Hello everybody. As I read, Fuze doesn’t support ReplayGain, it would be a really nice feature.
I know I could process my files to get audio already normalized, but that would modify the file forever, with no possible “undo” (unless I keep two copies of the files, sure). Many people prefer to avoid converting audio files, not only because normalizing the audio collection is one more task to do, but also because of the extra audio processing involved. I try to keep my audio as I originally got it.
About Fuze’s FLAC tag support: Fuze doens’t recognize 90% of the audio tags of my FLAC files. As I read more people found this problem. I heard that files tagged with “AudioMonkey” work. Anyway I use “easytag” (Linux) and all my devices read them fine, but Fuze doesn’t. I checked this with a few software players and with my XBox, and all them work fine with my tags. “metaflac --list filename.flac” shows all the tags correctly. Don’t know what’s up, but maybe my Fuze shouldn’t be so “tricky” understanding FLAC metadata.
I could send more details if needed (or an example FLAC file). Just contact me.
I was very happy when last firmware was launched becouse of FLAC support. This two things no doubt would be really appreciated.
The output of “metaflac --list 09-Pifa.flac” shows all this data stored as comments, and… is this ok? don’t know much about flac internals. Anyway another devices understand correctly all this info (tested with xbox1 and different software players).
If you need anything more just tell. Thank you very much.
If you want to adjust the gain without damaging the file, I would offer up MP3Gain http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/ as an alternative. It does not alter the actual file, and you can easily undo any gain adjustments to your mp3 files with a couple of click. It is very fact, and if you do a little digging it can also adjust the gain on unprotected aac files.
I use MP3 gain with the Amazon MP3s that I download because they are not normalized…some can be over 100db and the next one 91db. That can be very frustrating at work when I cannot easily get to my volume adjustment. MP3Gain takes care of that…it is fast, the program is small, and I have only had a couple songs not want to adjust easily out of many, many albums.
But Mp3Gain does not work with many formats including FLAC, which if I read it correctly was the reason the OP was asking for/suggesting ReplayGain support.
Exactly that, Tapeworm: mp3gain does not support FLAC files. Anyway as I read in mp3gain FAQs, what the program does is just calculate and store ReplayGain values to normalize sound volume. I already did that with my FLAC files (I used metatag for that, not mp3gain).The problem is that this information is discarded (not used) by the players firmware. Nowadays just some players support ReplayGain, is not only an issue with *actual* sansa fuze. Don’t want to be boring, but ReplayGain and better FLAC support would make Sansa Fuze the sweetest player (or at least one of the sweetest) for anyone who cares about his music collection
Actually, MP3Gain does alter the audio data in the original file, but it stores the info necessary to undo the operation in special tags. It performs a ReplayGain analysis to calculate the necessary gain, stores this info in special tags, then actually applies the gain to the audio data. Because it actually alters the original audio data, no special support is required by the playback device; the ReplayGain has already been applied to the audio data in the file.
So even if it worked on FLAC (which it doesn’t), I don’t think you’d really want to alter your lossless files, even if you can technically undo the operation.
My library is 100% FLAC with ReplayGain tags by metaflac. I use Winamp for playback, which reads the ReplayGain tags. But for portable use I transcode to mp3 and then use MP3Gain on the transcoded files. This works great, but I would never do something like that to my original FLAC files.
The only good solution for FLAC is to have the player support ReplayGain tags. It should be really simple, but I’ve never seen or heard of a portable device that supports it. Not sure whay there’s not more demand for it.
We have identified the issue with the FLAC tags posted by the user. The next release should display them. The problem is the tagging added ID3 tags to his files which are not in the FLAC spec.
ReplayGain is being evaluated for feasibility, but likely wont be in the release this month.
ReplayGain is being evaluated for feasibility, but likely wont be in the release this month.
Amazing!
I could be wrong, but I think that would be a feature totally unique to Sansa. It was something on my wish list when I was first evaluating players about a year ago, but I never found a single one that supported it.
If it is implemented, please make sure both FLAC and Ogg Vorbis are supported!
Add me to the list for ReplayGain support on the Fuze. I have a Sansa e260 with Rockbox 3.0, use FLAC files exclusively and ReplayGain. Sound quality is very important to me and this setup performs nicely. People with lossy files on their iPods are envious (amazed) of the sound coming out of my Sansa. Also, Winamp has been my media player of choice, which I think writes ID3 tags. I wouldn’t ever consider normalizing (permanently changing) my FLAC library. So ReplayGain is the only viable option for volume equalization which I consider essential for playlists. I have been looking to get a Fuze but have been put off by the lack of ReplayGain support. It would be wonderful to have this (or Rockbox firmware) on the Fuze.
