Difference between Aimp's normalization and Mp3Gain's?

[Biff]

What is the difference between Aimp's normalization (method)

and the one of Mp3Gain's, http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/?

Do they do exactly the same?

[ᛤᚤᛠᛥⴲ 👽]

Biff,

Hello!

AIMP's Tag Editor parses/scans/reads the audio data and then it allows you to write/save TrackGain & AlbumGain values. So, basically, AIMP reads the audio information and then save metadata. The audio itself remains untouchable/unmodified. Then, if you want to use the TrackGain's value or the AlbumGain's value, you have to enable in the audio player you use. The downside of this method is that if your audio player —DVD player, car audio player, etc— is not compatible with the ReplayGain feature, then all those values will be ignored and the normalized audio loudness will be played instead —this is especially true if you create an own compilation: you will easy hear to different volumes across the tracks.

MP3Gain also parses/scans/reads the audio data but then it can overwrite the audio loudness to put all tracks at the same level. This is more professional since it is what audio engineers do with albums and compilation CDs after mastering them at studio. So, to be clear: it means it will modify the volumes of each track to make them sound balanced. The positive upside of this method is that this is compatible with ANY player, since it is the audio what is modified. Downsides are that this program only works with MP3 files and —more important— the audio loudness is changed, so you would better keep a "clean copy" of the tracks that will be modified.

[Biff]

Hello ЌИГЯФ,

Thank you very much!

I had thought Mp3Gain can modify the tags only (without changing the audio data). I just see, I have two different versions of Mp3Gain, a very old one:

And the newest (Last Update: 2015-02-22 - very long ago), can be downloaded here, https://sourceforge.net/projects/wxmp3gain/:


Obviously the methodes have changed.

Keeping a clear copy (before changing the audio data), copying and handle both of different versions of the music is too unconfortable. And Aimp's method works on the Smartphone (with Android Aimp), I guess, and on the computer, that is enough at the moment. So if need be I just could remove the normalization tags and would get back the file like it was before, with same checksum.

Many thanks again!

[wynford]

So what is the difference between MP3gain and wxMP3gain?

[ᛤᚤᛠᛥⴲ 👽]

wxMP3gain is a free front-end for the MP3gain and it is not only available for Windows but also for BSD & GNU/Linux.

[sveakul]

As ЌИГЯФ said, they're both GUI front-ends of MP3gain, but wxMP3gain for Windows also contains a newer Windows build from the MP3gain source files (1.5.0.2 in the wxMP3gain 3.7 package) than the build included with the original GUI.  Check the link in Biff's post for download.

[AndreyT]

MP3Gain also parses/scans/reads the audio data but then it can overwrite the audio loudness to put all tracks at the same level. This is more professional since it is what audio engineers do with albums and compilation CDs after mastering them at studio. So, to be clear: it means it will modify the volumes of each track to make them sound balanced. The positive upside of this method is that this is compatible with ANY player, since it is the audio what is modified. Downsides are that this program only works with MP3 files and —more important— the audio loudness is changed, so you would better keep a "clean copy" of the tracks that will be modified.

That is absolutely incorrect. MP3Gain is non-destructive: it never modifies the actual audio data. MP3Gain works in exactly the same way as Aimp's normalization: it analyzes the audio data and modifies the gain coefficient stored in MP3 tags.

There's never any need to keep a copy of tracks processed by MP3Gain, since MP3Gain's changes are always fully reversible without any loss.