Please explain the 'leveling' concept and its implications.

[chrisjj]

> You think 'Track Gain' and 'Album Gain' would be better?

Definitely.

> My worry is that most users wouldn't even know to associate that with volume leveling.

I suggest most Level Track Volume users don't ever read this field - they don't need it.

The ones who look for it are ones who do know the association.

For the few remaining... Track Gain and Album Gain would be in the Help index

[airtas]

wait so if I sync my ipod will it prompt me if I want to level or will it automatically happen?

[chrisjj]

> so if I sync my ipod will it prompt me if I want to level

No.

> or will it automatically happen?

If you specified under Auto-Conversion.

[nohitter151]

> so if I sync my ipod will it prompt me if I want to level

No.

> or will it automatically happen?

If you specified under Auto-Conversion.

The iPod can use the replaygain values (soundcheck) so its better to use volume analysis on the files and not to level the volume on the fly.

[artworksmetal]

OK, this had been a very informative thread. I've read it several times, and thanks to those that have made contributions.
One thing I don't get is the 89 db default. What is that relative to?
In order to level volumes it must do some amount of compression. So assuming silence is 0db, when it does the Volume Analyzing, does it assign the loudest level 100 db? 120 db? What's it doing here?

[chrisjj]

> One thing I don't get is the 89 db default.

I think it is a misunderstanding in design.

> What is that relative to?

See http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... ilit=level .

[gpzbc]

I don't want to hijack this thread, but my question is somewhat pertinent. And this seems to be an active thread of knowledgeable users on the topic of leveling. Please let me know if you think I should start a new thread.

I use EAC w/ LAME to rip cds to mp3. I have the "Volume Normalization" feature turned off in EAC options. However, every track that is ripped in EAC and imported into MM shows up with a "track volume" value.

So here are my questions?
1) Is it possible that EAC and/or MM is performing the "Analyze Volume" function?
2) God forbid, but is it possible that EAC and/or MM is performing the "Level Volume" function?
3) Or is it possible that EAC has simply written the volume level to the tag and MM is reading the value from the tag?

It is possible this thread is posing a similar question, but no one ever answered it. http://www.mediamonkey.com/forum/viewto ... 02&start=0

Thanks for your input.

[Teknojnky]

i think the newer lame builds have done this automatically when encoding, but I could be wrong

[gpzbc]

Thanks Teknojnky.
So I'm guessing that if LAME is doing this automatically, that it is simply setting the ReplyGain value, rather than applying any sort of normalization?

Can anyone else chime in since teknojnky has expressed uncertainty?
Thanks again.

[Lowlander]

Under Tools > Options > Volume Leveling, the setting Automatically analyze volume of unanalyzed Tracks would add this value if enabled.

[gpzbc]

Under Tools > Options > Volume Leveling, the setting Automatically analyze volume of unanalyzed Tracks would add this value if enabled.

I should have specified that I have that option turned off. And I should have also added that the value is only added for albums/tracks that are ripped in EAC/LAME.

[davidbspalding]

Concur. If you have the "automatically analyze volume" setting OFF, then just right click on a newly ripped track, look in the second tab where ReplayGain values are recorded and ... if populated, that would indicate that the rip software analyzed levels.

You could also use MP3Tag.

[gpzbc]

After a bit more research, it appears that teknojnky, lowlander, and davidbspalding are correct. According to Hydrogenaudio Wiki page for ReplayGain, LAME automatically adds ReplayGain values to the tag during the encoding process. The wiki claims that it is only on a per track basis, rather than per album. And they claim that no player currently supports the reading of this value.
Here is a link to the HydrogenAudio Wiki page for ReplayGain. http://wiki.hydrogenaudio.org/index.php ... ygain#LAME

So I wonder if this wiki is outdated? Does MediaMonkey actually read and process the ReplayGain value which LAME wrote to the tag during the encoding process? Or is it just a useless value as far as MM is concerned?

[Teknojnky]

I would suggest the wiki be slightly out of date.

it should be easily reproducable, rip and encode a track from eac with lame and add the track to mm.

if no other application touched the file, then MM reads the info.

[Lowlander]

Depending on you settings under Tools > Options > Volume Leveling and if you have Play > Level Playback Volume enabled, MediaMonkey uses this value to adjust the player volume so that all tracks sound similarly loud.

Wiki has last been updated in September 2009.