Feature Request: Playlist Audio Adjustments

S

szaske

Member
The last 2 years I've tried to normalize the audio across the songs in my light show, but something always seems to go wrong. This year I just noticed that one of my songs is really quiet. One feature I'd like to see in HLS, is the ability to load up all the audio tracks in a playlist, play each of the songs separately...and then have a slider or some sort of control that allows me to increase or decrease the volume of each track. That way I can play them all together and see if the volume is normalized or not.

I found a feature in HLS called "Modify Audio Level - Up or Down". When I analyze my audio is returned a score of 31546. I wanted it twice as loud so I tried changing the "Request Maximum Level Value" number to 60000 and pressed OK. After a while it changed my 60000 number to 5536 and seemed to make it even quieter than before. So this feature seems to be bugged. But even if it did work correctly, it's not exactly what I'm looking for. At least in my mind I want to adjust all the songs so they're all at the same level. I'd like to see all 12 songs in my show in one dialog, be able to hear them each...adjust the volume for all 12 songs...and then have that information stored along with the playlist.

-=Steve
 
Steve:

Audio is 16 bit number so the maximum value is plus/minus 32767.

HLS plays the audio as its stored in the file -- it does not have a dynamic volume control. The HLS feature you were looking for was designed to do what your are asking but I think you need to NOT increase the sound level to normalize them -- DECREASE the level. Depend on your audio system to amplify them to the wanted level.

Joe
 
Well 11 of my songs are all at the same good level, but my 1 new song, even though I tried to set it at the same level is too quiet. So you're telling my I should lower the volume of the other 11 songs to match my one quiet song? How does negative numbers work in this? Is 0 considered 50% volume?

If I load up each song into HLS and lets say after analyzing the sequence it gives me a score of 20000. If I want it 10% more quiet would I subtract 6500 from the number given?

I've found software that will normalize audio across a group of songs. The problem is, once I've started using HLS it converts the audio into this PCM format and other software does not seem to support this PCM format. It would be great if HLS offered the ability to re-import a song into a sequence. That way when the song is too quiet, I could use this external software to raise the volume in the song, and then import that changed WAV file into HLS replacing the current song.

A kludgy work around I've tried before is to alter the WAV file outside of HLS...then create a new sequence using the new audio. Let HLS convert it into a PCM file, and then copy that PCM file into my old/existing sequence folder. It's a lot of work.

-=Steve
 
Steve:

The readings HLS provides are max audio levels. Consider a sine wave of amplitude 20,000. Depending on the frequency of the sine wave and the sampling frequency used to capture the digital audio -- the digital amplitudes will go from plus 20,000 to minus 20,000. No audio is zero.

Audio is not linear --- it is logarithmic --- - so doubling the size of the digital audio does NOT double the volume level of what you hear.

My PCM file is just a WAV file minus the WAV header. I do this to make audio processing more direct and time efficient.

I don't want to do audio work since there are excellent audio programs (audacity) already out there -- not going to try to re-invent that wheel.

If it would help, I would ponder on adding a HLS capability to convert my PCM file into a wav file for external manipulation and then allow it to be reprocessed back in --- not sure how many people would use that outside of yourself.

I will tell you I'm a little upset with your lack of consideration. You ask for changes and then don't even post a thank you for the time and effort it takes to implement the request. Specifically -- you requested that the SHOW have the ability to STOP after so many PLAY cycles instead of a STOP time. THAT took some time and work to accomplish. I posted that the new capability was implemented and even sent you a PM letting you know it was done. I have never received a word of thanks from yourself --- and words of thanks is the only satisfaction I receive. So please --- think very hard before asking for capabilities that are not required by the main-stream users and are most likely only going to be of interest to yourself.

Joe
 
JHinkle said:
Steve:
I will tell you I'm a little upset with your lack of consideration. You ask for changes and then don't even post a thank you for the time and effort it takes to implement the request. Specifically -- you requested that the SHOW have the ability to STOP after so many PLAY cycles instead of a STOP time. THAT took some time and work to accomplish. I posted that the new capability was implemented and even sent you a PM letting you know it was done. I have never received a word of thanks from yourself --- and words of thanks is the only satisfaction I receive. So please --- think very hard before asking for capabilities that are not required by the main-stream users and are most likely only going to be of interest to yourself.

Joe
Click to expand...

I apologize for my lack of response, and now I feel terrible that you've been offended. I really do appreciate all the hard work you've done. HLS has given me my new hobby...an awesome creative activity that has been missing in my life and for that I'll be forever grateful. Your responsiveness to the HLS users is one of the main reasons I use HLS. I would gladly pay you for your effort, or at the very least PM me your home address as I'd love to send you a small gift as a way to say thank you for building HLS.

As for my feature requests posted in this forum, I've just been treating this forum as more of a repository for features I'd liked to see implemented. I hope for a community discussion on each idea and I'm not offended if you don't implement the feature or don't respond. But my thought was that if the idea has much merit, others will chime in and the thread will get popular, and then at some point you'd be able to see enough HLS users the the feature idea and then you'd consider it. I certainly wish the DIYC forums has some way of building a crowd-sourced feature list (something like userVoice), where we users could vote on top 20 (or whatever) potential features...to help you better understand what features your users most want...but I haven't seen anything like that yet. I thought that was the purpose of this forum section. I definitely don't want my posts to come across as though I'm demanding these features. I'll admit I'm probably more of an advanced HLS users than most people here...and some of my ideas are definitely fringe. I'll be more thoughtful in the future when posting feature ideas.

So in closing, please forgive me. I feel terrible...please PM me your home address so I can make it up to you.

Sincerely, your number one fan (except for Angus), -=Steve
 
Seems like some of this exchange could have been tactfully put into an email or PM.
 
Last edited:
JHinkle said:
Steve:

The readings HLS provides are max audio levels. Consider a sine wave of amplitude 20,000. Depending on the frequency of the sine wave and the sampling frequency used to capture the digital audio -- the digital amplitudes will go from plus 20,000 to minus 20,000. No audio is zero.

Audio is not linear --- it is logarithmic --- - so doubling the size of the digital audio does NOT double the volume level of what you hear.

My PCM file is just a WAV file minus the WAV header. I do this to make audio processing more direct and time efficient.

I don't want to do audio work since there are excellent audio programs (audacity) already out there -- not going to try to re-invent that wheel.

If it would help, I would ponder on adding a HLS capability to convert my PCM file into a wav file for external manipulation and then allow it to be reprocessed back in --- not sure how many people would use that outside of yourself.

I will tell you I'm a little upset with your lack of consideration. You ask for changes and then don't even post a thank you for the time and effort it takes to implement the request. Specifically -- you requested that the SHOW have the ability to STOP after so many PLAY cycles instead of a STOP time. THAT took some time and work to accomplish. I posted that the new capability was implemented and even sent you a PM letting you know it was done. I have never received a word of thanks from yourself --- and words of thanks is the only satisfaction I receive. So please --- think very hard before asking for capabilities that are not required by the main-stream users and are most likely only going to be of interest to yourself.

Joe
Click to expand...

You already have 1/2 of this equation implemented in HLS under Audio File/ create WAV file from PCM .

I am still discovering features in HLS :)

I bet you have forgotten more of features you have added over the huge # of releases you have done , than all of features I am currently aware of

. :)

I have done as Steve has done to correct an audio file via new dummy sequence and regenerate the pcm to copy back then delete the dummy sequence

I agree it is a couple steps but really a minor bump if it solves the issue compared with re doing a sequence from scratch !

Cheers
 
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