From: john <ruttmannn_at_gmx.de>
Date: Sun, 21 May 2006 12:54:25 +0200

Hi!

We all know, that replaygain is a fantastic feature, more or less
exclusivly given to all rockbox users. In fact, when I did some
research on the required tools for creating the neccessary tags in the
mp3 files, I came along a lot of sites of big consumer electronics
magazines that gave tips or recipes about this. Even the journalists
that were able to distinguish between giving replaygain information
via tags versus manipulating the mp3 stream, they all made one
mistake: They listed some players that can read replaygain tags like
foobar2000 and clearly stated that there does not exist one single
portable mp3 player with that feature. I then realized how exclusive I
may feel by using rockbox, if a really need that kind of
satisfaction. Maybe better writing some letters to the editor...

Hmm, I got a little off topic know. Actually I could not find any
program for calculating the replaygain and applying the track and
album gain tags. The best solution seems to be foobar2000, but this
has some disadvantages:

Graphics application: I would rather like some tool for batch
programming.

Closed source: No chance to extend the working behaviour.

Windows only: I would have to use it at work or cross fingers and try
it with wine.

Actually I started with the foobar2000 with wine approach, until I
realized that this gets quite some work to install and at least
semi-perfect results.

For linux there seems only to exist mp3gain, but this does not write
album and track gain tags, but changes the mp3 frame gain. Thats
definetly not what a lucky rockbox users wants.

Then I did some calculations: How much effort to change mp3gain, so it
does write the neccessary tags? It already provides an option for
track or album gain, but obviously can only apply album or track gain,
as only replaygain tags give you the possibility for both in the same
file.

How much effort for getting foobar2000 to work, including total costs
of ownership?

I guessed the mp3gain will give me a lot better results in the long
run (no delicate mouse pushing all the time I add some files to my
library, just starting a bash script). But just before starting
digging deeply into the source code, one thing made me hesitate:

Am I the only human beeing on this planet using rockbox and linux and
does have a desperate need for replaygain? Does no one else mix some
tracks from the 70's with current pop music in a playlist and listen
to full albums as an entity the other day? Is just everyone using
foobar2000?

I hope someone can give me a hint, whether I should go ahead and
extend mp3gain or if I did just miss the required rockbox companion
program.

Thanks for your answers, have a nice day,
John
Received on 2006-05-21