I've searched and couldn't find whether this question has been asked before: could I place foobar on an iPod, connect the iPod as an external drive, and run foobar (including foo_pod) from the iPod? I'm thinking YES, but before I purchase a Shuffle I want to know how 'portable' my music solution can be.

Thanks in advance.

ps: Many thanks to Aero (and Otto42, and all others) for their work on this project.

This is a very good question.

The answer is absolutely yes - Foobar2000 and foo_pod will work great running from any drive, including directly from an iPod. I actually hadn't tried this before you posted, but for a test, I just copied my entire Foobar2000 directory from my hard drive to my iPod, then ran it. It only took 6MB of disk space, and that is a full "special" install of Foobar along with LAME and FAAC, so it could be a lot smaller. One nice thing is that since Foobar and foo_pod store all of their settings in a file, rather than in the registry, you can easily move the Foobar2000 directory around, and it will just work. It actually makes a lot of sense to put foo_pod directly on the iPod, so you can always move files onto and off of the iPod.

One question that I don't know the answer to is if foo_pod actually works with the iPod Shuffle. I am so Apple's bitch, so I will probably end up buying at least a 512MB Shuffle, but until I do or hear from a Shuffle owner, I have no idea if it works at all...

Cheers Aero! Exactly what I suspected, and hoped for.

If I were a betting man, I'd bet that the iPod Shuffle does not use the iTunesDB concept, since it doesn't allow for things like playlists and doesn't do things like display track names and such.

So my guess is that foo_pod will not work with the iPod Shuffle as it is. But until somebody actually takes a gander at it, we won't know.

I'm not so sure. The smart thing for Apple to do would be to build a cheap player that uses the already existing iTunesDB format - it saves work on both the player and iTunes sides. The player needs some kind of database for the songs anyway and there has to be at least one playlist, since you can play the songs in the user-supplied order. And since there is no display, they can leave out a lot of stuff like the Artist/Album/Title strings, which makes up the majority of the iTunesDB size. Also, iTunes' AutoFill feature sounds exactly like a SmartPlaylist, with the limit set to the amount of song disk space, randomized, probably stored as a non-updating playlist on the Shuffle.

OTOH, Apple has done some really questionable design decisions with the various iPod databases and I have no doubt that they could screw this one up, so like you said, until someone posts some technical details there really is no telling. Anyway, if I end up with a Shuffle, I'll make sure it works with foo_pod, one way or another!

EDIT: It seems to have fixed it self now. They still don't update instantly, but they do if you go up to the Playlists option on the Music menu and then navigate back down to the playlist. It didn't used to work that way, so something fixed it self. I did a factory restore and loaded my entire library using foo_pod's "send files to ipod" feature. Go figure...




A bit OT but relating to smart playlists. I do realise this is most likely an Apple problem, but I'd like to see if others have the same issues..

On the iPod, when are Smart Playlists updated? My fear is they are only updated during a PC to iPod sync.

Let's assume I have a simple SPL (Not played within 1 week, limit to 25 via random). Now assume I listen to all 25 songs (all the way through - their play count gets incremented). All the songs no longer meet the criteria, but the play list has not changed.

I was under the impression the iPod would automaticly update the playlist in real time. iTunes does in fact change the SLP in real time.

Here is another easy demonstration... Make a SPL of Rating equals 0. Play the SPL and then rate the song which is currently playing. If you do this in iTunes, the song stops playing immediately and disappears from the SPL. If you do this on the iPod though, nothing changes.

Is this normal? Does anyone's iPod update SPL's on the fly?

I have a 4th Gen and I have gone as far as doing a factory reset and doing the above tests exclusively with iTunes software to make sure it wasn't a problem limited to foo_pod.

The problem: I'd like to use replay gain album gain when listening to albums in order, but I want to use replay gain track gain when listening to random play lists.

Possible solution: Make a second database copy of all the songs (a mirror of sorts) but use RG track gain. These new "fantom" songs would only be used in the RND_ generated play lists.

From there it would be easy for the end user to base all smart play lists from one of the RND_ lists to enjoy the benefit of RG track gain.

Aero, What do you think?

Short answer: On 1G and 2G models, your fear is correct. On 3G and up models, it's updated more or less immediately, for a certain definition of immediately.

Long answer: In order for the iPod to actually change the contents of the playlist, you have to exit the playlist (meaning: play something other than the playlist, like another playlist or something from the Browse menu, or let it go into deep sleep), and then come back to the playlist. Then it'll update. Think of it as recalculating the contents of the playlist when you actually select it in the playlists menu and tell it to play.

Also, in some cases, you can create a smart playlist that will be "dumb" on even a newer iPod. With the latest 3G firmware, this will happen when you use either the "Grouping" or the "Playlist" rules in the Smart Playlist. I do not know if this is the same with the 4G and up iPod's.

If you duplicate the song entries (mhit's) in the DB, you could do this. It'd increase the size of the database by about 75-80%, but it'd work. I've done this in testing, for other reasons.

Problem with this idea is that you get duplicate song entries in the Browse menu. So when you go play an album, every song plays twice. You could avoid this with some song renaming trickery (add "z-TG" to the beginning of every mhod in the mhit, to shove it to the bottom of the list), but the solution will be somewhat unsatisifying no matter what you do.

In the end, every song on the iPod has to be listed in the Browse menu or the iPod can't play it: it won't even know it's there unless it's in the Browse categories. If you want to make a pretend entry with a different gain value, then you can, but you'll have another entry somewhere in each of the browse categories (Genre, Album, Artist, Song Title, Composer) because of it.

Thanks for the info. I've no idea why it wasn't working before, but it definately is now. My advice for others with this problem would be to do a full factory reset and then a fresh restore of all songs using foo_pod.

Interestingly, with the latest version of firmware in my 4G I don't have to play something else to force the update.

For example...

SPL "rating = 0". Start playlist at first song. Rate that song. Leave it playing and press menu twice. This puts us at the "Playlists" menu. Immedately decend back into the same SPL and the list will have updated.

Otto already did a good job summed up the reason why duplicating songs on the iPod would technically work, but wouldn't be very practical.

Maybe a workable solution would be to have something like a "blend" ReplayGain mode. I'm not going to do the real logarithmic math right now, but I'm what I'm talking about is if you had a track gain of -10dB and an album gain of -5dB, the blended gain would be something like -7dB.

One simple thing you might also want to try first is a soft reset (hold down the Menu and Play/Pause buttons on a 1/2/3G for a few seconds, and the middle button and Menu buttons on a click wheel iPod). I haven't seen the smart playlist problem, but I have seen the Audiobooks menu go completely blank on both a 4G and Photo. Doing a reset always fixes this problem, and it might fix your smart playlist problem as well.

Good news regarding the iPod Shuffle! Mike Rowehl (from Bitsplitter Blog) sent me the iTunesDB file from his iPod Shuffle.

It loaded directly into foo_pod without modification, and as far as I can tell, it is identical to a regular iPod's database. In fact, even though the Shuffle doesn't have a screen, iTunes still includes the Artist/Album/Title/Genre strings which are normally displayed/browsable. This is very interesting - either it means that Apple is lazy and made no code changes, or perhaps things like Smart Playlists might work on the Shuffle...

Even through the database formats appear to be the same, Mike reported that GNUPod wasn't able to transfer songs to the iPod Shuffle, so there might still be some difficulties is making it work with foo_pod. But at least it appears that with little or no modifications, foo_pod should work with the Shuffle.

How do the playlists on the Shuffle look? Is there just the one hidden playlist, sort of thing? Or does it make several playlists to work with?

Might be the same format used in a slightly different manner, which is why gnupod didn't seem to work.

I'll send you the files, but there was only 1 playlist (the default hidden one), with normal looking MHIPs. The DB version is up to 12 now, and the type 52 MHODs are longer, although I doubt that has any affect on the iPod.

Mike emailed back and said the GNUPod also was able to read the iTunesDB file, but also said "when written using GNUpod the shuffle refused to play them (or play anything after writing actually, new or old, until I used iTunes to resend the songs).".

There is a new file in the iTunes directory called "iTunesSD" which might be the problem/solution. Now that I think of it, I bet that is the real database that the Shuffle uses, and the iTunesDB file might be from one of Mike's unsuccessful attempts with GNUPod or might be there for iTunes' benefit. iTunesSD is essentially just a list of filenames, and might be the only database actually read by the Shuffle...

Is it possible (and un damaging) to do this.

I have my iPod Mini set to sync with iTunes. Could I still have this setup, the use foobar to add a few songsafter, w/o it screwin up the sync with iTunes.

So would it still report playcounts to iTunes for songs that are in the library, and would syncing stay nice (awkardly put, I know).

I realize the songs I add with foobar won't stay after the sync, but thats what I want, to b able to add them later.

More importantly, would iTunes stomp out the replaygain data that gets written with foo_pod?

Should work. Just don't use any of the sync functions in foo_pod. These are disabled in foo_pod by default anyway.


Yes, yes it would.

I just restored my iPod shuffle to factory conditions and there was an iTunesDB file and an iTunesSD file placed there by iTunes when I refilled the device.

As an avid foobar user and recent iPod Shuffle purchaser, I would like to do anything I can to assist in getting foo_pod working with the Shuffle. If there is anything you guys would like me to do, let me know.

EDIT: I should also mention that I got files I wrote out to my iPod Shuffle to play once, but I can't remember how I did it (it would only play one of the 40 or so songs I placed on it). One thing I've noticed is that iTunes only seems to store files with in the F00, F01, & F02 directories within the Music directory. In the few cases where I was able to get files sent with foo_pod to play, it was always files in these directories that would play.

Otto and I (mostly Otto) have a rough understanding of the iTunesSD format, and just today, I wrote code that can create this file, at least based on our current understanding. But I don't have an iPod Shuffle, so it is hard to know how close full support is.

Thanks for your offer of help. Any data files (iTunesDB & iTunesSD, if not the whole iTunes directory contents) would be appreciated, but there are more precise ways to help us discover what the various fields mean. If I were doing the initial test, I would probably do the following:

* Wipe the iPod Shuffle using the iPod Updater.
* Using iTunes 4.71, manually load one .mp3, one .m4a, one .m4b, one .m4p (from the Apple Store - either use one you already own, or download the weekly free one), one WAV file, and preferably an Audible file (you can download free ones like the 9-11 Report, but it is a hassle).
* With the iPod Shuffle in the playlist order mode (i.e. not shuffle), let the first song songs play all the way through three times, let the second one play all the way through twice, then let the remaining songs play for a few seconds, then skip to the next one. This will help to see if some of the fields are things like bookmark time, play count, etc.

That would be a pretty good start, although I'm sure there would need to be some iteration back and forth until the meaning of all fields were clear. Otto might have some other suggestions as well.



Interesting - so just using foo_pod, you were able to transfer songs to the Shuffle and they successfully played (at least the ones in F00 - F02)? If that is the case, I can easily create a version of foo_pod that only uses these directories for the Shuffle. I'll try to get something up tonight for testing.

I just uploaded a version of foo_pod that only uses F00 - F02, if it detects an iPod Shuffle.

If any iPod Shuffle owners want to test it, it is available here. This version does not create the iTunesSD file, since I don't really know enough details to make it work yet.

When I load my iPod songs as a fb2k playlist, i get one gigantic playlist with all my songs. I would like to know if there is some kind of function or an additional plugin that enables me to split that huge playlist in several smaller ones, for instance, one for each artist or one for each album?

cheers!!

I don't know how many unique artists/albums I have on my iPod, but I'm sure it is in the 100s range and I know I wouldn't want to open a new playlist for each one!

Maybe creating a smart playlist, then opening it in Foobar is sort of what you are looking for. Or maybe the Extended Playlist Generator or an alternate UI like foo_ui_columns would do the trick?

Yeah, using the columns_UI and the extended search generator helped.

However, since I also have more than a hundred diferent artists in my pod, i don't want to have to manually create a playlist by searching the artist in the generator, typing it's name and pressing save for each of these hundred artists.

If I can have something that'll do this automatically, all the artists will appear on the left column (playlists) thus making it a lot easier to browse through them.

I don't know if this was mentioned before, but foo_pod keeps mounting my iPod even if there is no obvious reason.
Example: i have my iPod docked to recharge. I don't need it so i did foo_pod->Eject iPod. Thus i don't have to worry about taking it out of the dock when i'm in a hurry.
But every time i access the contextmenu, to change track-properties, rating, whatever... foo_pod mounts the iPod - there is no use, it just causes a useless delay waiting for the iPod.

Also it should be possible to change the foo_pod preferences without the iPod being mounted. For i don't see any options that are stored on the iPod. And changing the preferences if works perfect without an iPod connected - so why mount if there is an iPod in the dock?

In fact, foo_pod should not mount the iPod unless it needs to change data on the iPod!
I didn't find any option to change this behavior.
Correct me if i'm wrong.

Cheers
jug

This seems to be a problem with certain versions of iPodService.

Either upgrade to the latest version (either by installing iTunes or iPod Updater), or check the "Don't Use iPodService" checkbox in the foo_pod Preferences -> iPod Service tab.

I have the latest iPod Updater and iTunes installed, this problem occurs anyway.
Anyway i'll see if i could live without iPodService, although its no "fix".

cheers
jug

Another thing to try is in the foo_pod Preferences -> Force Drive Letter. Set that to your iPod's drive letter and see if that helps with the problem.

Hi,

I'm the author of GNUpod...

I'm currently 'collecting' iTunesSD files since i don't own an iPod shuffle..

It would be cool if people could send me some sample iTunesSD *and* iTunesDB files
to <pab at blinkenlights.ch>


Thanks

I have only received 1 set of iTunesSD/DB files, but Otto has determined quite a bit about the iTunesSD structure and documented it at the iPodLinux Wiki. When/if you get more information, please keep this page up to date.

Thanks for the plugin... it works great I just bought an IPOD today and got it working with Foo_pod right away.

Just a suggestion (has nothing to do with the plugin itself)... perhaps modify the 1st post in this thread with info on the latest release? For a couple of months, i kept thinking that this foo_pod plugin was still at 0.1, and not able to transfer files yet... i didn't realize it was a fully functional itunes replacement until yesterday! Just figured it'd get more popularity

Thanks again for a great plugin. Much appreciated!

Hi Aero,

I wonder if this coud be any possibility of implementing playcount/rating sync between fb2k database and ipod IF 'block tag update' is enabled in fb2k (so any tag will be written into the database instead of the file itself). That's the only feature I miss in foo_pod

I know that it'll be better if this kind of things (database written tags) would get implemented in the core of fb2k, but I don't know if this will get implemented anytime soon.

Thanks.

Cool! Thanks!


Yeah, that is a good idea - I'll start doing that for the next release.

If there is a progammatic way to determine if "block tag update" is enabled, I can probably do it.

I guess the big problem is that I'm not really enthusiastic about ratings/playcounts in Foobar, since I currently don't do anything with them. But sooner or later, I'll either find time to work on it or more likely, need to use them myself and implement the feature.

Start using it!

Seriously, I really wasn't very entusiastic either about the playcount/rating stuff ( I was listening to mp3 stuff without rating for very longtime, so I really didn't see at all the need of rating/playcount), but after start rating my songs and start paying attention at what songs I really was playing more often, I realize that I can't live without it

Nod. This is basically the reason I don't use foo_pod. Playcounts/ratings/last played times are essential for how I listen to the music on the iPod. I'm not happy about having to use iTunes to do this sort of thing, but at the moment there's no better solution. iTunes UI is terrible, IMO, but the playlist support and data handling is very good, if a bit slow.

Wow. I guess I don't need to feel guilty about thinking this myself, if this is how Otto feels. I haven't abandoned foo_pod yet (and am still deeply appreciative of all of the hard work Aero has done on it), but I have considered returning to iTunes for playback and ratings information. I'm not interested in foo_playcount (or whatever it's called - I don't recall right now), because I don't want the file changing every time I play it.

The biggest thing that keeps me using foo_pod is the use of replaygain. I haven't tried soundcheck yet (in iTunes - of course it's active on the iPod), and I'm a little concerned it will affect the files as well. Can anyone (briefly) explain how it works?

Ratings/Playcounts vs. Replaygain. That's the dilemma I'm stuck with for now.

I just had a very very strange error. and i'm unsure of whether it was foopod that did it or my IPOD.

What happened was that I highlighted a bunch of CD's and added it to my IPOD.

there were two CD's.

1. Shostakovich - Symphony No. 10
2. Shostakovich - Symphony No. 8

Track 3 for Sym. No. 10 has a track length of 13:20
Track 3 for Sym. No. 8 has a track length of 6:11

Now here is what's weird. It kept the correct tags and information for both files.

However, track 3 of Sym. No. 10 was actually track 3 of Sym. No. 8!!!

So when i would play track 3 of Sym No. 10, i would hear the Sym. No. 8 track 3 instead. the weird thing was that it still stated the track length of 13:20. However, right at 6:11, it ended and went to the next track (which makes sense since i wasn't listening to the correct track anyway).

I deleted these tracks from my IPOD and went back and redownloaded it using foobar, and everything was fine.

VERY strange though! Any ideas on why this happened?

thanks!

edit: just wanted to add that the filenames are different, so i am not sure how it got confused. the only similarity between the files were that they were both track 3, and they both were the same "artist".


EDIT: just wanted to add that i had the same thing happen again with 2 more albums. except this time, they were "within" the same album. In an album of 4 tracks, i had track 1 to be mistakenly track 4. so basically i would listen to the album i hear:

track 4
track 2
track 3
track 4

But the first track 4 had the tags and mp3 info for track 1!!

think there is something wrong with my IPOD or is this a foo_pod thing?

If you enable 'block tag update' the tags will be forced to be written into the database. Maybe it's nto the most convenient way, but at least it's the only way to make fb2k not writte to the file right now.

I'll add myself to the list of people who really would like to see play count and rating support. I still use foo_pod over iTunes because I can't live without replaygain. I even went so far as to install the SQL version of the Play Count plugin so I would have counter support without re-writing the files.

Some ideas I had about solutions to the problem...

Add a more global support for matching files via MD5 checksum. Allow the user to create and use MD5 sums for all songs (not just the transcoded ones).

Calculate the MD5 sums from only the music portion of the file (strip off the tags). This will give more consistant results.

If nothing else, consider a way to dump a text log file which holds the ratings and counts from the iPod whenever they get reset. This way I could rate songs on the iPod and not loose that information when I sync. I could at least hand enter the ratings data from the log file into foobar which does get used when I upload to the pod using foo_tunes.

I'd be happy to test anything I can

I can understand ratings...there should be an easy way to set those outside of the iPod - as long as it doesn't change the source file and always works, even if the database isn't enabled (and frankly, I have never really seen Foobar's database work as I think it should).

But I don't really understand the desire have an all encompassing play count for each song. I do use - and foo_pod supports - the play counts on the iPod, but linking that with Foobar...I just don't see the appeal. I do seem major technical problems in implementing it, however.

The bottom line is that these aren't easy problems, folks. I appreciate suggestions, but with my extremely limited time, I have to make some priorities. If you have to fire up iTunes to set ratings, I don't think that is a major hardship for now - hopefully some solution in Foobar/foo_pod can be found. But iTunes-like play counts is something that probably just won't ever happen, since foo_pod is so loosely coupled with Foobar and the other components.

Um....that is very strange!

I can't say that I have ever seen this problem. Based on the 13:20 vs. 6:11 thing, and that the metadata was correct, it would seem that somehow, foo_pod mixed up the filenames. Would you please post the 2 filenames that were mixed up? I am thinking that they might have contained characters that the iPod doesn't accept (like non-English characters) or the length was too long, and the filename escaping in foo_pod somehow went wrong.

BTW, which version of foo_pod are you using?

Hi, thanks for the quick response!

I am using 0.9.8

Here are all the filenames that were messed up. This happened on 3 instances.

Symphony No.3 in E Flat Major, Op.55 - I. 'Eroica' - Allegro con brio.mp3
Symphony No.3 in E Flat Major, Op.55 - IV. 'Eroica' - Finale. Allegro molto.mp3


Symphony No.7 in A major, Op.92 - I. Poco sostenuto-Vivace.mp3
Symphony No.7 in A major, Op.92 - IV. Allegro con brio.mp3

03-Dmitri Shostakovich-Symphony No. 10 - 3 - Allegretto.mp3
03-Dmitri Shostakovich-Symphony No 8 - III - Allegro non Troppo.mp3


In each of those 3 cases, it was the 1st of the two files that was wrong.. and it ended up playing the 2nd of the two files instead. For instance, when playing
"Symphony No.7 in A major, Op.92 - I. Poco sostenuto-Vivace.mp3", i would actually be hearing "Symphony No.7 in A major, Op.92 - IV. Allegro con brio.mp3", even though the tags shown on my IPOD and the track length represented the 1st track.

Thanks again!

OK, i don't think there is anything inherently wrong with those particular files.

Because I just tried to duplicate the problem. And this time, those files all worked okay.

However, this time 2 different files messed up.

Symphony No.5 in C Minor, Op.67 - II. Andante com moto.mp3
Symphony No.5 in C Minor, Op.67 - III. Allegro.mp3

Again, the 2nd file was played when i tried to play the 1st file.



And keep in mind that Symphony No. 7 and No. 3 all imported into the IPOD without a problem, even though it had problems with track 1 and 4 last time!

So it seems to be random. Something gets confused, but it is not consistent!

EDIT: you are probably wondering how i am able to determine this so quickly. Actually when i am viewing the files in foobar (looking at the IPOD), i can see the files as duplicated. it is only IN THE IPOD, when i am navigating on the actual player, that it will think it is the wrong file (tags and track length).

hope that helps!



EDIT: Just wanted to say that I did it a couple more times (adding all 9 Beethoven CD's at once) with foo_pod and it always gave me a problem I then did it several times with itunes, and it did it error-free everytime.

It seems like it is a foo_pod bug. Please let me know if you have anymore questions or need more details. Thanks again!

Aero, thanks for the feeback.

I have installed Quick Tag which allows me to easily set the RATINGS data for the songs. This works well, but it is 1 way (foobar -> iPod). I rarely listen to music on my PC, so it would be much more convienent to set ratings on the pod. Right now I loose any of that rating data I did on the pod when I do a sync (the data stored in the foobar database over writes the pod data). If I had a log file showing the rating data which was on the pod before syncing, I could manually re-enter my ratings into foobar. That would be a workable solution for me as far as ratings go. I'm sure its pretty obvious why it is good to have ratings data on the pod.

Play count isn't that big of a deal to me. It is nice to make a SPL which sorts based on number of plays from lowest to highest, but there are other ways to get the same effect.

The last played time and date is the most important piece of info for me. Almost all of my SPL's include "has not been played in the last 2 weeks". This way I tend to hear songs that I haven't heard in a while.

For play counts and last played date, I think our difference goes back to how I use foo_pod differently then you. I tend to keep all of my music in a single playlist in foobar and periodicly wipe the ipod and reupload all of the songs. Occasinally I will add new tracks without doing a sync or a wipe and reload. This means I loose all of the play count and play date info that was built up on the iPod. My goal is to transfer that data from the pod back into foobar at each sync so if I do a wipe and reload, I still have current stats.

I totally understand if this just isn't something that you are interested in supporting. I know its a big deal to sync data between foobar and the iPod. No matter what, foo_pod is still way better then using itunes!

To support the new filename length limitation introduced in the iPod Photo, foo_pod truncates filenames to 31 characters. It just so happens that "Symphony No.5 in C Minor, Op.67" is 31 characters, so you lose the rest of the filename and end up with two identically named files.

foo_pod is supposed to increment the filename so you don't get duplicate names, but apparently that isn't working correctly. This will also be an intermittant problem, since there are 100 different directories that a song can be in, so you aren't likely to have duplicates unless you have a lot of songs that have the same first 31 characters (which, unfortunately, you do).

It should be pretty easy to fix, now that I think I know what is going on.

Cool, that's a relief that it isn't something really funky/crazy! I'll probably just use itunes for the time being, since i do have a lot of classical music with a naming convention where the first 31 characters are the same.

thanks for the quick response and again, great job on the plugin!! Not sure if someone has mentioned it, but has their been talk about having an albumlist panel that looks inside the IPOD? or perhaps there is way to get it to work already?

thanks!

It's basically the same thing, with a faster and less accurate scanning method. When you add a song to iTunes, it scans it to determine a volume level. This volume level is stored in the file itself as tag information, but it's also stored to the database and sent to the iPod's database. These two database values are used to change the volume level when you play the song back with SoundCheck enabled. foo_pod's ReplayGain functionality exactly models iTunes' SoundCheck functionality, only using the RG volume that foobar calculates instead of the SoundCheck volume that iTunes calculates.

Exactly the same, but with different scanning methods. RG is slower but somewhat more accurate during the initial scan. That's really the only difference. SoundCheck is "good enough" for most uses. It occassionally gets one badly wrong, which I manually adjust with the volume slider.

Actually, the big difference is that iTunes' Sound Check is done on a per-song basis. This is the same concept as Track Gain in ReplayGain terminology.

Many people find this unacceptable and prefer Album Gain, where the volume is normalized across the entire album, rather than on a per-song basis. Of course, foo_pod lets you choose which style to use, then converts this into a Sound Check value that the iPod understands.

Also, I believe Sound Check in iTunes overwrites the Comment metadata (at least for ID3v1).

Well, yeah, okay, I forgot about Album Gain.


Actually, it stupidly writes a second comment tag, at least for ID3v2. It might overwrite v1 tags.