Set Same Volume Level Functionnality

[ExtremRaym]

"Set Same Volume Level" in Spotify and Itunes "Sound Check" have both the same purpose : allow users to listen to their musics with the same average volume. Kind of "normalize average level to -23 RMS" functionality (-23 is a theorical example).

I know one concept of Resonic ("Purest sound") is to not influence the signal chain bewteen the mp3 render and the ouput, but because this functionality is just about ouput level, the quality doesn't change.

According to Ian Shepherd, a famous sound mastering engineer, these functionalities can end the loundess war.
He writes article and record videos about it.
Video : Has the Loudness War been won ?

It would be a sad if Resonic Pro doesn't have this functionality, as it is a sign a modern music player and... of serious attack to the Music war

I know it can be hard to implement but I really think it worths it

[ExtremRaym]

An article on Sound on Sound report the same idea in the article "The End Of The Loudness War?", reporting the words of the famous mastering engineer Bob Katz.
Here is his video :
Bob Katz - Loudness: War & Peace

Sure it's not something that a music producer need (he need to here the "real sound") but in a consumer perspective, it's a real thing

Hope you will be interested by this

[Jan]

I do think different loudness levels are a problem that should be adressed in the future, but I don't see it as a high priority item yet.

There also are alternatives like MP3Gain for example, which can normalize your library independently from the player you are using, but watch out, some users reported a loss in quality and claim that the peaks of some files got cropped irreversible during the process.

[ExtremRaym]

The thing is that mp3gain processes, as it name says, mp3.

Resonic is a multi-format player :
WAV, AIFF, FLAC, APE, ALAC, WV, TTA
MP3, MP2, MP1, OGG, M4A, MP4, AAC, MPC, MP+, OPUS, SPX
WMA, WMA Pro, WMA Lossless
IT, XM, S3M, MTM, MOD
and even embed videos audio.

Mp3gain cannot be the solution. It just cannot compete close to that diversity of formats.

Despite the format issue, i wanted to remember that all kind all normalization are integrated in players, since years. Short time average level (real time analysis), average level over the entire file, peak levels etc...
If there is such a huge amonts of players with it, it because there is a real demand about average levels between files, to not be disturbed (example if you have a playlist on a party). I don't say it has to become the default setting : an on/off button is perfect (in a sound analyses perspective, it's important to have the opportunity to set that off ) It's the stronger attack against the loudness war we can imagine.

I think that average level in real time (with no cache) based on the entire song is the best solution : it doesn't modify the dynamic of the original file, no loss in quality, and no extra metadata/cache files, and all formats can be supported. That's it Sure there can be different average levels between files, but no solution can't be perfect. That said, Spotify and Itunes have it (or similar function), other players will also have it. Why not Resonic ?

If Ian Sherperd and Bob Katz hadn't convince you, I don't think I will, but you have my point.
And Tom too

[Andreasvb]

I'm pretty sure Resonic support ReplayGain reading. It can't create the tags (yet).

[ExtremRaym]

Once again, ReplayGain is ogg and mp3 specific =/

I just found that in release note :
"Ogg-Opus output gain now defaults to 0dB, ignoring any Replaygain tags"

So i don't think Resonic support ReplayGain =/

However, it could be a good start.

[Jan]

@ExtremRaym: I agree. the dynamic of a song should never be altered and the ReplayGain (mutli-format) function would be a great feature to have, but I am a bit worried about it's impact performance wise, with all the analyzation needed. Plus, ReplayGain differs between individual and album loudness so it would be neat if Resonic automatically "understands", if the folder beeing played from is an album or not to autoswitch between those loudness levels automatically.

@Andreasvb: Yupp, it can read those tags (MP3 only?).

[ExtremRaym]

hmmm... i think i have forget the perfomance issue when i was talking about a realtime analysis over the full sound, but the fact is that i found that important that "normalize loudness" can be applied on every kind of files being played (which is not the case for ReplayGain)

I keep support the idea that it could be could, even if there is a small amount of time to make calculation, as in the new action in SWS Extension for Reaper (a Daw which can now apply that type of treatement to any sound source).

Alternatively, an Itunes Soundcheck kind of support can also be good, i think it require some caches files (path + db reduction), but it does the job