Volume leveling prefs ('Level Playback/Sync volume') to 'Track' - then it will play leveled in MM, or adjust the volume as it syncs - but will *not* alter your library.

Hope this helps someone....

[gpzbc]

Thanks for this summary.

[lucass]

Please explain.
This:
http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... 41#p317308 "MM does that automatically, when playing tracks back to back from the same album it uses album gain, otherwise track gain is used."
does not agree with this:
http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... 90#p315750 "Tools > Options > Volume Leveling allows you to set the Level Playback to per Track or per Album. Whichever you choose will be applied."

So does MM4 analyse the playlist/now playing/library tree node (which?) and decides which level to apply? Or does it apply whichever is set under Tools > Options > Volume Leveling > Level Playback/Sync volume (per Track or per Album)?

thank you

[lucass]

Please don't ignore

[nohitter151]

The statement about it switching automatically is incorrect. (it was my post)