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Quoted from various help files...

Track mode volume-corrects a mix of unrelated songs to a selected level. MP3Gain calculates the volume level for each song individually. It then corrects each song to make its volume level match the Target Volume. For example, if you have 3 songs that have volume levels of 86, 91 and 89 dB and you use Track Gain to convert them to a Target Volume of 92 dB, they will all be at approximately 92 dB.

Album mode volume-corrects a collection of related songs (as they would appear on a CD, or "album") relative to other collections of songs. Applying Album gain is like adjusting the volume knob once for each CD you put in your CD player. The overall volume of the album is adjusted to the Target Volume, but the volume differences between the mp3s in the album are preserved. For example, if you have 3 songs that have volume levels of 86, 91 and 89 dB, then the overall volume of this "album" will probably be around 89 dB. If the Target Volume is set to 92 dB, then when you apply Album Gain MP3Gain will increase the volume of each of these songs by +3 dB. With Album mode, you want some songs to be noticeably quieter than other songs, just like they are on an album. If you're playing a classical CD, you expect the track with the flute solo to be quieter than the track with the big full-orchestra finale. Album mode allows you to correct an entire album while keeping each song's volume level relative to the other songs.

Lossless Gain Adjustment
The bad news: MP3Gain can only adjust the volume of your mp3 files in steps of 1.5 dB.
The good news: 1.5 dB is a small enough step for most practical purposes.
Most humans can just barely hear a volume change of 1 dB.

The other good news is that this volume adjustment is completely lossless. In other words, if you adjust an mp3 by -6 dB and then change your mind, you can adjust it again by +6 dB and it will be exactly the same as it was before you made the first adjustment.

NO QUALITY LOSS WHATSOEVER!

On the other hand if you use wavegain on the wave file before encoding, the gain adjustment will be irrevesible, if you go too low, the lowest parts of the audio will be cut off and if too high you will lose dynamics (if any)!

foobar2000 is one of few players (plz let me know of more that support album gain!) that actually support replaygain, if you scanned the files with mp3gain it will display the RG info in fb2k (mp3gain stores the RG info in APEv2 tags)

To make sure the files don't get re-scanned... (for foobar2000 0.83)
foobar2000 > Preferences > Components > ReplayGain Scanner and select to skip tracks with RG info!

also

foobar2000 > Preferences > Playback > Input > Standard Inputs and select tags to write: APEv2 & ID3v1

Once this is selected you scan with fb2k (which is faster in my opinion)
Then make the lossless gain change with mp3gain!

Hope this was helpfull ~

PS: If you scan with mp3gain and you use 1D3 tags (and no APE tags)
MP3Gain, just adds the RG info and undo info in the APEv2 tag.
NO ARTIST/TRACK/ALBUM/GENRE, etc....

It may appear that the tags have been deleted on some players!
This is why I scan with fb2k then use MP3Gain (rather than use a tagging proggy after)

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That's right, but if you got albums, better do an album analysis/gain.
Albums for example such as Pink Floyd - Dark Side Of The Moon or The Wall, have some soft and hard tracks, if you trackgain this, the whole ablum sounds weird, but again, it's what you wanna do!

If you use foobar2000 as your default player...

foobar2000 > Preferences > Playback > ReplayGain Mode select trackgain
to play files at the same level

Depends on what you want, if you're burning an mp3 cd or something then mp3gain them to track gain

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Hmmm...

As far as i know mp3gain 1.2.5 warns you when adding mp3s that are read only.

You need to let me know what the log files sez....

eg:
If you think this is incorrect, you can try enabling the No check for Layer I or II option
5/22/2006 12:36:02 AM Can't modify file D:\[.Torrents]\Download\Eek-A-Mouse - Lonesome journey (remastered).mp3

this is what happens if the file is read only

otherwise than that, the undo info is in the APEv2 tag, if this is removed, changed, etc...
IT WILL NOT BE ABLE TO UNDO!

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Ok, that makes sense, what burning proggy do you use?

I use Nero, and I think it burns ok (tho i could be wrong, never really checked if the APEv2 tags are still there).

I would guess some programs that have a MAKE mp3 CD feature such as Musicmatch will remove any non - standard tags (APE)

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OK, this is very interesting...try something else!

BTW. I use Nero 7

Tommorow I will try it, and let you know the results!

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Just to remind you: If you burn files to CD-R and copy the burnt files back to Hard Disk, the files will be read-only.

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Today's simple MP3 CD test!

I have used Nero 7.2.0.3b Ultra Edition (ISO-9660) to burn 20 randomly selected MP3 files
from my hard drive to a CD-R disc. All the files were ReplayGain (Album) scanned with foobar2000 0.83
and gain was adjusted (to remove clipping) using album gain with MP3Gain 1.2.5. All my mp3 files
contain ID3v1.1 and APEv2 tags (with RG info and MP3Gain undo info).

I burnt the files in the root folder and at a speed of 16x.

All the files were then copied back to a new folder on my hard disk.

All files are the exact same files as the original (they still have the tags too!)

I've also done this using a CD-RW, DVD+R and DVD+RW disc and I've found the same results!

I don't know what to say...

Make sure the following settings...
MP3Gain > Options > Tags > DELESELECT ANYTHING THERE

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maybe when you're trying to burn your collection with Nero's Create MP3 CD function it strips the APEv2 tags to preserve compatibility with mp3 hardware.
Burning your collection as a simple data disc should preserve everything.

Other thing: by AlbumGain am i getting TrackGain too, right? If it is so why not to scan everything as album and select the playback mode later?
(but who's listening to separate songs anyway )