Hey guys,

I've been doing research over the past few weeks on mp3gain and how it should be used in different environments. However, I have not found much discussion on its use in a radio environment. I'm compiling an alternative/modern rock station with tracks in mp3 format that have varying volume levels, most of them above 94db after being analyzed by mp3gain. I've tried lowering most of the tracks to 89db (as the suggested default value), but I have a feeling that this is way too low for a radio setup - playout system, audio processing, and encoding in various formats (windows media 128k/48k/20k, and mp3 128k/96k/24k).

Seeing as most rock songs nowadays are mastered at an extremely high level, I don't forsee any major problems, but I'm thinking (correct me if I'm wrong ) that it's better to use mp3gain on all tracks before adding them to the playlist to air. If this is true, then what is the suggested volume setting to use when adjusting the levels using mp3gain?

I've also experimented with using a very high level, such as 98db, but I'm not sure if this is causing my files to be processed using already-flat dynamics. I made the beginner's mistake of not saving the analysis results for the first 100s of tracks, so I've decided to seek the help of the all-knowing... I'm quite new to the idea of pre-normalization (adjusting levels before using live audio processing), so any help or suggestions are greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Dogga
ClubNetRadio.com

A friend and I have made experiments with replaygain with the intention to make one radio by Internet. We found that a value of 92 db trackgain is good for most of the modern songs of pop and rock.

This as a result of that many of them come originally with values of 96 db or more..

Remember that, in this case, you have that to put a limiter ( maybe a soft clipping limiter) for to avoid a possible clipping in the signal...