I want to burn MP3s to an audio CD. The problem is that these MP3s are already clipped (the track peak level is above 1.00 when scanned in foobar) and I've read in an earlier post in this forum that decoding MP3 will add additional clipping. So I was thinking of using MP3Gain to lower the volume of the MP3s before burning to an audio CD to prevent the additional clipping. Is this a good idea?

I would bother only if the clipping is noticeable.

In the past I've had a poor quality audiobook @ 16000 Hz, overflowing by as much as 3 dB. Since there was no HF content in this material, the sharp clipping was very distracting. Loud pop music might do satisfactory without decrease in amplitude.

Good idea only if you use the maximum peak without clipping, generally -1.5, -3.0, 4.5dB. I found out that very loud songs peaking at 0dB can be have very whimpy loud sound if you bring them -10dB down.

It is also a good idea to keep the loud songs all together in separate from the quieter, "mid-loud" songs...

isn't this loudness race such a disgrace?...

Sorry, I don't quite get what you mean in the above sentence. You mean I should bring down the dB by just 1.5/3.0/4.5 instead of 10?

The songs that I want to burn are big casualties of the loudness war, ranging from -11 to -13dB, so the waveforms look like solid bricks in Audacity.

You could just run the audio through Foobar2000's Advanced Limiter, or some other limiter that isn't an outright brickwall. Combined with a really light, almost inaudible attenuation (say -0.3db), that should kill all your clipping issues.

You can decode the mp3 to wav aplying replaygain on the files with the option "prevent clipping acording the peak" it will decrease the volume until the peak reach the maximum value (1.0) and will prevent clipping. Anyway if volume isn't trouble you can aply the track or album gain of the mp3 into the decoded wav, it will despite any clipping and will make all the files sound at the same amount of loudness (aplying track gain).
These clippings only happen on the mp3 or the wavs are already clipped too?

If the MP3 files are really broken they got to be fixed once and for all, instead of applying the fix every time you do something with them. Take advantage that you can do it for MP3.

Can you tell me how to access the Advanced Limiter? I'm still unfamiliar with the more complicated Foobar functions.



Interesting method, I don't have the original wavs but it's likely they've been already clipped.


I'm not quite sure what you mean.

I wanted to say that if clipping is a problem with the given files, a negative gain should be applied using mp3trim, mp3directcut or whatever. So that clipping occurs never again, no matter what player you'd be using.