Gnormalize is a versatile software that functions as an audio converter, encoder/decoder, tag editor, and CD player, with the added feature of a front end to normalize and a ripper.
gnormalize decodes MP3/MP4/MPC/OGG/APE/FLAC files to WAV, normalizes the WAV to a targeted volume level, and re-encodes it. The program has the ability to extract audio CD tracks, outputting them in various popular audio formats such as MP3, MP4, MPC, OGG, APE, FLAC, and WAV with high quality and fast speeds. gnormalize also facilitates the conversion of audio formats, enabling users to easily convert between MP3, MP4, MPC, OGG, APE, and FLAC with high fidelity. Adjusting the encoding and metadata (tag) properties of final normalized files is also possible using gnormalize.
One of the program's primary purposes is to standardize the volume level of audio files. Different recording levels on different albums can cause the volume to vary greatly from song to song but with gnormalize, this issue is quickly and easily resolved. The program was created as an alternative for replaygain, which has struggled to establish a consistent standard by which to define the appropriate replay gain which mp3 encoders and players agree on, and no automatic way to set the volume adjustment for each track.
Some of the key features of gnormalize include converting from/to MP3, MP4, MPC, OGG, APE, FLAC, and WAV, supporting LAME, FAAC, OGGENC, MPPENC, FLAC, and MAC encoders, and LAME, FAAD, OGGDEC, MPPDEC, FLAC, and MAC decoders. gnormalize also rips audio CDs utilizing cdparanoia or cdda2wav, plays audio CDs utilizing cdcd or Audio::CD or cdplay, supports normalization with adjustable sensibility, normalizes/converts files recursively into the directory, edits and obtains metadata like artist, title, album, and meta-information like bitrate, time, frequency, includes mppenc, mppdec, reads the CDDB entry for an audio CD with CDDB_get, and offers translation to English and Portuguese (Brasil).
In terms of requirements, users will need perl-Gtk2 and perl-Glib, normalize for adjusting the volume of WAV files, cdparanoia or cdda2wav for ripping audio cds, LAME for decoding MP3 to WAV, and encoding WAV to MP3 file, faac for encoding WAV to MP4 file, and faad for decoding MP4 to WAV. Users will also need the input plugin for XMMS (faad2-xmms or xmms_mp4) to play mp4 encoded audio files, mppdec, mppenc for MPC (Musepack) audio format, vorbis-tools: oggenc, oggdec and vorbiscomment, flac - to encode and decode FLAC format, mac (Monkey's Audio Console) - to encode and decode APE format, and Audio::CD or cdcd or cdp (cdplay) to play audio CDs.
In terms of updates, the latest release features bug fixes and changes to the loop, random, and sound icons. Overall, I found gnormalize to
Version 0.63: N/A