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 -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.

SEE ALSO

       http://sjeng.org/vorbisgain.html
              Home  page  for  VorbisGain.  The  latest version, and a Windows executable, can be
              found here.

       http://www.replaygain.org/
              Contains detailed information about ReplayGain and how it is calculated.

       http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/
              Discussion forum for audio compression and related issues, including Ogg Vorbis and
              VorbisGain.

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)