I find the same thing too, particularly on bass-heavy tracks. According to the FLAC designer, the ReplayGain algorthim may not have very good loudness compensation for the low end (i.e. bass "sounds" louder to our ears at the same SPL). It even seems confined to certain artists - I believe they tend to record bass hot or use certain EQ settings. RG seems to have trouble with music where there's little mid or high range but some bass, for example an intro section on an electronic music track where there's just a bass beat. That seems to screw up the RG analysis for the whole track.
Adjusting it would be guesswork. But put it this way - most albums made in the past 3 years have RG values of -10 dB as a result of the loudness wars. I find my "loud" tracks have RG values of -4, -5, -6 dB. Look at the other tracks in the album, some tracks may stick out like a sore thumb. Unfortunately it gets tricky with older albums or ones that were properly-recorded in the first place - it will be hard to tell what to do. If you have an artist/album that's consistently louder than other albums, then adjust the album gain. You may however just have a track or two within an album that needs adjustment. I would say it's all trial and error, but the ones needing adjustment pretty desperately need it, I'd go with a 3 dB adjustment or larger. I haven't made these adjustments but I'm thinking about them when a particularly loud track comes on...I look at the RG value and it says something like -4.5 dB when the rest of the album is -10 dB. -- Mark Lanctot "It's like, you know, a New Age religion, but with better treble response." - Jon Heal ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mark Lanctot's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=2071 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=32724 _______________________________________________ ripping mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/ripping
