Loudness leveling like PlexAmp (I am aware of ReplayGain for Symfonium)

Feature requests
1

Feature description:

Hey there,

No worries if this can’t be done, just a feature I thought would be nice to have for at least personal use case (and others might find useful too).

For now, I have been using ReplayGain tags on my own music I’ve created, for the same volume when putting my music on shuffle. However, I share a media server for music with my family, so I can’t always be adding ReplayGain tags to stuff as it gets added. I was wondering if there would be a way to add a Loudness Leveling feature like PlexAmp has, even if it’s lower quality, so I don’t have to worry about ReplayGain not being present on most tracks when I do shuffle for playlists from multiple artists.

Problem solved:

While I am sure the effect would not be as good as ReplayGain, it would save the step of having to apply the ReplayGain tag to every new song.

Brought benefits:

Well, some users might not want to add ReplayGain to their tracks either, or might not be as computer savvy (perhaps sharing a music host as well), so unsure of how to do it, as opposed to just having a less effective, but easier toggle in Symfonium settings.

Other application solutions:

 

 

Additional description and context:

 

 

Screenshots / Mockup:

    

2

PlexAmp loudness leveling is replay gain, just one that the server have calculated and generated during the scan.
There’s no magic it requires to scan all the file to get the values so can’t be properly done client side only.

3

Is there a way to get a feature like that in Symfonium, as an alternative to having to tag ReplayGain? Or do you mean Symfonium can’t do it since it doesn’t have the same access to the server if it’s run off Plex, like PlexAmp does?

4

Symfonium is multi provider and the Plex loudness stuff is not compatible with ReplayGain so can’t be merged with the rest of the provider.

5

Is there a way to do some kind of alternate loudness leveling then, that doesn’t need ReplayGain tags? ie. I know Spotify has some kind of loudness leveling, though maybe that’s doing something similar to what PlexAmp does. If the answer is a simple no, that ReplayGain is the only method and that’s why it’s the only option, you can say that and I will leave you alone :slight_smile:

6

I kinda already told you.

7

I took that as regarding ReplayGain specifically, I am not an audio program engineer so I need stuff said specifically “yes” or '“no”. I am always kind of hesitant to make a post you will engage in, as good as Symfonium is for my needs compared to PlexAmp right now (needing music more for downloaded use than streaming), you’re always a bit of a prickly one to interact with.

8

No I’m not native English speaker and try to not loose to much time repeating stuff, you ask questions you have complete detailed answers each times.

If you do not understand what I say then ask for details, do not ask the same question again ?

9

I mean, you can think I’m an idiot for wanting a simple “yes” or “no”, because the technical answer doesn’t do it for me. You’ve invested a lot of time in this corner of this world being a developer, I’m just a consumer of apps like these, I don’t understand the science behind it. It would be like if someone asked me a question about how I composed music, and I gave them a super detailed answer, then they asked another question that was looking for a simplified version of part of the detailed answer. I don’t think people who don’t compose music are idiots when they don’t understand how it’s done. It’s not something they do. Why would they understand the science of it? Most people are not going to understand the depth of something they don’t investigate compared to someone who does. I’m not going to go into namecalling or anything, I am just saying, your personality type is difficult to deal with. Whenever I make a post, even if it’s something simple, it is like you don’t really want to respond, so I wonder why you do.

10

Again you imagine things, I never said or think anything about you, I don’t care about that …

I give detailed answers, if you do not understand then it’s your job to say so and not ask again the same thing. When the mechanic give an answer I do not understand about my car, I don’t ask the same question hoping for a different answer, I tell him what I do not understand so he knows what he needs to rephrase …

You asked for a feature it was implemented, you reported an issue because you could not disable a filter you enabled and so on. And yet each and every time I answered correctly.

There’s no tone, just efficiency. I can’t write a simple no as the forum force 20 chars. So a quote showing you, you already had the answer is the most efficient solution to avoid a third time the same question.
I could also have just ignored the last duplicated question, but it would have pissed you off too :wink:

11

Well, by asking as an alternative to ReplayGain, I wasn’t really asking the same question. I was more curious if like, when I am mastering a song, if it clips or is too loud compared to another song, I can reduce the master. Or if it’s too quiet compared to another song, I can bring up the master. So some way to have Symfonium do that automatically, without ReplayGain. And, that if the answer was a simple “No”, to just say that.

I haven’t investigated this, and I mean, who can do everything themselves for every service they want provided in the world? But, I would think, there is some way to do it. There are lots of things people have said can’t be done, that then end up being done with technology. When AI first came out people said it wouldn’t go anywhere, it just keeps improving. That’s just a recent example.

For the mechanic analogy, it would be like if I asked my mechanic if I could try a different part for a problem, and they gave me a long detailed explanation that went over my head, and is an answer but since it’s too technical I don’t understand if it’s a yes or no. So I ask for a yes or no. I didn’t know the forum limited to 20 characters. But then you just type something 20 characters, like “The simple answer is that no, there is no alternative to tagging for ReplayGain.” I’m not really pissed, just commenting.

I hope you’re not really getting annoyed by someone who sticks with your app having problems over time and posting a question about it. The filter one was on me, I think I enabled something thinking it did something else and then you clarified for me. The longer you stick with something the more things you’re going to bring up, if you’re trying different things, want to see improvement, whatever. If I picked it up for a few months and then abandoned it at first issue without posting anything, well, then you would never hear from me and be able to retain me. Which I know might not be seen as a win by you. I don’t remember how much it cost for lifetime access to the app, but I know it was cheap, and that it requires ongoing support, which isn’t free. Just putting this out there, I would be fine with nominal annual sub fee. Even if things don’t get added, there is maintenance as ie. Android gets new versions or updates that can change how things work. Just my two cents.

12

You do audio, my answer was something that you could have understood. There is no way to guess the data without reading all the files to know the peaks. Hence it’s not possible on the client side. Hence my answer that said exactly that.

I can’t reduce volume at the start of the file to prevent a too loud zone 5 minutes later or lower the current song to match the next one without knowing the loudness of the next one.

There’s plenty of ways to do volume leveling, but all requires file analysis.

So the answer is still exactly the same. And not tied to replay gain.

For the rest people already don’t want paid apps, no one understands that support have a cost.

13

Well, I do music audio, but for example, I don’t really delve much into EQ, I learned some for getting drums to sound how I want, but the rest is handled by plugins (like for mastering I select a preset based on genre and it does a curve). I don’t understand the science of sound, like the waves and stuff. And would have to listen more to know exactly what each EQ setting does to each instrument’s sound. But yes, apologies for not understanding everything. I also understand that most people, once they learn something, they think people who don’t get it are just… idk, thick or something. Forgetting that they had to go to school, or spend time working on it, to figure it out. Where I am now with music production, is WAY further ahead than I was 9 months ago, when I got back into it. Back then there was a lot of frustration with learning stuff, and having tech issues and having to email a plugin’s developer and wait for a response on how to fix it, or literally wait on a patch to fix a problem with my DAW (recording software).

And yeah it’s unfortunate but a lot of people think a lot of stuff should just be “free”, like, you have to code this stuff, it takes time, that should be compensated, unless you were literally doing it as a hobby. But the bigger the userbase gets, my understanding is the more work there can be associated with that growth. I have been doing vocal exercises through Udemy the last 9 - 10 months to improve my singing voice, the vocal coach answers questions for free for me via email. I’ve offered to do the like “buy me a coffee” thing for him and he says no, questions are answered for free as part of the Udemy course. Even though I bought the course … idk, 4 years ago now? I still get questions answered for free. It just feels weird to me to have people do work and get nothing for it, unless they’re doing it as volunteer, in which case they’re probably doing it to build up their resume so that’s the compensation. Personally I got into game dev earlier this year and released a small game on Steam, as free, for a variety of reasons. So sometimes people actually don’t mind providing the result of their labor for free.

Sorry if this is a long post, it’s definitely off topic now, just giving you a bit of insight into myself, since we’ve engaged at least a few times since I got Symfonium (maybe 2022?).

14

Udemy course are not updated monthly, questions are in the price. And yes some people have free time to do free stuff, an app like Symfonium and it’s update is not something you do on your free time, it’s actually more work than a normal job :slight_smile: For 5€ ')

15

It’s probably still worth it, on a personal development and community contribution level. It’s just a lot of people these days, have been conditioned to think life is about making more the next year than you did the last. And that if you don’t, you’re a failure. People have existed in a lot of different social structures. I don’t know if there’s really such a thing as absolute failure. I feel like any life can be argued in a certain light to make it work out. Have to go more outside the conditioned box for some. But, this would be a really long post, and stuff I’ve explored before I don’t know that really needs to be delved into … especially on an audio app forum lol. Anyway, I appreciate the app. I might end up back on PlexAmp down the line, but for now I get a $0/month phone plan as long as my data usage is kept really low (<1gb/month), so having a good offline media player helps maintain that. Could still do it with PlexAmp, just a lot more cumbersome, since they seem to be more focused on being a streaming service and not an offline media library.

16

Just replying so you see it. I’m in the process of applying ReplayGain tags to the music I listen to frequently, and then I’ll work on doing it to the rest from there. It’s going to take a while to just get through my frequent listens. That’s the only real problem with it not being able to be automatic, getting it done on an existing library takes a while. Doing it for future adds to the server won’t be nearly as time consuming, it’ll just be remembering to do it. But, I did test adding ReplayGain to a few artists, then put them on favorites shuffle (and learned how to do smart playlists in the process!). I though ReplayGain would make volumes perfectly equal from track to track. I still find I have to go up or down one volume on my headphones to have it feel properly equal. But it at least isn’t wild jumps, like doing shuffle of an entire discography or multiple artists without ReplayGain.

For anyone who finds this through Google or whatever, I’m adding ReplayGain tags with foobar2000. You drag and drop the artist folder (or album) into foobar2000, right click one of the tracks (they should all be selected), then go to ReplayGain and I do it by track since I’m mainly doing it for more consistent volume from shuffle. It can take a bit of time with artists with a lot of tracks.

17

I do not mean to hijack the thread, but, chipping in here, as I also just went through the whole “My replaygain is not working properly thing”

After hours of troublshooting, I can now say that my Replaygain is working as intended. The replaygain topic gets complicated, because different codecs prefer different tags, R128_ vs REPLAYGAIN_ tags for example. Not all tagging software works the same either. Also remember there is replaygain on “track“ and “album“ basis, and, from my testing these can vary enough to hear it. :slight_smile:

I had a case, which you can look up in the forum where both R128_ and REPLAYGAIN_ tags were present in several .flac files. One value was ‘0‘ and the other was not. Casuing replaygain not to be applied. There are many factors as to why replaygain might not be applied.

There was another case where you had to disable Hi-res support.

*Tip

If you capture the logs from symfonium debug mode and play some media, then later open and filter the logs by “replaygain“ you can quikcly see, if, and, when replaygain is being applied.

One last thing, if you dont want to add the replaygain tags manually to each file, Jellyfin offers LUFS scan on files and stores this in its database. :wink:

18

Thanks for the detailed response. And nice name + user pic :slight_smile:

I feel like ReplayGain is being applied to at least most tracks, since without it, one track can be quiet and the next one (to my ears) feels like it’s at least 3db louder, which is a couple volume presses on my headphones. When I have time I might make a feature request to see for the file if it has ReplayGain being applied or not, to make it easier to check if the “outliers” (the couple tracks so far that have seemed decently louder or quieter even with ReplayGain tagged on a track basis and applied through Symfonium). I’ll have to look if this is mentioned anywhere in the player right now before I make the request too. Just a matter of finding the time.

I have like 120 artists tagged now. And more I still want to tag. Just I have to do it remotely, so it locks me out of doing most things on my PC while tagging. It’s nice having my entire downloaded library on shuffle and mostly volume levelled though!

I haven’t looked too much at Jellyfin, but if it’s a standalone server provider like Plex, I’d need it to be at least as good as Symfonium for offline media (play online offline, don’t connect to server when off wifi, other features). And I am not the server manager, so, if it’s a new provider, that wouldn’t be up to me, and not likely to happen.

19

Jellyfin is a server. It works just like Plex but not the same as Plex. You can goolge to show comparisons.

Only way to truly know is to check the logs yourself or use something like ffprobe to check if the tags are actually there.

Like I said tagging software is different and for example beets uses a database to keep track of metadata which can be out of sync with the actual file. I don’t know what tagging software you use.

We need to remember though that replaygain is not magic :wink: iit’s just a simple metadata field with a value, which, when present will be read by symfonium:)

20

As he said if you have issue you open an issue :wink:

One important thing is that opus RG target a different DB than ID3. If you have mixed formats, be sure to enable the replay gain normalization setting.

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