1\ is 89.0 db a pretty good target? it's the default; i don't know whether to change it.
2\ where is the option to write the undo/analysis information into the file? i read about this when i downloaded it, but i can't find it in the progra, anywhere.
3\ the items listed under "tags" in the "options" menu deal with replaygain tags (that is, the data mentioned in question #2) and have nothing to do with id3, right?
4\ basically i'm finding that every damn mp3 in my collection is coming up with a y under "clipping." that was kind of a surprise to me, but is it normal? if so, it might explain why so many people find replaygain crucial
5\ i have a large collection of mp3s but very few full albums; should i just apply track gain to everything?
6\ maybe i'm mistaken about this, but it is looking like the process is 1: open directory in mp3gain, 2: perform analysis (album or track), 3: apply gain (album or track). is this correct? that is, it is looking to me like if i just open a directory and try to apply gain without first analyzing the files, it won't do anything. is this correct?
7\ since i often *gasp* download songs instead of ripping them from a cd i own, i am thinking that maybe there is not much to be gained from applying album gain. is that correct? that is, if i have a complete album compiled from an amalgamation of files created using itunes, realplayer, cdex, eac, etc; the idiosyncratic methods of encoding will screw up the accuracy of album-based replaygain, right? so i should just apply track gain to everything.

8\ also, am i correct in thinking that mp3gain doesn't ACTUALLY do anything to my files? that is, it just writes replaygain tags that can be interpreted IF my playback program or device is set up to read them? i'm doing this because that way if i decide to enable the replaygain plugin for winamp or switch to foobar, i'll have the OPTION of using replaygained tracks... i hope that this is not ACTUALLY changing the volume of my files, is it?

Yes. 89 is pretty good. But it's really up to you. I've heard of some people setting it higher if their player can't go very loud. The key is to pick a level and apply it universally. With that said, sometimes a particular level may sound too low. That is, for most songs 89 works fine, but for others sounds too soft. In that case, pick a slightly higher level. Of course, if you are using album gain, this will make the OK songs louder too (see below).



According to the docs, it's under the Options|Tags menu. I haven't used it myself, so...



It's normal on a great deal of CD's. But replay gain can only correct clipping that would occur from an audio level going too high for the player. It can't correct clipping introduced in production. That is, it's entirely possible to have clipping present, but MP3gain not show it. Does this make sense?

Most people find replaygain useful for making the playback of multiple tracks (from different sources) be of a comparable volume.



Yes. Album gain would only be relevant with a collection of tracks from the same CD, and you wanted to preserve the relative "loudness".



Pretty much... yes.




I hope your downloading songs from a legal source. Otherwise, per the terms of service on this site, you'll get spanked for discussing it.

Incorrect. It will analyze all of the the files first, then apply the gain.

For MP3Gain, it does modify the file. Technically speaking, even non-MP3Gain modify the file in some way, if only to add tags. The MP3Gain help file discusses the changes it makes.

However, most people have found that the volume knob is a really good way to make it louder (or softer) without changing the MP3 again.

The changes are lossless. So if you have the undo information in the tags, you can undo it. Or, you could manually set it back.

No, it's not. Check this FAQ.

According to the docs, it modifies the global gain field in each frame. Could be the docs are incorrect.

I'm not sure which portion of that thread you are interpreting as "not modifying the file". But the reality is that it must modify the file in some way.

My bad--of course it lowers or raises the global gain of each track in 1.5 db increments. I just had to check this thread to refresh my memory.

1. 89 is way too low. my experience (2000 albums) is that for modern music 93db is a good target (album gain or track gain for recent cds). for classical music or jazz, 89 is fine but often even a bit too high... i usually dont apply gain on classical, it screws things up...

2. modify gain > undo gain changes.
you can also erase replaygain tag : options > tags > remove

3. yep

4. most of the time you wont hear that clipping. what is crucial to me is to get all my collection at the same sound level. i was tired of playing with the volume button of my ipod or other mp3 device...

5. NO, album gain for album and track gain for singles!

6. yep

7. for mp3 from different sources but from same album, you'd better apply track gain.

thanks for all the help, guys!

i don't want to spin off topic and certainly don't want to get banned for questioning the terms of service, but... am i correctly understanding this? any discussion of files obtained through p2p is prohibited!? i can totally understand prohibiting discussion of p2p itself due to the legal ramifications, but we're not even allowed to talk about files downloaded from those networks? prohibiting discussion of how to get things illegally makes perfect sense, but i'd find it quite ridiculous if i can't ask things like "what's the best replaygain technique for files gathered from many different (unnamed) sources"

and to answer the question, it's been about four years since i bought cds with any sort of regularity, but i do pay for my downloads when i can. sometimes i can't find the song i'm looking for legally, though, so then it's off to... other places.

ok wait, still not clear on what exactly mp3gain is doing

option 1: modifies global gain field in mp3, resulting in an adjusted volume for the track. stores analysis and undo information in a tag attached to the file so that if you want to put the global gain field back where it was, you can do so. but then, shouldn't this be reflected in any playback scenario? why all the clamoring for replaygain "support" (in winamp, in portables, in whatever)

option 2: (i think this is probably what's going on, but i'm not sure) analyzes track and global gain field, then writes a tag that tells the player how much louder or softer to play this track as compared to others; doesn't modify the actual mpeg audio data at all. tags can be adjusted or removed as necessary.

which is it?

and one more question regarding the importance of using "album gain:" like i said, i have very few full albums. usually, my technique is 1) rip 2) listen 3) delete the songs i don't like. so, even when i have several songs from the same album and they were not gathered from questionable sources, i will often not have every track on the album. if i have a set of six songs that are from the same album but there are other songs on the album that i don't have, should i use album gain or track gain?

I think your question has been answered though... apply track gain for singles (ragardless of where they came from).



Option 1. MP3Gain adjusts the global gain field of each frame. It will work on all mp3 players.

The clamoring is partly for something like the way Ogg Vorbis does it... which it the way you keep suggesting. A tag is added with the gain info, and the player must support applying that gain.

But this is MP3Gain. It modifies the data, not just a tag. The tag it adds is just for undo.



Answered... several times. Use track gain since you don't have complete albums.

It wouldn't matter, unless some people had enabled a normaliser or scaler when encoding, or if some of the tracks were already mp3gained, while others were direct rips. If they're all ripped without changing the volume, you can treat them as an album for mp3Gain-ing, even if the quality and encoder varies.

It depends if you want to maintain volume differences within albums, or not. If not, just TrackGain everything.


"an amalgamation of files created using itunes, realplayer, cdex, eac"

You must be desperate!




Not spanked, just warned then banned. It was an interesting question though, with one different answer given, so I thought it deserved answering as a general point.

Cheers,
David.

thanks everyone.



we did not talk about any of the above. looks like this discussion is kosher.

I have a method with mp3gain that works for me:

1) Album analysis (it will also run a track analysis in this mode).

2) Reduce global gain just enough to reduce clipping (usually -01.5 dB on most material).

3) The ape tag with the replaygain values (89 dB) are still written and therefore can be used in Foobar2000.

The reason I don't just bring my mp3's down to 89 is becuase I often burn audio cd's for the car. I just wanna reduce clipping for that. Foobar will do the rest for playback.