Replaygain support on VLC for Android

Adding support for ReplayGain for audio files on the Android port of VLC would be a big plus as a music player. In particular, would like to have RG support for MP3, AAC, flac, and Opus at minimum if possible.

We already have it. Did you try?

Replying to [comment:1 jb]:

We already have it. Did you try?

Havent' tested it with a RG'd file vs an identical one without it. Is it natively implemented with no settings available? I did not see any settings in the preferences/menus (checked on VLC for Android 1.2.4).

Yes, it's implemented directly.

Replying to [comment:3 jb]:

Yes, it's implemented directly.

I did a quick informal test to check on the above. Had a test track for FLAC, MP3, AAC, and Opus. Rough ReplayGain value is -10 dB. All files were processed with foobar2000 for conversion and ReplayGain. Of the 4, Opus has ReplayGain implemented and shows a difference in volume playback. The other three did not show any differences in volume when played back.

moved from vlc#14290 (moved)

closed

Technically, this should be activated in Android, yes.

reopened

assigned to @tguillem

added feature label

Updating Settings->Advanced->Custom libVLC options to --audio-replay-gain-mode=album or track appears to influence the audio levels. Do you have existing audio samples to determine if the correct gain settings are indeed applied? Assuming the parameter works as expected, should a new setting be added to append the argument to libVLC in VLCOptions.kt?

https://streams.videolan.org/streams/metadata/replaygain/

mentioned in merge request !1322 (merged)

closed with commit 14b9cfea

closed with merge request !1322 (merged)

marked this issue as related to #1241 (closed)

Sorry everybody, but I can't get it to work on my Pixel6... Using VLC for Android 3.5.1. In Settings > Extra Settings > Audio > Replay Gain > "Enable replay gain" has been checked. I am using two audio files to test this (one .mp3 and one .flac) with a "normalized" ReplayGain tag "REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN" and "REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK" and an exact copy of both with much lower ReplayGain.
It is not working, tracks play at the exact same volume. As a test/in order to doublecheck/dismiss a file error or tagging error, I was playing them back as well with the latest version of the "Vanilla Music"-Android-App, and there it works! One could argue: "then use Vanilla Music" if this works for you - but so far, only VLC for Android can connect to my SYNOLOGY NAS via SMB and play back my music. And yes, I tried playing back the test tracks directly from the Android device as well (they were there in order to play them back via Vanilla), still not working with VLC.

Could you please share some logs? Play your two files and then go to: Settings > Advanced > Debug logs. Then share the logs here.

Sure, please find it attached. Search for "_silence" then you will find the audio files with the adjusted/lower ReplayGain value. The audio files are called:

2 in a Room - Wiggle It.mp3

2 in a Room - Wiggle It_silence.mp3

Autechre - Incunabula - 11 - 444.flac

Autechre - Incunabula - 11 - 444_silence.flac

vlc_logcat_20220905_093317.log

Any news here? Something I can do to help? More tests maybe?

@rhstone could you please take a look? I can't see anything useful in the logs.

It appears there is a custom libVLC option set (should be removed):

custom_libvlc_options -> --audio-replay-gain-mode=track

libVLC is not detecting the tags. This is what I expect to see, but is absent:

libvlc demux: setting replay gain 0 to -10.050000
libvlc demux: setting replay peak 0 to -10.050000
libvlc demux: setting replay gain 1 to -10.900000
libvlc demux: setting replay peak 1 to -10.900000

Flac issue could be vlc#27176 (closed). Unclear regarding MP3 files.

@koulaouzidis Do the test files work?

For example, Owner-R128-RG.ogg should show the following in the logs:

libvlc demux: setting replay gain 0 to -9.520000
libvlc demux: setting replay gain 1 to -11.280000

@rhstone do you mean a. "my test files" or b. Owner-R128-RG.ogg ? if (a) then: no, they do not work (replay gain tags are not being taken into account)

@koulaouzidis What tool was used to add tags to your files?

it's been a while - foobar2000 or mp3tag. do you think the tags are wrong/faulty? can this be seen? should I send you one of my testfiles?

Yes, seeing the tags would be helpful. You can dump the values using ffprobe from FFmpeg.

% ffprobe Owner-R128-RG.ogg

Input #0, ogg, from 'Owner-R128-RG.ogg':
  Duration: 00:00:29.32, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 154 kb/s
  Stream #0:0: Audio: vorbis, 44100 Hz, stereo, fltp, 160 kb/s
    Metadata:
      REPLAYGAIN_ALGORITHM: EBU R128
      REPLAYGAIN_REFERENCE_LOUDNESS: -23 LUFS
      REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN: -9.52 LU
      REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK: 1.122784
      REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_RANGE: 5.35 LU
      REPLAYGAIN_ALBUM_GAIN: -11.28 LU
      REPLAYGAIN_ALBUM_PEAK: 1.122784
      REPLAYGAIN_ALBUM_RANGE: 4.76 LU
      encoder         : Lavf54.6.100
    Side data:
      replaygain: track gain - -9.520000, track peak - 0.000026, album gain - -11.280000, album peak - 0.000026, 

@rhstone In a "normal" world, this shouldn't be related to vlc#27176 (closed), because the corresponding RFC 7845 pertains exclusively to Opus. I have never seen a FLAC file that uses R128_{TRACK,ALBUM}_GAIN. But of course, encoders do fun and not entirely logical things, so I suppose there's no way to tell unless @koulaouzidis posts the ffprobe output (which I'm pretty curious about now).

The output of all 4 test files (the ones with "_silence" appended are the normalized ones):

Input #0, mp3, from '2 in a Room - Wiggle It.mp3':
  Metadata:
    album           : 20th Century Hits for a New Millennium: 1990–1994
    artist          : 2 in a Room
    title           : Wiggle It
    track           : 6
    replaygain_track_peak: 0.904533
    replaygain_track_gain: -3.83 dB
    date            : 1998
  Duration: 00:04:01.99, start: 0.023021, bitrate: 320 kb/s
  Stream #0:0: Audio: mp3, 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp, 320 kb/s
    Metadata:
      encoder         : LAME3.99r
    Side data:
      replaygain: track gain - -3.830000, track peak - 0.000021, album gain - unknown, album peak - unknown,

Input #0, mp3, from '2 in a Room - Wiggle It_silence.mp3':
  Metadata:
    album           : 20th Century Hits for a New Millennium: 1990–1994
    artist          : 2 in a Room
    title           : Wiggle It
    track           : 6
    replaygain_track_peak: 0.904533
    replaygain_track_gain: -10.00 dB
    date            : 1998
  Duration: 00:04:01.99, start: 0.023021, bitrate: 320 kb/s
  Stream #0:0: Audio: mp3, 48000 Hz, stereo, fltp, 320 kb/s
    Metadata:
      encoder         : LAME3.99r
    Side data:
      replaygain: track gain - -10.000000, track peak - 0.000021, album gain - unknown, album peak - unknown,

Input #0, flac, from 'Autechre - Incunabula - 11 - 444.flac':
  Metadata:
    ALBUM           : Incunabula
    ARTIST          : Autechre
    disc            : 1
    GENRE           : Electronic
    TITLE           : 444
    DISCTOTAL       : 1
    TRACKTOTAL      : 11
    replaygain_track_gain: -4.97 dB
    replaygain_track_peak: 1.000000
    DATE            : 1994
    track           : 11
  Duration: 00:08:55.48, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 879 kb/s
  Stream #0:0: Audio: flac, 44100 Hz, stereo, s16
    Side data:
      replaygain: track gain - -4.970000, track peak - 0.000023, album gain - unknown, album peak - unknown,

Input #0, flac, from 'Autechre - Incunabula - 11 - 444_silence.flac':
  Metadata:
    ALBUM           : Incunabula
    ARTIST          : Autechre
    disc            : 1
    DISCTOTAL       : 1
    GENRE           : Electronic
    replaygain_track_gain: -10.00 dB
    replaygain_track_peak: 1.000000
    TITLE           : 444
    TRACKTOTAL      : 11
    DATE            : 1994
    track           : 11
  Duration: 00:08:55.48, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 879 kb/s
  Stream #0:0: Audio: flac, 44100 Hz, stereo, s16
    Side data:
      replaygain: track gain - -10.000000, track peak - 0.000023, album gain - unknown, album peak - unknown,