Feature request: Replaygain support for FLAC files

[Piro_Flipper]

Hi guys,

When converting some of my mp3's to FLAC, I noticed that the REPLAY_GAIN_TRACK tags are not used by the Walkman app on my Z3C. It works perfectly for mp3 files though. This is a real obstacle for me as I do not like having to change the volume all the time when playing different kinds of music.

So my request would be to extend the replaygain support to FLAC files. I think anyone who uses FLAC files would consider that a very welcome addition, and it should be really easy to do!

[Uliwooly]

Just wondering why are you converting mp3s to FLAC? If it was FLAC to mp3 would make sense but I don't quite understand why

[Piro_Flipper]

Thanks, you're absolutely right, what I meant to say is that I'm reripping my cds to flac to replace the mp3s. Everything works perfectly, album art works, I have a 64 GB micro sd card. All that is keeping me from switching is the lack of replaygain support for FLAC, whereas the tag is being read for the mp3s.

Do you know if there's any chance Sony's software developers read these topics and implement this sort of thing?

[Uliwooly]

Ok, are you referring to the album art? yeah I agree, its a shame that its not supported. 

[Piro_Flipper]

No, the album art actually works for both mp3 and FLAC. What I'm referring to is the REPLAY_GAIN_TRACK tag that you can attach to your files (for mp3 you could use e.g. the program called mp3gain). This allows you to normalize the volume of each track to for instance 92dB. When you do this, you will find that each track plays at a pleasant loudness without having to change the volume all the time. Or to put it differently, if this tag is not supported (like for FLAC at the moment), then I'm listening to one track and when the next one starts it may be way louder or quieter, meaning I have to reach for my phone and change the volume. It really is a very nice feature to have, and since Sony has it working for mp3 it seems very easy to extend this support to FLAC as well.

Are you having issues with album art though? Perhaps I could help you then.

[Piro_Flipper]

Somehow my problems solved themselves: after ripping all my cds to FLAC this weekend, applying replaygain with Winamp and transferring the mix of mp3 and FLAC files to my phone everything works absolutely perfectly!!! I'm not sure what did it but I can now play all my music with album art and replaygain support working.

[Soukyuu]

By "applying the ReplayGain with Winamp"  you lossily applied the gain to the files. This means you don't need the RG tags anyway. The walkman app doesn't support the replaygain implementation.

The information on what replaygain is can be found here. I'd love to see it implemented in the Walkman app, with the setting allowing us to change the mode between off/album/track based

[Piro_Flipper]

Are you sure about that? I opened FLAC files before and after applying the gain in Audacity to inspect the waveform amplitude and they are identical. Additionally, the REPLAYGAIN_TRACK tag was added to the file just like it would for mp3 files.

[Piro_Flipper]

Also, after re-reading the wikipedia page you referenced, I'm pretty sure that applying replaygain to FLAC is also metadata/tag based and thus lossless. After some more research on this topic, I've only been able to find one instance of someone saying this is a lossy process for FLAC files.