Hi guys, I did a search before posting, and: 1) can´t find the answer; 2) I'm not an expert, the answer is there and I can't get it....Apologies, in advance

I'm ripping my whole collection of Cds to flac with EAC and transcoding later with Foobar / lame. I still have some clipping so my aproach is this:

1- Ripping with EAC to flac.

2- Replaygain with Foobar my Flac files, album basis. Purposte: avoid distortion, clipping. 89db

3- Transcode to mp3 using lame.

I´m still having some distortion with some files using my video ipod 60gb. I don´t wether this is a limitation of the ipod or that I´m not skilled enough in digital music(this is a fact)

So, my questions:

a- Is this approach good enough.
b- I should use replaygain before transcoding ito mp3 or after with mp3gain? I use replaygain before because AFAIK, if I use mp3gain, the tags that this software writes will not be recognized by my ipod.
c- In case my approach is crap, could you please suggest a good one? My main objective is to have all my music archivied, and to use my ipod with mp3 files.

Thanks in advance for you answer...pls, be gentle, I'm a newbie...

what *I* do is rip to wav, wavegain it, convert to mp3, convert to flac.

How do you accomplish step 3? If you're using foobar to do this, then do you have the "use replaygain" setting enabled? This lets it use the RG values when it writes the temporary wave file, I believe. Without this set, then the RG info gets ignored, I think.

Also, if you rip the CD to a lossless format and it has distortion before you RG it, then the CD itself had that distortion. No amount of fiddling around will remove it.

If you can, try and playback your wav files on the iPod. If they're distorted too, chances are it's the file or you need to turn the volume down (or indeed a limitation of the iPod).

To accomplish step 3 I have all my flac files in Foobar list, select the files of the same album and I select, right click, "replay gain / Scan selection as album". I do this on the flac file.

The lossless flac files has no distortion on my desktop, and I can´t play it on my Ipod cause they´re flac.

What I get is that some mp3 files get distorted after ripping with lame and I don't really know if I'm doing the right things with replaygain.

I'll try that, thanks ! Now, this take to one of my first question...It's better to replaygain on the flac file before converting to mp3, or is it better to use mp3gain afterwards, providing the fact that I have an ipod? (AFAIK it won´t read mp3gain tags)

There was a long thread on that very question sometime back and, IIRC, the concensus was to WaveGain beforehand. Since you're doing the RG analysis on lossless before the lossy conversion, it comes out the same. MP3Gain only has 1.5db step resolution, whereas RG is supposedly much more precise...don't know how to explain that one or the technicalities behind it...

BTW, I do the same steps as you and it works out great.

you have to replaygain the flac files and THEN encode, USING the replaygain values calculated before.

If you have Foobar read the replaygain values upon converting you will get lower bitrates (in most cases), and hence smaller file sizes, then you would if you converted them with their original gain value. This, of course, is only the case if you're doing VBR encoding. Smaller files are always nice.

And this way you don't have to worry about the extra mp3gain tags at all.

Thanks guys to put up with my ignorance, although I have a final question.

I'll replaygain my flac files. Which would be the best method

- I have 300 albums or so, and all the songs are on my foobar playlist.
- Do I have to replaygain selecting album by album?
- Can I select all the songs and then choose Replay gain/ scan selection as album?

Which would be best?

Thanks again for all your answers

You can select all the songs (CTRL+A), then use "scan selection as multiple albums" and do them all at once.

+1 ^^, but with the addition; make sure your album tags are done properly. 1 CD or set of CD's = one album tag.

ClintB, let me see if I follow you:

- I have all my albums tagged with Freedb (album tag also).
- Then, I can select all the files in foobar´s playlist. (different cds)
- Execute replaygain.

I don´t have to select the songs of an album and execute the replaygain command album by album if I have the album tag filled.

Or else, with .9beta, use the "as albums (by folders)" option; then, encode peacefully!
edit : only if each album is in a diff folder..

If everything's tagged properly, then you can do as you've indicated. Proper tagging makes EVERYTHING so much easier.

No no, step 3. How do you *convert* them to MP3? What actions do you take there?

How you get the RG values is really irrelevant, what matters is that those RG values are actually being applied to the WAV files that foobar passes off to LAME.

In other words, I don't think your problem is getting the RG values, I think your problem is that those RG values are not making it through your transcoding process.

One more thing for you to check. You don't say which version of Foobar you are using, but if it's version 0.8.3 or older you need to make sure your replaygain album grouping pattern (in preferences) is set to %artist% - %album%. The default setting is simply %album%, which makes it so Slayer's "Greatest Hits" is considered the same album as Erik Satie's "Greatest Hits". Not so handy when you are batch replaygaining files as separate albums....

In step 3, I convert them to mp3 with foobar / lame 3.97 b2
The parameters that I have set is: -S -V 2 --vbr-new - % d. Perhaps is that the RG values are not applied to the mp3 files? Something to check...Is there any simple way to do this...? Is there any other parameter that I shoud add?

Aha! that is something I didn´t check either, and is a good one...

Thanks again guys...!

IIRC, you should remove the space in "% d" ( -> %d )
Also, you only need to toggle replaygain and set it to "apply album gain and prevent clipping"

Good luck,
Tristan.

The simple way to check is when you load the music into iTunes (I assume that is what you are using to sync with the iPod), enable SoundCheck in iTunes, and see how high the value is for a song that had a really high RG (like -10). If the song was encoded to MP3 based off of the FLAC file's replaygain, it should show up very close to 0 in iTunes.

In Foobar when you get to that convert screen, there should be a button to turn on ReplayGain (actually, this might only be in the 0.9 beta's) for the conversion, along with basing it off of album or title replaygain, with clipping protection, etc.

I do it this way and it works stellar. Not only that, the bitrates are more reasonable