MP3Gain: mp3 volume normalizer

[tigger]

I would like to humbly submit mp3gain for inclusion in the Portable freeare collection.

It can be found at http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/

It's documentation says it requires MSCOMCTL.OCX or MSVBVM60.DLL
but as a newbie I am inexperienced at identifying exactly what's needed.

I find it very useful in making the volume of my mp3 collection the same so that I don't get really loud or soft ones needing me to adjust the volume level. It also doesn't interfere with mp3 files that are supposed to be softer or louder in parts/whole.

Hope you find it as useful as I do.

Cheers
tigger

[Andrew Lee]

MP3Gain writes settings to the registry.

[Andrew Lee]

Application name: MP3Gain

Website: http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/

Date tested: 2006-12-28

Status: Not portable

Reason: Writes settings to registry.

[lautrepay]

MP3Gain Portable added. If you like it you can vote here.
PortableApps.com version is 1.2.5, stable but with limited unicode support.
WinPenPack's version (1.3.4 Beta, unstable but with unicode support) is listed as an alternative.

After all these years, MP3Gain is still the best software for Replay Gain's impelementation on mp3 files, IMHO.

[carbonize]

After all these years, MP3Gain is still the best software for Replay Gain's impelementation on mp3 files, IMHO.

Unless something has changed since I last played with these things what MP3 Gain does and what ReplayGain is are two entirely different things. MP£ Gain actually alters the MP3 file so it's volume is the same on any device playing it. ReplayGain just adds some information to the tags and only works on players that support it.

[Checker]

MP3Gain Portable added. If you like it you can vote here.

Done

[lautrepay]

Unless something has changed since I last played with these things what MP3 Gain does and what ReplayGain is are two entirely different things. MP£ Gain actually alters the MP3 file so it's volume is the same on any device playing it. ReplayGain just adds some information to the tags and only works on players that support it.

You are confusing the concepts, but you're not totally mistaken.
ReplayGain is an algorithm that, applied on audio files, allows the normalization of their perceived volume.
There are many tools, either integrated with audio players or converters (foobar2000, MediaMonkey, Winamp, soundKonverter, etc) or as standalone apps (MP3Gain, VorbisGain, AACGain, etc.) that analizes files, per track or per album, and implement the volume adjustement level.
MP3Gain works with mp3 files, but its implementation has certain particularities. Here is a clear explanation about what MP3Gain does, extracted from an old thread of hidrogenaudio's forums (http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/ind ... c=24527&hl)

An MP3 file is composed of many blocks of audio, one after the other. Each block corresponds to a few milliseconds of music. Each block has a global gain field which tells an MP3 file player how loud to play that block. In addition to these global gain fields, each MP3 file can also have a Replaygain header which applies to the whole file, and which tells a Replaygain-aware MP3 player how loud to play that file.
MP3Gain determines the Replaygain values for the MP3 file. MP3Gain then writes to the global gain header of every block, adjusting them all up or down by the same amount in order to achieve those Replaygain values. MP3Gain also writes a Replaygain header which applies to the whole MP3 file. Since MP3Gain has adjusted the global gain field for each block to give the right volume, the volume adjustments in that Replaygain header will be small. This MP3 file will then play at the right volume in all players, whether or not they are Replaygain-aware.
...Note that the advantage of using MP3Gain is that the global gain header for each block MUST be supported by all MP3 players, hardware or software. The Replaygain header is not supported by all players.

Unlike other volume normalization methods, there's no need to decode and re-encode the audio file to implement ReplayGain. That's why MP3Gain doesn't alter the file. The original digital audio data remains untouched. It just writes information as a tag (generally APEv2).

[carbonize]

It clearly does alter the file since it alters the global gain header for each block. What it doesn't do is alter the audio in anyway other than its volume.

[webfork]

Old thread note:

I updated the entry with a note from the MP3Gain Portable site about the OCX file.

[webfork]

Development on MP3 Gain appears to have stalled so I wanted to point to a potential alternative on the horizon (also open source) that works with MP3 as well as other formats (including video)

R128Gain 1.0.7
http://r128gain.sourceforge.net/
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia ... GAIN.shtml

[Joe]

Please remove MP3Gain Portable (http://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=2132) from the database. Other than development being stalled, Portable Apps has removed it from their database because it requires the registering of an OCX file (see http://portableapps.com/apps/music_vide ... n_portable). Although the download link at Sourceforge is still working, you cannot get the program to work as is. I would hate to see other wasting as much time as I did trying to get it to work.

As an alternative, you can add wxMP3gain portable (http://wxmp3gain.sourceforge.net/) to the database. wxMP3gain itself uses MP3Gain so results should be comparable. I have tested it under Sandboxie and it appears to be stealth.

[Edit]
Sorry, I just checked and found some Registry entries (HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\wxMP3gain)

[webfork]

Please remove MP3Gain Portable (http://www.portablefreeware.com/index.php?id=2132) from the database. Other than development being stalled, Portable Apps has removed it from their database because it requires the registering of an OCX file

Not sure we should remove it. The OCX is admittedly a problem but we listed it out in the dependencies. I was able to get it running without a great deal of trouble.

you can add wxMP3gain portable

Thanks for the suggestion.

[webfork]

[Moderator note: wxMP3gain has a separate thread.]

[Midas]

Topic update: Last MP3Gain release is v1.2.5 from 2018-09-24 (changelog is at https://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/news.php but doesn't really detail this version).

User jenss noted that MP3Gain current database entry website points to PA.com, which then display the following...

This application requires admin rights to run on machines that do not yet have a particular OCX file registered. As this requires admin rights, the base app can not be considered portable and has been removed from our directory. Interested parties can still download the last release, version 1.2.5 but note that it is unsupported.

@ https://portableapps.com/apps/music_video/mp3gain_portable

[Andrew Lee]

I have downvoted the MP3Gain database entry.

Need at least one of you to give it one more nudge to bring the score below 10 so that it will turn private.

Thanks!