REPLAYGAIN(1)

📦 version 1.1.1, in ubuntu jammy

✨ replaygain — the single file Replay Gain editor 💖

okay bestie, so replaygain is the Replay Gain glow-up tool for one file at a time (its man page name in the manual is REPLAYGAIN(1), section 1, iykyk). let's get into it 🎀

🌸 NAME 🌸

replaygain — single file Replay Gain editor. literally what it says on the tin, no cap.

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

replaygain [options] AUDIO_FILE [AUDIO_FILE ...]
replaygain --help
replaygain --version

like, give it some audio files, or just ask it for help or its version. simple as. ✨

💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

replaygain applies or displays Replay Gain information for audio files. that's the whole vibe.

by default, all the files you hand it get assumed to be part of a single album, and album gain data gets calculated for them. so if you were hoping they'd be treated as separate lil solo tracks, bestie, you gotta say so. 🫶

👑 OPTIONS 👑

  • --version — shows you the version of the software. cute lil flex.
  • -h, --help — prints a short documentation. the quick rundown, the TL;DR.
  • -f, --force — recalculates Replay Gain even if the file already has gain info in it. like, yes, we're redoing this, don't fight it. 💪
  • -d, --dry-run — doesn't actually modify any files. it's giving "we're just looking, we're not touching". 👀
  • -r REF, --reference-loudness=REF — sets the reference loudness to REF dB (default: 89 dB). that's the target volume everything gets normalized toward.
  • --mp3-format=MP3_FORMAT — chooses the Replay Gain data format for MP3 files. the default setting should play nice with most decent software music players, so honestly you generally do not need to mess with this one. see below for the whole saga. 📖
  • --no-album — don't write any album gain information. track-only era, I guess.
  • --show — don't calculate anything, just show the Replay Gain information for the files you specified. in this mode, every option other than --mp3-format gets ignored. periodt.

🔥 MP3 FORMATS 🔥

ngl, proper Replay Gain support for MP3 files is a bit of a mess. let me explain the whole situation.

on one hand, there's the mp3gain application [1], which was relatively widely used (the author of this man page doesn't know if it still is 👀) — it directly modifies the audio data. the upside: it works with pretty much any player. the downside: you have to decide ahead of time whether you want track gain or album gain. also it's just not very elegant. 💀

on the other hand, there are at least two commonly used ways to store proper Replay Gain information in ID3v2 tags [2]. so yeah, two camps, one mess.

now, in general you don't have to worry about any of this when using this package: by default, replaygain and collectiongain will read and write Replay Gain information in the two most commonly used formats. easy. BUT — if for whatever reason you need more control over the MP3 Replay Gain information, you can use the --mp3-format option (supported by both programs) to change the behaviour. here are the possible choices for that switch:

  • replaygain.org (alias: fb2k) — Replay Gain information is stored in ID3v2 TXXX frames. this format is specified on the replaygain.org website as the recommended format for MP3 files. notably, it's also the format used by the foobar2000 music player for Windows [3]. main character format fr.
  • legacy (alias: ql) — Replay Gain information is stored in ID3v2.4 RVA2 frames. replaygain.org describes this one as "legacy"; however, it's still the primary format for at least the Quod Libet music player [4], and possibly others.
⚠️ heads up: this format does not support volume adjustments of more than 64 dB. if the calculated gain value is smaller than -64 dB or greater than or equal to +64 dB, it gets clamped to those limit values. so extreme gains get flattened, no cap.
  • default — this is the default implementation used by both replaygain and collectiongain. when writing Replay Gain data, both the replaygain.org format and the legacy format get written. as for reading: if a file contains data in both formats, both data sets get read and then compared. if they match up, that Replay Gain information is returned for the file. however, if they don't match, no Replay Gain data is returned — which is the signal that this file does not contain valid (read: consistent) Replay Gain information. trust issues, honestly. 😭

the sources, for the record:

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

k that's the whole page bestie, you're officially a Replay Gain girlie now 💖✨

this was version 1.1.1 of the manual page, dated like the classic REPLAYGAIN(1) footer era, and it lives in the rgain section of the manual. mwah, go normalize something. 💅🎀

📦 where this page comes from