User:Chrisjjj/Normalising for DJing with MediaMonkey

If you are using MediaMonkey for DJing (not something I recommend), the following info might help you. It applies to MediaMonkey V4.1.3.1708 and hopefully subsequent versions.

Normalising volume

To normalise the volume of a track is to cause the track play to back at the same volume as other tracks.

You can normalise volume manually by adjusting PA volume during play.

You can normalise volume automatically, as follows:

1) In Tools,Options,Volume Levelling, ensure Only analyze files with unknown Leveling Adjustment and When analyzing Track volume, also analyze Album volume are uncheckmarked [1]

2) Select your tracks.

3) Right-click the selection, click Analyse volume [2] and wait for the progress bar at bottom to complete.

Each track will now play back at very nearly the same volume as the others. Where tracks have widely different dynamic profiles, small volume differences may remain.

Verify the track playback volume is the same as others. If it is not, see below.

Warning

Avoid the adjacent menu command Level track volume [3], despite its name. Use of this command is disrecommended.

Analyse volume failure

If the above procedure fails to yield normalised volume, the likely cause is an Album Volume value (visible in the column enabled thus [4]) being non-empty). This can be remedied as follows:

1 Launch Mp3tag [5].

2 Load the album [6].

3 Select all tracks.

4 In Extended Tags [7] select REPLAYGAIN_ALBUM_GAIN and execute Remove field [8].

5 In MediaMonkey select the affected tracks and execute Remove then Delete from Library only [9] (this loses any references to those tracks within playlists)

6 Execute Add/Rescan on the folder of the album containing the tracks [10].

Normalising gaps

To normalise gaps is to arrange that the duration of silence between each track and the next is constant.

The tracks'recordings often have a variable amount of silence at the end, and sometimes at the start. Hence when a list of tracks is played automatically, the inter-track gap varies. In the worse case, the gap is absent entirely, causing playback to run from the end of one track immediately into the next.

The milonga DJ usually wants the gap after dance tracks to be constant at 2-4s duration, and the gap after a curtain to be shorter or absent. Normalisation allows this to be achieved.

MediaMonkey does not allow full normalisation of gaps, either manually or automatically, but does allow partial normalisation which ensures a gap is always present.

To ensure a gap manually at playback:

1) Ensure Clear list & play selected only is selected [11].

2) Ensure Remove silence at the beginning / end of track is checkmarked [12].

3) Double-click to play the first track. When it completes, playback will stop.

4) After an appropriate delay, double-click the next track.

This does not remove any period before track start filled with noise (e.g. hiss, crackle).

To prepare a list to ensure a gap is present automatically at playback:

1) Ensure Remove silence at the beginning / end of track is UNcheckmarked [13].

2) Ensure Clear list & play selected + subsequent is selected [14].

3) In the playlist, after each track, insert a gap track -- a track consisting of a few seconds of silence. Such tracks are available in TLIB, from 02480002928928\1\49 onwards.

4) Play the list as normal.

This does not remove any gaps at start/end of tracks.

Curtains

If curtain ending is manual (by DJ manually fading the curtain and starting the next dance track), no special attention to curtains is required.

If curtain ending is automatic, relying on ending prepared by audio editing (not something I recommend), the desired start and end gap may be included during editing.