Whiznot wrote:Could someone please tell me why it would ever be desirable to remove the track volume setting. I thought the setting would alter the bit stream only when the volume leveling option is checked. Is there a downside to analyzing tracks?
I do it because I don't trust most volume leveling algorithms and they don't fit my playback needs in that there's really not a one size fits all volume leveling scheme. Instead of volume leveling being a track "Tag" value, I wish there was a Playlist volume leveling setting instead.
So for instance when I see volume leveling values, they're usually set on a per "Album" basis. Well, to me that's what an audio mastering engineer's job is when they master an album.....so in reality, if all the songs are from the same album...then volume leveling should be unnecessary, since that was already done by an engineer when they mastered the album. Often when I see these volume leveling settings on an "Album", I often see a song where the most reduction of volume is set on a song at -12.0dB and the song with the least volume reduction is set at say -7.0 dB. This is wrong in my opinion. So in reality when you look at those Max and Min volume leveling reduction settings there is really only a 5dB difference in level. So instead of being a Max=-12.0dB and a Min=-7.0dB, the Min should always be 0dB and in this particular example the Max should have been -5.0dB.....not -12.0dB and -7.0dB.
Another thing that volume leveling algorithms often do wrong is that they analyze a song based on the songs entire RMS level. This works on most songs, but if you have a song where there is a long intro that is at a very low level, this makes the RMS level calculation of a song usually wrong. It will analyze a song of having a much lower RMS value, then what it actually is, and that happens due to the lower RMS of a long intro.
I often create playlists of different songs from many different albums which goes on to my iPod. A Track ID3 tag "leveling" setting is ALL wrong for this type of playback situation.
Here's a good graph that was put together by a famous mastering engineer "Bob Katz" which shows how levels of music have changed over the years.
Now let's say for example I have a song that is used in multiple playlists. Let's say this particular song was mastered in 1990 where the average of 1990 songs shown in the graph above has an RMS volume level value of "-14dB". Now if I put this song in a playlist with 9 other songs from 1980, where the average level of these songs from 1980 are at -20dB, I would expect the song from 1990 would need to be lowered to -6dB to match the volume level from the rest of the songs from 1980. So with a TAG volume leveling setting on the tag, -6dB would be entered for this particular 1990 song for this particular playback instance. Now, let's say I create another playlist with this same song in it, and I enter this song into a playlist with 9 other songs now from 2000. The -6dB value is now WRONG. It should now be set at 0dB and the 9 other songs from 2000 should be -11dB to match the lower volume level of the 1 song from 1990.
In reality, I would be much happier with a function that when you create a "Playlist" if there was a "Track Volume leveling" setting that would be set for that track in that particular playlist. Thus, I could have that 1 song used in ANY playlist and its volume would be adjusted according to the songs in the playlist it was being used in....NOT in the TAG info.
