do you use replaygain to avoid clipping loudness audio file?

[solderdude]

Audacity is a great way to start with this.
It can record, has click and noise removal tools, high pass and EQ which would be all one really needs for recording vinyl.
There are more specialized tools (don't use them as I don't rip my vinyl (safe for 2 records).

Using vinyl (to me) is about the experience, selecting an album, careful handling of the vinyl, cleaning the disc, dropping the needle, looking at the album cover and being 'active' (turning it over, being forced to listen in a certain order, the visual thing (spinning disc, arm, cartridge), only so many songs per side and having to get out of the chair again to change the album.

Ripping is handy when you want/need to digitize, want to digitally reproduce records one owns etc.

 

[JaapD]

I’ve used Replaygain or R128 in the past, but didn’t like it. Some of my CD’s don’t have a 2 second silence between the tracks, smoothly moving from one track to the next. If a next track is a more silent one it gets more gain, resulting in a loudness jump. This is very unnatural and disturbing to me.

During the CD creation process there must be a reason why mastering engineers defined the individual track loudness as they are; why some tracks are more silent while others are more ‘in your face’ so to speak.

One simply cannot ‘improve’ things by applying Replaygain. At least that’s my thought. You’re of course fully entitled to have a different opinion on this.


Cheers,
JaapD.

 

[Mantra]

Using vinyl (to me) is about the experience, selecting an album, careful handling of the vinyl, cleaning the disc, dropping the needle, looking at the album cover and being 'active' (turning it over, being forced to listen in a certain order, the visual thing (spinning disc, arm, cartridge), only so many songs per side and having to get out of the chair again to change the album.

Hi Solderdude
me too , even when i was a kid it was hard to find them ,they were disappearing very quickly
i don't know what/which vinyl player/record player do you use or advise
but they are used to wear the vinyls playing and playing
so it's not a bad idea rip them and play the vinyl only sometime just to keep them in a good shape
thanks

I’ve used Replaygain or R128 in the past, but didn’t like it. Some of my CD’s don’t have a 2 second silence between the tracks, smoothly moving from one track to the next. If a next track is a more silent one it gets more gain, resulting in a loudness jump. This is very unnatural and disturbing to me.

During the CD creation process there must be a reason why mastering engineers defined the individual track loudness as they are; why some tracks are more silent while others are more ‘in your face’ so to speak.

One simply cannot ‘improve’ things by applying Replaygain. At least that’s my thought. You’re of course fully entitled to have a different opinion on this.


Cheers,
JaapD.

Hi JaapD
me too , i have started to use only with some "bad" cd recordings , they do sound so badly with my earphone or my amps and speakers
in this case i use the replagay ,for my ears the just play better
i have used a plugin like perfect declipper and for my ears they do sound my better
thanks

 

[goat76]

I’ve used Replaygain or R128 in the past, but didn’t like it. Some of my CD’s don’t have a 2 second silence between the tracks, smoothly moving from one track to the next. If a next track is a more silent one it gets more gain, resulting in a loudness jump. This is very unnatural and disturbing to me.

During the CD creation process there must be a reason why mastering engineers defined the individual track loudness as they are; why some tracks are more silent while others are more ‘in your face’ so to speak.

One simply cannot ‘improve’ things by applying Replaygain. At least that’s my thought. You’re of course fully entitled to have a different opinion on this.


Cheers,
JaapD.

That's why you should always choose "album normalization" if that is an option. That way the normalization is based on the loudest track on the album, and if that track for example is lowered by 2 dB, the rest of the tracks on the same album will also be lowered by 2 dB to preserve the intended loudness between all the tracks on the album.

 

[goat76]

Hi JaapD
me too , i have started to use only with some "bad" cd recordings , they do sound so badly with my earphone or my amps and speakers
in this case i use the replagay ,for my ears the just play better
i have used a plugin like perfect declipper and for my ears they do sound my better

The track by Lorde in your first post does have true peaks over digital zero as can be seen in the picture below, so ReplayGain will in this case help avoid digital clipping in your system.

 

[Mantra]

The track by Lorde in your first post does have true peaks over digital zero as can be seen in the picture below, so ReplayGain will in this case help avoid digital clipping in your system.

Hi
well , good i have switched to replaygain -> album and apply gain and prevent clipping according the peak
and not prevent clipping according the peak
may i ask you what software have you used in the screenshot?
wavelab?
thanks

 

[goat76]

may i ask you what software have you used in the screenshot?
wavelab?

No, I use iZotope RX.

 

[JaapD]

If the source data is already clipping then Replaygain cannot do anything against that. Replaygain does not alter the shape of the waveform. The clipped data will be played a bit lower in volume but it remains clipped (as in flattened) nonetheless.

Cheers,
JaapD.

 

[JaapD]

That's why you should always choose "album normalization" if that is an option. That way the normalization is based on the loudest track on the album, and if that track for example is lowered by 2 dB, the rest of the tracks on the same album will also be lowered by 2 dB to preserve the intended loudness between all the tracks on the album.

that seems like a good idea in the first place. But what's the use of this? While listening to the album I can easily do the same thing by turning the volume knob 2db lower, right?

Cheears
JaapD

 

[goat76]

that seems like a good idea in the first place. But what's the use of this? While listening to the album I can easily do the same thing by turning the volume knob 2db lower, right?

Cheears
JaapD

The whole idea of normalization is a more even loudness across different mastered songs and albums that is applied automaticall, if you don't find the “automatic” part useful, you can of course just change to volume yourself.

Most albums already have a good loudness balance from track to track, a natural volume balance between the more dense and louder songs that are expected to sound louder than the less dense songs on the same album.

The real problem with loudness differences will occur when shifting between different mastered albums or when a playlist contains songs with large differences in loudness, but even when it comes to playlists, the natural loudness differences between the more dense and the less dense mixes will often also work almost as equally good in a randomly done playlist.

When Tidal did their loudness normalization, they tested it on a lot of people and the conclusion was that album normalization was preferred by most listeners, not just because it preserved the natural balance between the tracks on the same album, it was also preferred with music in playlists.

 

[somebodyelse]

@solderdude @somebodyelse
Hi
is there a great tutorial about rip a lp in this forum or ?
I guess there are great software that can clean , click and something else ...just auto split tracks ..
I have only audacity and goldwave
thanks

Sorry, I haven't done any in many years. Back then I set the gain to avoid clipping, manually edited the worst of the clicks and pops, identified times matching an mp3 frame offset and wrote them to a Cue file along with the track names. I don't remember which editor I used. There are probably easier options now.

 

[goat76]

If the source data is already clipping then Replaygain cannot do anything against that. Replaygain does not alter the shape of the waveform. The clipped data will be played a bit lower in volume but it remains clipped (as in flattened) nonetheless.

Cheers,
JaapD.

I missed this post earlier.

While it's true that ReplayGain or other normalization solutions can't do anything about clipping in the source data, it will still help to avoid possible digital clipping in the reproduction chain by increasing the peak headroom. In the above example with the song by Lorde, they should have left more headroom than -0.01 dB for the sample peak level.

 

[Haenschen Klein]

As answer to the initial question:
Not the "stock" version from foobar2000 but the one from here:
True Peak Scanner
It offers a few other goodies too. I'm very pleased with it, in case you search for more information about it:
HA Forum thread: Topic: Resampling Hi-Res Audio [from where this idea originates]
HA Forum thread: Topic: foo_truepeak True Peak Scanner [where this component is discussed]

To answer why I'm using it:
I've always used it to avoid having to constantly adjust the volume, but since I've been living in a nursing home I've also used it to avoid extreme volumes for my fellow residents, even though most of them are hard of hearing, but not all of them.
So, all in all, it's a question of convenience. Not having to constantly adjust the volume can also be a form of greater enjoyment (even if this may not apply to everyone (those who like to turn the knobs)).

Regards
Haenschen Klein

 

[dualazmak]

The track by Lorde in your first post does have true peaks over digital zero as can be seen in the picture below, so ReplayGain will in this case help avoid digital clipping in your system.

View attachment 368126

Just for your/our reference, I usually use ADOBE Audition 3.0.1 and MusicScope 2.1.0 for this kind of "level/gain/clipping/Fq-spectrum" analysis as recently shared in my post #46 on a remote thread.

Spoiler

For example, I copy-paste just one diagram (out of 6 diagrams) from my post #46 on a remote thread.

 

[Hayabusa]

If your dac does not handle intersample overs replaygain could help

 

[dasdoing]

without listening to it, it looks pretty decent. the loud parts are limited, not clipped. any modern pop song will look way more "cramped".