In this case one should use an (already existing) extern normalizer that recodes the whole file (probably all files in a batch process. I do not think that amaroK is suitable for this task.

marcel: Did you read my post? replaygain IS NOT normalizing, it does not do the same, and the result is different.

audi666: If all your files are mp3, you can use mp3gain and never worry about player support.

The problem is the different file formats don\'t suport replaygain (yet). I\'m not sure about vorbisgain, if this is a requirement for compliance or not (decoding stage).

The replaygain proposal ideally should be adopted universally, but the industry has its own goals.

Supporting replaygain only needs the player to read the replaygain tag and automatically adjust the volume. If the player also wants to support _adding_ the replaygain info values, well, even better.

To add the replaygain values, the player has to scan the audio file, estimate loudness (see url above) and write the information AS A TAG VALUE.

Having this tag value stored in the file, a player supporting replaygain can OPTIONALLY make use of it to automatically adjust the volume to a fixed value for the entire track length (or album length)

A common target value for playback is 89db, which leaves enough room to avoid any clipping (which creates annoying noise); for some people this seems to be a little on the low side (at first replaygain proposed the even lower movie standard of 83db) but the replaygain target loudness can usually be adjusted in the player settings. Some people like 91db and don\'t mind an ocassional clip.


I can keep writting and writting and most people won\'t understand or care about this idea until they try it. I myself once thought this replaygain thing was unimportant, until i started using it in my entire music collection. I recommend you try foobar2000, its supposed to work in wine if you disable the visualization (right click right to the seek bar to turn it off before playing).

If you succeed, you can playback all your music without ever feeling some songs are \"too loud\" and others \"too weak\" and moving the main volume knob all the time. This is quite dramatic when random playing. It is best if in your tests you mix very different music genres, from different years and random play a couple of hours with and without RG.

Did you try the script, it works quite nicely.

Hmm, I tested mp3gain again and noticed, that I need player support. Only XMMS with MAD plugin could play the file at replaygained volume.

audi666 wrote:

Hmm, I tested mp3gain again and noticed, that I need player support. Only XMMS with MAD plugin could play the file at replaygained volume.

Sorry, I was wrong. It works without player support
So I need a good solution for Ogg Vorbis and Musepack files...