Volume levelling FLAC file vs Tidal file of the same song / album

Roon Software Discussion
22

I use -23 LUFS with both local flac and Tidal too, generally without any issues.

There are a couple of nuances to be aware of - you probably already know, but maybe it will help someone else later.

Roon and Tidal both calculate loudness using the R128 standard, but as far as I know Tidal only provides album-level numbers, while Roon calculates bothe album and track levels. Roon can be set to use album, track, or ‘auto’. The ‘auto’ setting uses ‘track’ levels if you play individual tracks (including in a playlist) and ‘album’ levels if you start an album from the ‘top’. This may result in different gain adjustments for a specific track conditional on Roon settings, source, and how play was initiated, even if the release (ie master) is nominally the same.

The other caveat I can think of is that Roon will never use a positive gain if it would result in samples above 0dBFS. I think Roon will calculate this accounting for possible intersample ‘overs’ - not sure - and I assume Tidal playback accounts for this appropriately too. At least, I’ve never noticed an issue.

At -23 LUFS, I don’t think you should be seeing these as an issue, so there must be something else in play - but something to be aware of when testing to try to bottom it out!

Final thought - what was your ripping workflow?
Is it possible that the process baked in some level normalisation gain adjustments?

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23

Thanks Andy. I must admit, I hadn’t realised that Tidal only does Album Gain - rather strange for a company with audiophile pretensions… That does explain why the album gain setting produces fewer dynamic swings between tracks on my playlists.

My workflow for ripping CDs is to use dBpoweramp (1.3.1), uncompressed.

I may look into adding replay gain tags to my FLAC files so that I can then force Roon to use them. I think I read somewhere that this can be done as a batch…

24

Yes, batch processing is easy. What OS will you use?

25

Sounds great :slight_smile: I have all my local files on a NUC with DietPi. But I would probably have to do it on a windows PC

Torben

26

It’ll be done on windows (11) desktop pc.

27

You could do it on the NUC directly with FLAC (metaflac.) Something like this for BASH.

#!/bin/bash
MUSIC=/path/to/media/files
find $MUSIC -type f -name "*.flac" -exec metaflac --add-replay-gain {} \;

Alternatively, this.

#!/bin/bash
MUSIC=/path/to/media/files
shopt -s globstar
for filepath in $MUSIC/**/*.flac; do metaflac --add-replay-gain "$filepath"; done

And, with ZSH, this. (should work on macOS)

#!/bin/zsh
MUSIC=/path/to/media/files
for filepath in $MUSIC/**/*.flac; do metaflac --add-replay-gain "$filepath"; done

I rarely use Windows, and only in a VM for specific use, but I’d probably use foobar2000 to do this. See this guide.

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28

@mjw - THX :slight_smile:

When it is done, would the below than be the right settings:

image
image1406×299 24 KB

Have a nice WE

Torben

1 Like
29

That’s how I have it set.

For reference, these settings are found in Settings → Library → Import settings (but not on mobile displays.)

1 Like
30

6 posts were split to a new topic: Batch Processing ReplayGain

36

My thread appears to have been highjacked, so I’m muting it. Thanks to all who chimed in with suggestions and advice.

37

If you feel that way, than sorry for that

Have a nice WE

Torben

38

@Vaughan_Barnacle, I’ll move the posts that diverge to a related new thread. No need to mute.