Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Technical Questions mp3 vs. flac volume normalization

My library until recently has been all mp3 and I have religiously used MP3Gain to apply a track gain normalization of the default 89 dB to each file in my library.

So now as I have started adding flac files instead of MP3 I would obviously like to normalize these to the same level. I have downloaded and tried Foobar2000 but don't quite get how the replay gain tags work and are calculated/applied. Is there any way I can set the replay gain tag to 89 dB as in MP3Gain?

I believe I could let Foobar2000 look at my whole library and do an average normalization across that, but I am trying to avoid that as 1)it would take a very long time and 2)I don't want to mess up my library I am already happy with and undo the work I have done with MP3Gain.

Has anybody else encountered this? Any ideas/solutions? Thanks!

Bump.

OK, does anybody use volume normalization on flac files? Anyone? Bueller?

I don't but strictly for superstitious reasons.

I love that movie.

I think a few programs are able to do it just most do it with playback through their interface, IIRC Winamp does it this way. Sadly I use winamp to rip but have never used it to playback my music, I always stream to my Denon 3808

Media Monkey and EAC (Eact Audio Copy)might be 2 to check out. I know once I get into my new house next year I planned on re-ripping my music with EAC, I seem to remember one of those 2 being able to volume equalize upon ripping, but I could be wrong.

Hi Dan,

There is a Normalize Tab in EAC were you can set the db of your choice to normalize to. With EAC, you can rip to WAV or Mp3.. I rip to WAV then convert the WAV to Flac using the Flac FrontEnd software.

Cheers,

Steph

I guess that was why I planned on using EAC

Apparently I need to start using EAC for ripping.

Steph - Why not go to flac directly? Does EAC not allow this?

For stuff I already have in flac, can EAC just apply the normalization to the file without having to re-rip the source material?

Thanks guys, this is starting to form a plan in my head now.

EAC is just a ripper, it makes WAVs. It does have provisions to call an MP3 encoder by default. It is possible to customize the encoder command line options to call the FLAC encoder instead. It's a little bit of a hack, but works well. For help Google: eac flac

Wow there's a lot of options out there for flac! OK, I have some homework to do but I will get there.

Not truly a "Hack". EAC lets you call many sorts of conversion engines after it rips to a wave. To make MP3s you download the Lame engine and point it there and to make FLACs you download the FLAC engine and point it there. The trick is that not every setting for flacks is presented in the GUI so you need to add a few command line parameters for things like your file name preferences.

Short instructions showing the process with screenshots.

Basically, it's download & install FLAC then do this.


Save all your settings as a profile. Then you can load your MP3 profile file as needed then switch back to the FLAC profile as needed.

Now if you want it to automatically do a flac then an MP3 in one button push, it gets trickier but honestly, there are easier tools for that.

I use EAC because it's complexity tricks my brain into thinking the music will sound better. heh hehehe heheh