Display Replaygain Album Tags – anomalies

[PhilE]

Following Forum member Timster, I added replaygain_album_gain to itemTags and Album.displayFormat={$album^$replaygain_album_gain^ (^)} to tagFormat.

For the most part the results were as expected – one RG value in brackets after the album name and two RG values if it was a 2-disc album.

But there were quite a lot of single disc albums where either no RG value was shown or where one or more RG values were displayed.

I looked at the tags on a single disc album that had 2 RG values showing. On one track the RG album value was different to all other tracks as the RG album value was the same as its RG track value. I used DBpoweramp ID tag converter and this resulted in all tracks having the same value for RG album. However, after re-scanning the same 2 RG values were still being displayed as before. I looked at the tags again and saw it had an ITUNNORM tag. I deleted this and now after re-scanning it displays a single RG album tag.

Next, I looked at the tags on a single-disc album that had 3 RG values showing. This had 3 works (groups) and each one had its own RG album value. (I have many other albums that use the group tag and for these only one RG album value is being displayed). I again used DBpoweramp ID tag converter and this resulted in all tracks having the same value for RG album. However, after re-scanning 4 RG values were now being displayed – the 3 it had previously plus the value applied by ID tag converter. Again, I noticed that there was an ITUNNORM tag but when I deleted this and re-scanned 4 RG values were still being displayed.

I then turned to some single disc albums where no RG album value was displayed. I looked at the tags for 2 albums: both had RG track values, but no RG album values; and neither had ITUNNORM tags. I used DBpoweramp ID tag converter on each album to add the RG album values. But after rescanning no RG album value was displayed. I then used DBpoweramp ID tag converter on a batch of 3 albums by the same artist. These also only had RG track values and no ITUNNORM tags. With the RG album values added to the three albums and after rescanning the RG album value was displayed for one of three but the other two still had no value displayed.

I’ve checked Log in Minimwatch and there are no errors listed.

Could someone please advise me on how to deal with these anomalies.

[simbun]

Are you using dBpoweramp to calculate your replaygain tags, as by default it calculates the album gain based on the album tag, so I'm surprised to see you have different values for each work within an album - unless of course you calculated them separately.

Given it looks like it's tag related, I'd change MinimServer's content directory to point to one of your problem albums and use the writeAllTags option to create a log of all the tags MinimServer reads from those files, hopefully that will give you a clue. It'll give you a summary of all the tags it sees, so it won't pinpoint which file is the problem, but it'll narrow down the issue.

In terms of your control point not refreshing, which app are you using? Were you viewing the MinimServer log whilst performing a rescan, and did it indicate that files were being scanned?

[PhilE]

Thanks for the advice, simbun.

Before I change MinimServer's content directory to point to one of my problem albums and use the writeAllTags option to create a log of all the tags MinimServer reads…

I noticed that the RG album value for all my FLAC downloads is displayed correctly. I added RG (both Album and Track) tags to them with DBpoweramp. The same goes for files/albums ripped from CDs using DBpoweramp.

The problem albums are the ones ripped from CD before I got DBpoweramp.

Some were originally ripped with iTunes to AIFF. I subsequently converted these to FLAC using XLD encoder with RG scanning switched on. The others are CD rips using XLD encoder, also with RG scanning switched on.

XLD adds RG Track and RG Track Peak values but NOT an RG Album value. It makes sense then that no RG album value is being displayed.

When I used DBpoweramp ID tag converter on the 2 single disc albums that I referred to (both were CDs ripped with XLD) I had it set to apply both Album and Track RG.

What I’m going to try instead is deleting the XLD-derived RG Track and RG Track Peak values and then using DBpoweramp ID tag converter to add Album and Track RG values. I may also try leaving the XLD-derived RG Track and RG Track Peak values in place and only adding an RG Album value with DBpoweramp ID tag converter. Logically, I can’t see why I should end up with an RG Album value being displayed with either approach but I’ll give it a go.

[simbun]

(06-10-2022 16:09)PhilE Wrote:  Before I change MinimServer's content directory to point to one of my problem albums and use the writeAllTags option to create a log of all the tags MinimServer reads…

Before you do that, if you use the Recently Played/Added functionality make sure you have backed up your recent folder, just in case changing the content directory resets the statistics.

dBpoweramp is great for the ripping stage but post-rip it's somewhat lacking, so if you're having trouble narrowing down the albums that are missing the album replaygain tags you can add a filter to MinimServer with:

Code:

indexTags: replaygain_album_gain=Missing:MissingRGAlbum
tagValue: replaygain_album_gain.default={'Missing'}

It sounds like you're getting there anyway!

[simoncn]

(06-10-2022 17:13)simbun Wrote:  Before you do that, if you use the Recently Played/Added functionality make sure you have backed up your recent folder, just in case changing the content directory resets the statistics.

The Recently Added/Played feature of MinimServer is designed to handle changes of content directory without losing previously stored information. If you add or play files from the new content directory, you might lose a few of your oldest entries because of the limit on how many entries can be stored.

[simbun]

(06-10-2022 20:57)simoncn Wrote:  The Recently Added/Played feature of MinimServer is designed to handle changes of content directory without losing previously stored information. If you add or play files from the new content directory, you might lose a few of your oldest entries because of the limit on how many entries can be stored.

It's good to know that you've got that scenario covered!

[PhilE]

(06-10-2022 17:13)simbun Wrote:  

(06-10-2022 16:09)PhilE Wrote:  Before I change MinimServer's content directory to point to one of my problem albums and use the writeAllTags option to create a log of all the tags MinimServer reads…

Before you do that, if you use the Recently Played/Added functionality make sure you have backed up your recent folder, just in case changing the content directory resets the statistics.

dBpoweramp is great for the ripping stage but post-rip it's somewhat lacking, so if you're having trouble narrowing down the albums that are missing the album replaygain tags you can add a filter to MinimServer with:

Code:

indexTags: replaygain_album_gain=Missing:MissingRGAlbum
tagValue: replaygain_album_gain.default={'Missing'}

It sounds like you're getting there anyway!

I did get there! My hunch has done the trick for albums that had RG Track and Peak value tags applied by XLD.

I deleted those tags and then used DBpoweramp ID tag converter to add back the Track RG values and to include RG values for Album that had been missing. The RG Album value is now displayed as expected.

I did also try leaving the XLD-derived RG Track and RG Track Peak values in place and only adding an RG Album value with DBpoweramp ID tag converter. That was unsuccessful. I’m not sure why as the version of XLD that I’d used to scan RG values was after it had incorporated by default the same EBU 128 loudness curve with -18 LUFS reference level that DBpoweramp uses.

So, this had nothing to do with Minimserver. It was a tagging issue. I searched the DBpoweramp forum but I couldn’t find a thread which mentioned the same problem I’d had.

Thanks for your advice and support.

[simbun]

(14-10-2022 13:16)PhilE Wrote:  I did get there! My hunch has done the trick for albums that had RG Track and Peak value tags applied by XLD.

I did also try leaving the XLD-derived RG Track and RG Track Peak values in place and only adding an RG Album value with DBpoweramp ID tag converter. That was unsuccessful. I’m not sure why as the version of XLD that I’d used to scan RG values was after it had incorporated by default the same EBU 128 loudness curve with -18 LUFS reference level that DBpoweramp uses.

So, this had nothing to do with Minimserver. It was a tagging issue. I searched the DBpoweramp forum but I couldn’t find a thread which mentioned the same problem I’d had.

Thanks for your advice and support.

Glad you got it sorted, although I'm curious how those files with XLD tagged RG track values weren't working in the FLAC files. Now if you'd told me they were mp3 files I'd have expected no less! (I hate MP3 tagging)

[PhilE]

The track RG tag values added to the FLAC files by the XLD scan were working as long as the properties setting was to apply RG track values. It wasn’t until I used the Album.display format that I realised that those FLAC files didn’t have an Album RG tag.

I expected that the DbPoweramp ID tag converter would add the Album RG tags and overwrite the track RG tag values already there from XLD scanning. However, after doing this an Album RG tag value was not displayed after the Album name. It was only when I deleted the track RG tag values from XLD and then added RG tags with DbPoweramp ID tag converter that the Album RG tag value was displayed.

I tried using the DbPoweramp ID tag converter to add an RG Album value only to FLAC files which already had the XLD derived track RG values but after doing this the Album RG tag value was still not displayed. Fortunately, I didn’t have too many albums where I needed to delete the track RG tag values from XLD and run through the DbPoweramp ID tag converter to add both Album and Track RG tag values.