BS1770GAIN

Getting multiple audio files from one source or the other doesn’t guarantee that their loudness levels are the same. However, there is a standard called ITU-R BS.1770 which implements an algorithm ready to assess the loudness level of an audio file. And what is even better, there is a console application ready to implement this standard, thus allowing you to normalize the loudness levels of both audio and video files. It goes by the suggestive name of BS1770GAIN.

This application only works in the command line window, so no standard interface is available. However, its syntax is pretty simple, and all the options are carefully explained with extra examples.

BS1770GAIN is practically a loudness measurement tool that complies with the ITU-R BS.1770 standard and various of its variants, including EBU R128 (Europe), ATSC A/85 (North America) or ReplayGain 2.0.

What BS1770GAIN does is allow you to calculate the level of integrated loudness, the maximum short-term loudness, the momentary loudness and the loudness range either for a single track or even an entire album. It can use an entire audio as input, but you can also configure it to begin decoding at a specific timestamp.  There are two available methods to adjust the loudness of the input file. BS1770GAIN can either apply the gain-related information in the tags and let the playback device to make the changes, or actually apply the gain to the file.