Normalization and ReplayGain
Normalization
If you want to have a constant average volume on an audio stream, you
can use the normalize
operator. However, this operator
cannot guess the volume of the whole stream, and can be “surprised” by
rapid changes of the volume. This can lead to a volume that is too low,
too high, oscillates. In some cases, dynamic normalization also creates
saturation.
To tweak the normalization, several parameters are available. These
are listed and explained in the reference
and also visible by executing liquidsoap -h normalize
.
However, if the stream you want to normalize consist of audio files,
using the replay gain technology might be a better choice.
Replay gain
ReplayGain is a proposed standard that is (more or less) respected by many open-source tools. It provides a way to obtain an overall uniform perceived loudness over a track or a set of tracks. The computation of the loudness is based on how the human ear actually perceives each range of frequency. Having computed the average perceived loudness on a track or an album, it is easy to renormalize the tracks when playing, ensuring a comfortable, consistent listening experience.
Because it is track-based, replay gain does not suffer from the typical problems of stream-based, dynamic approaches. Namely, these distort the initial audio, since they constantly adapt the amplification factor. Sometimes it oscillates too quickly in a weird audible way. Sometimes it does not adapt quickly enough, leading to under or over-amplified sections.
Computing or retrieving replay gain information
The first step in order to use replay gain is to fetch or compute the appropriate normalization level for a given file.
Replay gain information can be found in various metadata fields
depending on the audio format and the replay gain computation tool.
Liquidsoap provides a script for extracting the replay gain value which
requires the ffmpeg
binary.
There are two ways to use our replain gain script, one that works for all files and one that can be enabled on a per-file basis, if you need finer grained control over replay gain.
Using the replay gain metadata resolver
The metadata solution is uniform: without changing anything,
all your files will have a new
replaygain_track_gain
metadata when the computation
succeeded.
However, keep in mind that this computation can be costly and will be done each time a remote file is downloaded to be prepared for streaming unless it already has the information pre-computed. For this reason, it is recommended to pre-compute replay gain information as much as possible, specially if you intent to stream large audio files.
The replay gain metadata resolver is not enabled by default. You can do it by adding the following code to your script:
enable_replaygain_metadata()
Using the
replaygain:
protocol
The replaygain:
protocol triggers replay gain retrieval
or computation on a per-file bases. To use it, you prefix your request
URIs with it.
For instance, replacing /path/to/file.mp3
with
replaygain:/path/to/file.mp3
.
When resolving such a request, a call to our script will be issued,
resulting in your file having the extra
replaygain_track_gain
metadata.
Prepending replaygain:
is easy if you are using a script
behind some request.dynamic.list
operator. If you are using
the playlist
operator, you can use its prefix
parameter.
Protocols can be chained, for instance:
annotate:foo="bar":replaygain:/path/to/file.mp3
Applying replay gain information
After fetching or computing the replay gain information, the next step is to use it to correct the source’s volume.
The amplify()
operator is used for that. This operator
can be made to behave according to a given metadata, here the
replaygain
metadata. This is done using the
override
parameter.
For replay gain implementation, the amplify
operator
would typically be added immediately on top of the basic tracks source,
before transitions or other audio processing operators. Typically:
enable_replaygain_metadata()
s = playlist("~/playlist")
s = amplify(1., override="replaygain_track_gain", s)
For convenience, we added the replaygain
operator which
performs the amplification on the right metadata so that this can
further be simplified to
enable_replaygain_metadata()
s = replaygain(playlist("~/playlist"))