Emby server/client - ReplayGain or R128 volume normalization support for music

[ryancey 55]

On 6/12/2025 at 7:02 PM, Luke said:

I don’t have an eta but it’s something we can look at in future updates. Thanks.

Any reason not to prioritize it? Do you need anything?

It's really annoying having to constantly monitor and adjust volume when listening to music, and Emby is lagging behind other media centers on this point.

"something we can look at in future updates" might as well mean "2 years" or "never", a little transparency would go a long way so users can find alternatives if you're not planning it anyway.

Thanks

[thekingpin 29]

4 hours ago, ryancey said:

Any reason not to prioritize it? Do you need anything?

It's really annoying having to constantly monitor and adjust volume when listening to music, and Emby is lagging behind other media centers on this point.

"something we can look at in future updates" might as well mean "2 years" or "never", a little transparency would go a long way so users can find alternatives if you're not planning it anyway.

Thanks

The lack of transparency on this subject made me jump to another provider for music. Emby is great for media other than music. 

This post was created November 1, 2017. 

And the answer we get from Emby in 2025 is...

4 hours ago, ryancey said:

I don’t have an eta but it’s something we can look at in future updates. Thanks.

It is comical at this stage. Just say its not coming or give the community a valid reason why not, I get it you are maybe working hard on other features / fixes, but, you are not dealing drugs here and a little honesty and clarity would have been much appreciated.

[ryancey 55]

On 6/24/2025 at 8:10 PM, thekingpin said:

The lack of transparency on this subject made me jump to another provider for music. Emby is great for media other than music. 

I hear you. Out of curiosity, what did you switch for?

I'd prefer not having to switch between apps and deal with tagging / coverart hell if exporting my lib to another platform for now.

But yeah that's very poor communication overall. I mean, Emby is still kinda worth the price in my opinion, but giving us info on this topic doesn't cost anything to the team and yet, we have to sustain ourselves on regular corporate-style answers that only make the frustration worse. No alternatives, no deadline, no discussion, nothing.

In the end, I guess that's the downside of closed-source software.

It's so annoying that I'd have been willing to learn .NET just to implement this specific feature.

[Vicpa 611]

@thekingpin I would be curious what you choose as well?

Like you I replaced emby music some time ago. For what it is worth, I am using Navidrome and find it an improvement.

Edited July 2, 2025 by Vicpa

[thekingpin 29]

4 hours ago, ryancey said:

Out of curiosity, what did you switch for?

I switched to Navidrome. I put a lot of effort into tagging my music, Navdirome picks up on metadata changes almost instantly. I use Symfonium as a client and the rest is history. 

I'm not dissing Emby and still use it for video, and, its worth the money. But like mentioned, the corporate style one line answer to a feature request from 2017 is laughable at this stage. We not asking for nrw construction of pyramids or reinvention of the wheel. 

 

I will add one extra postive note to Symfonium,  the dev actually listens to the community and has implemented tons of feature requests. Thats something I can truly support going forward. 

[Vicpa 611]

There are lots of client options for Navidrome! I have been using supersonic on Win 11 and it's pretty good, will check out Symfonium.

[rotational467 43]

I've just recently started using Emby for music streaming and want to +1 replaygain support.  Unfortunately Emby is useless for a mixed playlist right now because of this and it's just making everyone annoyed when there are drastic level changes between tracks.

[RLanger7228 73]

+1 to ReplayGain support, or possibly add a gain adjustment option (in metadata?) so individual songs can be adjusted manually.  I agree with the other users that mixed music playlists require physically adjusting the volume on the actual player, sometimes from song to song.  If I am away from the player, I sometimes can either not hear the music or get blasted.  I use Emby to stream music at work all day with mixed playlists, and the volume changes can get quite frustrating.

ReplayGain (if it works anything like AACgain) is an automatic profile that would eliminate the need for manual adjustment.  If (as other users have suggested) it is already implemented into some aspects of Emby, why can it NOT be more widely applied?  From the dates on some of these posts, it seems like it has been discussed (and accepted by Emby moderators as "a good idea") for more than 8 years, but seems not to have been implemented yet.

I find these forums helpful & interesting, but I have seem many good suggestions encouraged, but not acted on.  I find that somewhat discouraging.

[ryancey 55]

11 hours ago, RLanger7228 said:

+1 to ReplayGain support, or possibly add a gain adjustment option (in metadata?) so individual songs can be adjusted manually.  I agree with the other users that mixed music playlists require physically adjusting the volume on the actual player, sometimes from song to song.  If I am away from the player, I sometimes can either not hear the music or get blasted.  I use Emby to stream music at work all day with mixed playlists, and the volume changes can get quite frustrating.

ReplayGain (if it works anything like AACgain) is an automatic profile that would eliminate the need for manual adjustment.  If (as other users have suggested) it is already implemented into some aspects of Emby, why can it NOT be more widely applied?  From the dates on some of these posts, it seems like it has been discussed (and accepted by Emby moderators as "a good idea") for more than 8 years, but seems not to have been implemented yet.

I find these forums helpful & interesting, but I have seem many good suggestions encouraged, but not acted on.  I find that somewhat discouraging.

Welcome to the club, just sit and dehydrate with us while getting thanked to the infinite and waiting for an early 2000s basic feature 

[TRex74 3]

And +1 Support for ReplayGain.

The only reason, I am still using emby is because the organization of music by album, album artist, track artist ... is working nearly perfectly in my opinion. Plex is really awful, i don't know why everyone is praising Plex to the skies. And Jellyfin also has some flaws (but not that awful as Plex). But both, Plex and Jellyfin do support ReplayGain for a long time now.

I expect there are a lot users, who are eager to get RePlayGain support, but have resigned because nothing happend in the last 8 years since the first feature request.

[Dullard 14]

Mom just complained about this again.  I was rather hoping it had been done already. 

+1  (and another from mom!)

[RLanger7228 73]

On 8/15/2025 at 4:54 AM, TRex74 said:

i don't know why everyone is praising Plex to the skies

Even if I wanted to switch to Plex, all the custom editing & re-identifying of mis- & un-identified content might take years (I have A LOT of content).  I don't imagine that Plex offers a direct import from Emby, where I have already invested a lot of time making things look "perfect".  Switching is not really an option for me at this point.

I (we) can only pray that our persistent and polite requests for some form of volume control will result in more implementation than just "that's a good idea" replies.  It would be an extremely valuable feature, and if it HAS been implemented in Emby somewhere, It should not be a herculean lift to implement in music playback as well.

PROGRAMMERS:  PLEASE  look into this & give us some form of volume normalization for shuffled playlists, etc!!

[howllor 26]

If I tag my files with replaygain data, import them into emby, and then use Symfonium for playback - does anyone know if the replaygain tags are readable to Symfonium?

[Luke 42077]

12 minutes ago, howllor said:

If I tag my files with replaygain data, import them into emby, and then use Symfonium for playback - does anyone know if the replaygain tags are readable to Symfonium?

The server doesn't import the information at this point, but if it is direct playing then it should be able to get the information from the audio player on the fly.

[thekingpin 29]

7 hours ago, howllor said:

If I tag my files with replaygain data, import them into emby, and then use Symfonium for playback - does anyone know if the replaygain tags are readable to Symfonium?

Symfonium will read the available tags from the server I believe. If Emby does import those tags then I don't think symfonium can read them. 

I use Navidrome which utilises ReplayGain, Symfonium can read those tags without issue. 

Edited October 19, 2025 by thekingpin

[howllor 26]

5 hours ago, thekingpin said:

Symfonium will read the available tags from the server I believe. If Emby does import those tags then I don't think symfonium can read them. 

I use Navidrome which utilises ReplayGain, Symfonium can read those tags without issue. 

Yeah I guess my question is if emby will just pass on without reading that info, but still leaving it intact for Symfonium to pick up.

[Luke 42077]

9 hours ago, howllor said:

Yeah I guess my question is if emby will just pass on without reading that info, but still leaving it intact for Symfonium to pick up.

Right it will still be in the audio stream.

[howllor 26]

Okay that's at least something

[embme9 1]

Hi i bought membership long time ago. Is this feature planned or alresdy being worked on to be integrated in emby server?

Please let us know! Eta??

 

Thank you

Edited November 11, 2025 by embme9

[chowbok 132]

1 minute ago, embme9 said:

Hi i bought membership long time ago. Is this feature planned or alresdy being worked on to be integrated in emby server?

Please let us know! Eta??

 

Thank you

It's a great idea for the future. thanks !

[RLanger7228 73]

I have an extensive music library and set up playlists with hundreds of songs across many albums to play at work & elsewhere.  I, too, find that I have to adjust the volume for many songs.  At work, when I am sitting near my iPad, I can tap the volume button up or down easily enough (though annoying).

On 7/10/2024 at 5:07 AM, ryancey said:

Another case I experienced is when you are not able to adjust the volume (in the shower, doing work with busy hands, etc) and the speaker suddendly shouts

I'd really like this to be a concern for the Emby team, it's been a while, the tech is well-known, this issue has been solved since decades, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. It's a major pain point for music-centric users

I love the flexibility that EMBY provides to play my selections from my nearly 1.5 TB of recorded music, but the volume fluctuations are a real pain.  I (and other users) would like to see a solution to this problem worked on in a timely fashion, PLEASE!!!

[GreatFlashMan 91]

It's frustrating,

I just spent days with MP3Gain doing over 150k tracks to find the emby ignores it, other players are fine.

 

8 years later, cmon?????????

[ryancey 55]

Any progress on this topic ? A reason for the lack of this feature ?

[Luke 42077]

9 hours ago, ryancey said:

Any progress on this topic ? A reason for the lack of this feature ?

Hi, it is planned for future updates. Thanks.

[GreatFlashMan 91]

1 hour ago, Luke said:

Hi, it is planned for future updates. Thanks.

8 years Luck... C'mon... "Planned for Future" when this is core audio functionality on any media system?