[plug] Altering Gains on Multiple Audio Files

Jason Posavec jasonposavec at iinet.net.au
Wed Apr 1 17:46:38 WST 2009


Daniel Pittman wrote:
> "jasonposavec at iinet.net.au" <jasonposavec at iinet.net.au> writes:
>
>   
>> I tried the command "vorbisgain -g 5 *.ogg" in my music folder
>> (vorbisgain apparently being an ogg offshoot of mp3gain) which
>> according to the man page *should* raise the volume off all files in
>> that folder by 5dB. I didn't seem to notice any difference in volume
>> afterwards. Am I reading that flag correctly?
>>     
>
> Probably.  These tools write a "gain flag" into the header of the file,
> rather than decode and reencode the audio content.
>
> That means they are lossless, but that they require support from the
> playback device.  Presumably your player doesn't support that flag for
> Vorbis files, even if it does elsewhere.
>
> That makes reencoding your only option, which is a lossy operation.
>
> Um, question though: did they come from original media?  If so, you
> might want to consider repeating the capture process and encoding
> correctly the first time, rather than trying to post-process and fix it.
>
> Regards,
>         Daniel
> _______________________________________________
> PLUG discussion list: plug at plug.org.au
> http://www.plug.org.au/mailman/listinfo/plug
> Committee e-mail: committee at plug.linux.org.au
>
>   
The files were originally ripped from cd's using Gnome Rhythmbox. By 
"encoding correctly" did you mean going to mp3 in the first place, or 
increasing the volume in the first place? I had a look in the settings 
and can see nowhere that allows me to alter the volume while ripping.

I'm sure the files are more than loud enough on the iRiver when using 
headphones. But when I have a lineout going to my home theatre I find 
I'm turning the volume up a LOT to get a decent sound out of it.

By the way, the app I was using to play the flagged ogg file was vlc - 
the one player I would have thought would support it.

The plan at this stage is to transcode to mp3, normalise all the files, 
then up them by 1. I'll see how that goes.

Jason



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