Ubuntu Manpage: vorbisgain - calculate the replay gain for Ogg Vorbis files

NAME

       vorbisgain - calculate the replay gain for Ogg Vorbis files

SYNOPSIS

       vorbisgain [ -acCdfhqrsv ] [ -g album gain ] input_files ...

DESCRIPTION

       vorbisgain  calculates  the  ReplayGain  values  for the named Ogg Vorbis input files and writes back the
       result in the form of tags (comments) in the file. These values can be used  by  a  playback  program  to
       maintain  a  uniform  sound  level  during  play.  (See http://www.replaygain.org/ for more information.)
       vorbisgain uses a default target level of 89 dB, rather than the 83  dB  recommended  by  the  ReplayGain
       standard,  when  calculating  the  gain  to apply. (Some players include a pre-amplification setting with
       which the target level can be changed.)

       vorbisgain input files must be Ogg Vorbis I files with 1 or 2 channels and a sample rate of 48 kHz,  44.1
       kHz,  32  kHz,  24  kHz,  22050 Hz, 16 kHz, 12 kHz, 11025 Hz or 8 kHz. If an input file contains multiple
       streams (i.e., it is chained), the streams must all have the same format, in terms of sampling  frequency
       and number of channels.

       All  streams  in  a  chained  file are processed, but the ReplayGain tags are only written to (or removed
       from) the first stream.

OPTIONS

-h, --help
Show command help.

-a, --album
Activates album mode, in which the album gain (sometimes called the audiophile gain) is calculated
in addition to the track gain (sometimes called the radio gain).

-g n, --album-gain=n
Sets the album gain value to use. Default is to calculate it, if -a is specified. Implies -a in
the sense that the album gain tag is written. This is a relative value, in dB, specifying the
change in volume that should be applied.

-c, --clean
Remove any ReplayGain tags from the specified files. If a file does not contain any ReplayGain
tags, the file is not modified.

-C, --convert
Convert old format ReplayGain tags to a new format (see section TAG FORMAT below for details). If
a file does not contain all ReplayGain tags that are needed for a conversion, the file is not
modified. The album peak tag is only created if -a is specified, and the album gain value is then
checked for consistency. Otherwise any album gain is converted without any checks.

-d, --display-only
Display the result only; do not write anything to disk. This applies to all options.

-f, --fast
Only calculate the gain for files that do not contain all replay gain tags needed (the album gain
and peak tags are only considered if -a has been specified).

-n, --no-progress
Only display results, but don't show progress in percentages and times. This can be useful if the
output is piped into other programs.

-p, --preserve-mtime
Do not trample upon the timestamps of any files being worked on. This obeys the expected data-vs-
metadata behaviour, but can confuse some naive archivers.

-q, --quiet
Do not display any output while processing. Only error and warning messages will be printed.

-r, --recursive
Enter directories (recursively) and search for files, if directories or file patterns are
specified. Note: Only available if vorbisgain was configured with --enable-recursive.

-s, --skip
Silently skip any non-Vorbis files found. Vorbis files that can't be processed for some reason are
skipped as well, though not silently. Default is to stop when such files are encountered.

-v, --version
Display the version of the program.

EXAMPLES

       Simplest version. Calculate the track gain and peak only.

              vorbisgain somefile.ogg

       Note that the following examples are only possible if vorbisgain was configured with --enable-recursive.

       Calculate  the  album  gain  and  peak, in addition to the track gain and peak, for all .ogg files in the
       directory "music" (and all subdirectories). All files in one directory are treated as  belonging  to  the
       same album. Files that already have ReplayGain tags are not re-calculated. Note the quotes, as they cause
       the shell to not do any filename globbing:

              vorbisgain -s -a -f -r music/

       Calculate  the album gain. The files specified before the directory "album" are treated as one album, the
       files in the directory "album" as another album and the remaining files as a third album:

              vorbisgain -a -r a.ogg b.ogg c.ogg album d.ogg e.ogg f.ogg

       Remove all replaygain tags from a collection of oggs:

              vorbisgain -c -r music/

TAG FORMAT

       vorbisgain creates tags like these (when in -a mode):

              REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN=-7.03 dB
              REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK=1.21822226
              REPLAYGAIN_ALBUM_GAIN=-6.37 dB
              REPLAYGAIN_ALBUM_PEAK=1.21822226

       Gain specifies how much the volume should be changed before playback, in dB.  Peak is the maximum  sample
       value  of  the  file  before  any gain has been applied, where 1.0 means "full sample value" (32,767 when
       decoding to signed 16 bit samples).

       Earlier versions of vorbisgain (before 0.30) created the following tags:

              RG_RADIO
              RG_PEAK
              RG_AUDIOPHILE

       When -c is used, RG_RADIO  is  converted  to  REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_GAIN,  RG_PEAK  to  REPLAYGAIN_TRACK_PEAK,
       RG_AUDIOPHILE  to  REPLAYGAIN_ALBUM_GAIN  and  REPLAYGAIN_ALBUM_PEAK  is calculated as the maximum of all
       RG_PEAK tags in the album.

AUTHORS

       Program Code:
              Gian-Carlo Pascutto <gcp@sjeng.org>
              Magnus Holmgren <lear@algonet.se>

       ReplayGain Analysis Code:
              Glen Sawyer <glensawyer@hotmail.com>
              Frank Klemm (http://www.uni-jena.de/~pfk/)

       Man Page:
              Magnus Holmgren <lear@algonet.se>

BUGS

       None known.

NOTE

       The version of vorbisgain packaged for Debian differs in two ways from the upstream  version.  First,  it
       does  not  retain  the modification time of the input file by default: if tags are changed in a file, the
       mtime will change; you can specify "-p" to get the normal behaviour.  Second, it does not try to  process
       wildcards in filenames. This makes it impossible to say "process all foo*.ogg in all subdirectories", but
       also  avoids  problems  with filenames that actually contain wildcards.  Without this change, "vorbisgain
       *.ogg" in a directory with a file that contains a question mark would result in that file  being  treated
       as being in a different album.

                                                   2004 Jan 3                                      vorbisgain(1)