Stereo Tool
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What's The General Consensus?
https://forums.stereotool.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=33600		 Page 1 of 1
Author:  JDStone [ Mon May 22, 2023 12:17 pm ]
Post subject:  What's The General Consensus?
Should you use ReplayGain on your tracks prior to broadcasting using Stereo Tool or not? My library has had ReplayGain applied to all tracks, both .mp3 and .flac tracks, but I have begun to mentally question the value of that. It seems to me that Stereo Tool would work best using the original audio signal.

Thoughts and comments? Hans...what is your position on this?
Author:  Minetti [ Thu Jun 01, 2023 2:41 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: What's The General Consensus?
I have normalised my archive to EBU R128 and find the result to be very nice. It makes life of the stereotool AGC much easier.
Author:  MrKlorox [ Sat Jun 03, 2023 10:45 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: What's The General Consensus?
While it's always nice to have a consistent input level, one can approach it a few ways. ReplayGain is one, though not one I prefer.

Re-rendering your music with normalization is another. Thimeo even has an app to help with this, called WatchCat. It's essentially a file-based Stereo Tool with batch processing. Using it to normalize all your tracks ahead of time is an effective approach I prefer to ReplayGain. Just make sure to use a lossless container and at least 24-bit depth, or you'll introduce more artifacts if you re-compress to lossy and attenuate the quieter details in 16-bit.

https://www.thimeo.com/watchcat/
Author:  goldfinger [ Thu Aug 10, 2023 10:18 am ]
Post subject:  Re: What's The General Consensus?
MrKlorox since you are using it I would like to ask a few questions about WatchCat:
1) is it possible to normalise also the volume (loudness control) ?
2) if the original audio file is in .m4a format, after normalisation, can the file be saved with the same .m4a format ?
3) to make the above normalisations, if possible, is it sufficient to download the free version of WatchCat or is it necessary to buy the professional version ?
Author:  MrKlorox [ Sun Aug 13, 2023 10:09 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: What's The General Consensus?
Quote:
MrKlorox since you are using it I would like to ask a few questions about WatchCat:
1) is it possible to normalise also the volume (loudness control) ?
2) if the original audio file is in .m4a format, after normalisation, can the file be saved with the same .m4a format ?
3) to make the above normalisations, if possible, is it sufficient to download the free version of WatchCat or is it necessary to buy the professional version ?
Hi. Just saw this.

1) Yes, it's made to normalize the overall volume as well as apply Stereo Tool processing. So anything ST can do, Watchcat should be able to do. Watchcat also does EBU-R128 style normalization on the file itself, which is separate from the processing mode of loudness control. It can normalize on the input and the output. However the processing is done only on the output.

2) Watchcat cannot output in m4a format, as far as I know. But you can use FFMPEG to set up a script to do this after you get all the processing and normalization rendered. ChatGPT or some good old-fashioned searching can help you here.

3) The free version only does processing and normalization with just a few file formats to output to. Wav, Flac, Ogg Vorbis, and Opus. I like Opus for my use, but yours may be different. However, the paid version has the ability to apply pre and post-processing commands and scripts triggered by the application. This simplifies workflow and allows WatchCat to do everything from processing to conversion. This is mostly useful for professionals or organizations, and less so for hobbyists who have the time and patience to do things manually.

Let me know if you need more info and I'll do my best to answer. I honestly haven't used it in a year or so, and also don't own a WatchCat license. But it's very powerful.
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