NAME

       loudgain - loudness normalizer based on the EBU R128 standard

SYNOPSIS

       loudgain [OPTIONS] FILES...

DESCRIPTION

       loudgain  is  a  loudness  normalizer  that scans music files and calculates loudness-normalized gain and
       loudness peak values according to the EBU R128 standard, and can optionally  write  ReplayGain-compatible
       metadata.

       loudgain  implements  a  subset  of  mp3gain's command-line options, which means that it can be used as a
       drop-in replacement in some situations.

       loudgain will not modify the actual audio data, but instead just write ReplayGain tags if  so  requested.
       It is up to the player to interpret these. (In some players, you need to enable this feature.)

       loudgain currently supports writing tags to the following file types:
       FLAC  (.flac),  Ogg  (.ogg,  .oga, .spx, .opus), MP2 (.mp2), MP3 (.mp3), MP4 (.mp4, .m4a), ASF/WMA (.asf,
       .wma), WavPack (.wv), APE (.ape).

       Experimental, use with care: WAV (.wav), AIFF (.aiff, .aif, .snd).

OPTIONS

       -h, --help
              Show this help.

       -v, --version
              Show version number.

       -r, --track
              Calculate track gain only (default).

       -a, --album
              Calculate album gain (and track gain).

       -c, --clip
              Ignore clipping warnings.

       -k, --noclip
              Lower track/album gain to avoid clipping (<= -1 dBTP).

       -K n, --maxtpl=n
              Avoid clipping; max. true peak level = n dBTP.

       -d n, --pregain=n
              Apply n dB/LU pre-gain value (-5 for -23 LUFS target).

       -s d, --tagmode=d
              Delete ReplayGain tags from files.

       -s i, --tagmode=i
              Write ReplayGain 2.0 tags to files. ID3v2 for MP2, MP3, WAV and AIFF; Vorbis  Comments  for  FLAC,
              Ogg,  Speex  and  Opus;  iTunes-type  metadata  for  MP4/M4A; WMA tags for ASF/WMA; APEv2 tags for
              WavPack.

       -s e, --tagmode=e
              like '-s i', plus extra tags (reference, ranges).

       -s l, --tagmode=l
              like '-s e', but LU units instead of dB.

       -s s, --tagmode=s
              Don't write ReplayGain tags (default).

       -L, --lowercase
              Force lowercase 'REPLAYGAIN_*' tags (MP2/MP3/MP4/ASF/WMA/WAV/AIFF only). This is non-standard, but
              sometimes needed.

       -S, --striptags
              Strip tag types other than ID3v2 from MP2/MP3 files (i.e. ID3v1, APEv2).  Strip  tag  types  other
              than APEv2 from WavPack/APE files (i.e. ID3v1).

       -I 3, --id3v2version=3
              Write ID3v2.3 tags to MP2/MP3/WAV files.

       -I 4, --id3v2version=4
              Write ID3v2.4 tags to MP2/MP3/WAV files (default).

       -o, --output
              Database-friendly tab-delimited list output (mp3gain-compatible).

       -O, --output-new
              Database-friendly  new format tab-delimited list output. Ideal for analysis of files if redirected
              to a CSV file.

       -q, --quiet
              Don't print scanning status messages.

RECOMMENDATIONS

       To give you a head start, here are my personal recommendations for being (almost) universally compatible.

       Use loudgain on a »one album per folder« basis; standard RG2  settings  but  lowercase  ReplayGain  tags;
       clipping  prevention on; strip obsolete tag types from MP3 and WavPack files; use ID3v2.3 for MP3s; store
       extended tags:

           $ loudgain -a -k -s e *.flac
           $ loudgain -a -k -s e *.ogg
           $ loudgain -I3 -S -L -a -k -s e *.mp3
           $ loudgain -L -a -k -s e *.m4a
           $ loudgain -a -k -s e *.opus
           $ loudgain -L -a -k -s e *.wma
           $ loudgain -I3 -L -a -k -s e *.wav
           $ loudgain -I3 -L -a -k -s e *.aiff
           $ loudgain -S -a -k -s e *.wv
           $ loudgain -S -a -k -s e *.ape

       I've been happy with these settings for many years now. Your mileage may vary.

       For easy mass-tagging, there is a bash script called rgbpm included with loudgain,  which  follows  above
       recommendations.  You can make a copy, put that into your personal ~/bin folder and modify it to whatever
       you need.

BUGS

       loudgain  is   maintained   on   GitHub.   Please   report   all   bugs   to   the   issue   tracker   at
       https://github.com/Moonbase59/loudgain/issues.

AUTHORS

       Matthias C. Hormann mhormann@gmx.de
       Alessandro Ghedini alessandro@ghedini.me

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright (C) 2019 Matthias C. Hormann mhormann@gmx.de (versions > 0.1)
       Copyright (C) 2014 Alessandro Ghedini alessandro@ghedini.me (v0.1)

       This program is released under the 2 clause BSD license.

                                                 September 2019                                      LOUDGAIN(1)