Removing ReplayGain

[Juanus]

So I added ReplayGain to some files... Cool feature.

But is there a way to remove the replaygain information?

Thanks for the cool new build... the features are top notch!

[Koopa]

Not sure, why you want to do this, the file size isn't really biger with these informations and player which don't support these infos, will just ignore it.

Winamp has no native option to remove the entries. For vorbis files:

Open the info editor (alt+3) uncheck "Hide special fields" and delete the entries.

The only way for MP3s, which I'm aware about, is to completly remove the ID3v2 tags.

Maybe someone has a better idea.

[Juanus]

It has nothing to do with filesize or anything like that. It is strictly sound reproduction. I added replay gain to some files that I ripped and I didn't like how the replaygain made the MP3s sound. I am not sure if the sound difference is just in my head or if it is actually different. I try to acheive transparent CD duplication as much as possible with using MP3. (using alt-preset-fast standard)

I guess that I could just turn the use replay gian function off (it is unchecked by default) But I wanted to know all of the options available to me.

But you are correct, when you remove the id3v2 tags and then re-add the tag, it will erase the replay gain info... thanks

[Rocker]

replaygain will just make the sound quieter to stop the clipping on the peaks of the wave. (it will also make soft files louder so that all your files have the same volume)

files with replaygain will sound no different at all to the original, maybe a little quieter to make it sound better.

if your seriously into sound reproduction, then replaygain should be used or a better file format like... flac.

[DJ Egg]

Maybe try switching to album mode instead of track mode (Prefs > Playback)

[Juanus]

Format is not the issue. I have my entire CD collection duplicated. One set in FLAC and one in MP3.

So I guess my question is... and it was kind of mentioned it in an above post... when I compare a non replaygained track to the original CD, it sounds like a more accurate "duplication" of the CD. Where as when you replay gain the track it makes the MP3 quieter (or louder as the case may be)

I understand if you have a bunch of different MP3s from different sources and you want to play them all in a mix of some sort, but why would you replaygain an album that you have ripped from the CD? The album will not have any songs louder and/or quieter than the others.

Am I missing something somewhere? Thanks for your help guys.

[DJ Egg]

The general idea is so that all your files will play at roughly the same volume, and without any clipping/distortion.

It mainly benefits people like me who just use one large playlist (eg. 30,000+ entries).

If you just listen to individual albums separately, and aren't bothered about differences in volume, then ReplayGain probably isn't going to benefit you much.

[Benski]

Originally posted by Juanus
I understand if you have a bunch of different MP3s from different sources and you want to play them all in a mix of some sort, but why would you replaygain an album that you have ripped from the CD? The album will not have any songs louder and/or quieter than the others.

It will if you select "Album" as the source. All tracks on the album will stay at their relative volumes, but all albums you listen to will be the same loudness.

All replaygain does is adjust the volume. In many cases it actually increases quality because at normal (0dB) volume, most MP3 files (and AAC, Vorbis, etc) have overshoot that clips and causes distortion. This is why you see peak values over 1.0 when scanning for replaygain.

[Juanus]

AWESOME! Thanks guys... that answers all of my questions and more.

Thanks for the great work!

[quickstep]

How do I remove Replay Gain tags from an M4A-file (MPEG-4 HE AAC encoded file)? I know it can be done via foobar2000, but how about Winamp?

Cheers!

[Teratohmy]

Originally posted by quickstep
How do I remove Replay Gain tags from an M4A-file (MPEG-4 HE AAC encoded file)? I know it can be done via foobar2000, but how about Winamp?

Cheers!

Try mp3tag (http://www.mp3tag.de/en/)

Load up the directory of files you want to remove replaygain from, select them all (ctrl a) then right click> extended tags (or alt t) and select the replaygain tags, and hit delete or the red x for all the tags you want to get rid of. Then hit ok and it'll save it!

[DJ Egg]

Yeah, it's a bit bad that you can't remove RG for mp4/m4a files (and wma too) with Winamp. At least you can remove the ID3v2 tag for mp3, or remove the RG fields from the Advanced tab for ogg & flac.

I guess something should be done about it....

[osmosis]

Can this be done yet? I calculated ReplayGain on quite a few of my MP3s but applied albumgain to many I would've rather applied trackgain to, so I'd like to be able to strip the info back out easily without having to sacrifice the entire ID3v2 (it'd be insanely time consuming to do this on hundreds of files). If you can apply RG en masse, you should be able to then undo it en masse.

[J_Darnley]

(Still) Not with Winamp but mp3tag can.

[osmosis]

well isn't it just the vundertool of the day

Thanks J, I'll check it out.

Edit: Just noticed it's been 2 years and "(still)" no progress on this. Yikes.

[MrSinatra]

Originally posted by osmosis
Can this be done yet? I calculated ReplayGain on quite a few of my MP3s but applied albumgain to many I would've rather applied trackgain to, so I'd like to be able to strip the info back out easily without having to sacrifice the entire ID3v2 (it'd be insanely time consuming to do this on hundreds of files). If you can apply RG en masse, you should be able to then undo it en masse.

if u write album gain, it also writes track gain.

u then go into winamp settings and tell it which to use, and how.

also, in the RG plugin settings, you can tell it to just write em, and it will do thousands and thousands of files without needing input.

if you want to delete them, (no reason to), u'll need a different app.

[osmosis]

yeah but i want to use album gain for tracks that are from an album that i have a substancial chunk of, and then track for others because it's a VA, stray songs or something i'm not going to listen to straight through. Doing that, I'll have winamp to use Album and then on the files without album gain use the Track, and that's the way I want it. I think it makes sense hah.

[MrSinatra]

winamp isn't that advanced yet.

its either / or.

slim devices squeezecenter has a feature called smartgain, and what it does is analyze your playlist, and based on whats next it uses track or album gain, whichever would be appropriate.

[J_Darnley]

Actually, that is what Winamp does. It will apply the gain specified and then fall back to the other unless you check the box "Disable if preferred source is not available".

[MrSinatra]

i guess if the guy had RG album tags only to do album gain for those he wanted, he could set preferred to track, and let it fall back...

but for those of us who want both values for all tracks, a playlist analyzer would be "smarter."