DVD Audio extractor ripping rears at different volume levels?

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northernsoul

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I rip my discs then open flac files with audacity, but rears are always at different volume levels. Has this ever happened to anyone?
 
I rip my discs then open flac files with audacity, but rears are always at different volume levels. Has this ever happened to anyone?
With many/most 5.1 mixes the rears are much lower level than the fronts. I think that most posters here prefer the old Quad style mixes, with equal levels from all channels. Steve Wilson 5.1 mixes are usually very immersive much like the old Quad mixes. Sometimes bringing up the rear levels a few dB will improve the sound.
 
With many/most 5.1 mixes the rears are much lower level than the fronts. I think that most posters here prefer the old Quad style mixes, with equal levels from all channels. Steve Wilson 5.1 mixes are usually very immersive much like the old Quad mixes. Sometimes bringing up the rear levels a few dB will improve the sound.
Yes, agreed, but that isn't something that can be done within DVDA-E. Most will either accomplish that boost on the fly as they play or with something like Audacity which makes the boost permanent.
 
With many/most 5.1 mixes the rears are much lower level than the fronts. I think that most posters here prefer the old Quad style mixes, with equal levels from all channels. Steve Wilson 5.1 mixes are usually very immersive much like the old Quad mixes. Sometimes bringing up the rear levels a few dB will improve the sound.

Lol I do not mean that. I am not a newbie to 5.1. I have been mixing and editing for years.
I mean the rears have different levels to each other when they should be equal.
 
From what disc, in particular?

I don't see any options to adjust levels on a per-channel basis during extraction in DVDAE. There is only an overall normalization option.
 
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I have ripped many 4.0 discs using DVD Audio Extractor as WAV files, with no change in rear channel levels, compared to playing the disc. This applies to both DVD-Audio and Blu-Ray discs.

Same here. DVDAE makes a copy of the original.

Rear channel levels are often mixed lower. Giving these a boost often benefits the listening experience, increasing the perceived surround effect.
 
Same here. DVDAE makes a copy of the original.

Rear channel levels are often mixed lower. Giving these a boost often benefits the listening experience, increasing the perceived surround effect.

The OP is saying his rear left vs right are being ripped at different levels.


(Also funnily enough for Audyssey users, using 'Dynamic EQ' (a smart form of loudness control) does what you say -- boots rear channels a bit. People being people, it's something Audyssey uses complain about.)
 
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The ripping apps (DVD Audio Extractor & DVDA Explorer) only copy the audio data 1:1.
You would need to have a script or app running to alter the files after ripping from the disc (or disc image).

Maybe you DO have some media utility script or app running? It would have to be nothing less to alter the files.

This is digital audio. That means any corruption in the signal (to entertain that theory) is glaring. Often to the point of turning it to pure noise. In the same way that a digital image gets pixelated instead of blurry. Something like slightly reduced volume could not follow data corruption.

If we can assume this is content you are familiar with and that you have accurately identified a volume alteration vs a different known good and unaltered copy, I'll suggest the root cause of the mystery is not the ripping apps.
 
I only listen to surround music, prologic and discrete. It is the discrete where the listener has to accept the original surround mix as it was mixed by the mixing engineer. I sometimes wonder what they were doing and agree that the rears can have different levels. If there is a pan, for example, the Left rear may sound lower or higher than when it played through the Right rear. Therefore there is a discrepancy in levels. I have not found however any discrepancy when using DVDAE rips compared to the source original disk. I have several hundred surround ripped disks on my server.
My processor allows me to adjust individual db levels for each speaker so I am often tweaking the surround effect. There is no standard, just some sound better to me than others. Purely a subjective analysis!
 
If you have a system with the ability to alter the program - like tone controls or speaker level controls on a receiver - you are "remastering" your music yourself.
Goes without saying that doing something as altering as generating an upmix from a stereo or mono source is very much remastering something! (You could try to call this example "remixing". That would require describing the initial "unmixing" steps as successful... But that's a discussion for another time.)

I go from 0 to 100.
Normally I'll listen to someone's master of a mix strictly 1:1 for good or bad. I want to hear what they did and I'll form an opinion like any good asshole. (I WILL normalize volumes if I start A/B'ing something of course! Probably better just run along with your tinny '90s volume war CDs.)
If I decide that I want to obsess over someone else's work and alter the presentation, I'll insert a whole DAW app into the signal path! (I want more than eq and speaker level controls!) It could be anything from disagreeing with a treble slammed "portable device" mastering to a speed mistake to incorrect channel order to something more genuine of a disagreement around the eq and/or dynamics balance of the master. Or something old and damaged in need of more thorough restoration.

"Mastering" has become a bad word. It appears to be often thought of a synonymous with the shrill squashed and treble slammed CD style mastering. In reality, there are examples of masters that strictly preserve a final mix into a format, those that genuinely improve and "finish" a mix, and those that fully destroy what was an excellent mix. And everything in between.

Digressing a bit from ripping apps...
 
If the OP would give us an example of a disc displaying this ripped behavior in with DVDAE, we could verify easily
The Who Quadraphenia Blu Ray.
Opeth In Cauda Blu
Nightwish Once

I open the flac files and one of the rears is lower than the other. Happens even when music is same on both files. I know some info in rears can be at different levels depending on mixing choices; I do not mean that. I mean when the files are supposed to be the same.
 
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The Who Quadraphenia Blu Ray.
Opeth In Cauda Blu
Nightwish Once

I open the flac files and one of the rears is lower than the other. Happens even when music is same on both files. I know some info in rears can be at different levels depending on mixing choices; I do not mean that. I mean when the files are supposed to be the same.

Are you sure you don't have a hardware issue of some sort? What makes you think it is DVD Audio Extractor and have you troubleshoot by using MakeMKV and Audiomuxer to see if you have the same issue, and rule out the ripping process.
 
The Who Quadraphenia Blu Ray.
Opeth In Cauda Blu
Nightwish Once

I open the flac files and one of the rears is lower than the other. Happens even when music is same on both files. I know some info in rears can be at different levels depending on mixing choices; I do not mean that. I mean when the files are supposed to be the same.


I'm guessing you mean when the music is the same in both *channels* (left rear and right rear) of the same flac file ? Or are you ripping each channel to a separate flac file?
 
Sorry to "resurrect" a thread, but I normally receive some negative comments when someone finds an existing thread with similarities in it.

PREFACE: Like the OP, we, too, are using DVD Audio Extractor (DVDAE) to rip music files. In our case, we're using DVDAE to rip music from a 5.1 DVD-A that has a menu option for DTS Surround or Dolby Surround, and we normally select the DTS Surround option. When the DVD-A is played the "normal" way -- via the disc itself -- our player, an Oppo 105D [setup for 4.0], displays both a "dts" symbol and a "MCH" symbol on its front panel...and, just for purposes of being thorough, I played the disc via the Dolby option and, similarly, the Oppo displays the ol' dolby symbol and the "MCH" symbol. The 5.1 DVD-A disc used for this entire test was Little Feat's Kickin' It At The Barn ('04).

SETUP: After downloading and installing DVDAE 8.1.0 and inserting [literally] our first 5.1 DVD-A, the Step 1 of 4 window appeared. Next, the "Click to download or upload metadata" icon (in the upper-right corner) was activated to retrieve title/track data. After the usual delay, the following appeared in the DVDAE "Album" field: Kickin' It At The Barn (48-24 5.1Ch) (DVD-Audio). As all of the other fields populated correctly, all (11) tracks were selected and the "Next" control/button was selected.

Once the Step 2 of 4 window appeared, the "Output format" field was used to select FLAC, which prompted the "FLAC encoder version 1.3.3" options to appear. Being a digital rookie, I left the "Sample rate" option as "Same as input," changed "Channels" to "All 6 Channels" and selected "24 bits" as the "Bits per sample" setting. At this point in the setup process, the "Next" control was selected.

Once the Step 3 of 4 window appeared, I selected an "Output location" folder that I had previously created for our DVDAE testing and, not knowing what I was doing, left the "Name format" at the "%TITLE% - %CHAPTER%" default. I also left the "Overwrite files with the same name" and the "Create M3U playlist" boxes checked/selected (also by default)...which brings me to the setting that has me scratching my head a bit, "Normalization." DVDAE defaults to an open/empty check box next to "Enable normalization, set max level to," so, for my first test, I left it at default (the box was left empty). At this point, once again, the "Next" control was selected.

Once the Step 4 of 4 window appeared, I set the "Thread priority" to "higher" and selected the "Pop up a notify window" option. As the rest seemed fairly self-explanatory, I selected "Start" and waited for the extract process to finish.

RESULTS: As mentioned in the preface (above), the appropriate symbols are displayed on the Oppo 105D player's front display for either the Dolby Surround option or the DTS Surround option: when this DVD-A is played normally. When the FLAC files [pasted into a thumb drive] are played via the same Oppo player, only the DVD symbol appears on its front panel and, closer to the point of the original thread, the sound levels coming from all four speakers is lower when A/B tested against the DVD disc played via the same player. By the way, the "DVD" symbol also appears on the Oppo's display when the disc itself is played.

CONCLUSIONS and QUESTIONS: I'm certainly no digital ripping expert, but I was under the impression that this was a 1:1 ripping/recording process, so I'm at a bit of loss here. The sound difference between the disc and the FLAC files taken from the disc is not major, but it's different just the same [verified via three sets of ears]. Considering that we usually listen to DTS Surround and never listen to Dolby Surround, is it possible that DVDAE encoded the 5.1 FLAC files as Dolby? Getting back to the "Normalization" portion of the Step 3 of 4 window, is it possible that an adjustment of this function could have an effect on the resulting sound levels delivered by the FLAC files?

This is fairly lengthy post, but some of the replies to the OP's question were prompting for details, so I did the best I could to provide them up front.

Thank you very much for your time... :coffee:
 
Getting back to the "Normalization" portion of the Step 3 of 4 window, is it possible that an adjustment of this function could have an effect on the resulting sound levels delivered by the FLAC files?
Yes normalization will usually increase the sound level. Usually I just leave the box unchecked. If you selected DTS it would have extracted the DTS.

Perhaps the DTS was only 16 bit to start with, so then when extracting it to 24 bit it would be lower in level? So you can try extracting to 24 bit with normalisation enabled or try extracting to 16 bit instead.
 
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