Should I use Replay Gain?
 

I've never messed around with stuff like normalization or gain in my life. Very fearful that the process will fuxor my mp3s.

Should I try Replay Gain on the tunes on my iPod as I notice the volume on some tracks are too varied?

Looked at the preferences for Volume and there's stuff like Don't use on this iPod, use track gain, use album gain, and a global gain??

And I read on the hydrogenaudio wiki that most Replay Gain uses a 'reference level of 89db'? So why are there different settings in mlipod's preference?

And Replay Gain uses an algorithm to measure perceived loudness. Does this mean it's not as 'accurate' for lack of a better word, as normalizing? I don't want my mp3s to be 'colored' in anyway.

Do you guys use Replay Gain at all??

:igor: :igor: :weird:

1- If you don't like the variations in volume on the iPod, definatly use Replaygain. You must also enable "Sound Check" on the iPod.

2- Unlike some other methods, Replaygain doesn't modify the music in any way. It just enters a value in the ID3 header. Just tell your played not to use it and it is gone.

3- Replaygain is more accurate than normalization!

4- There are only a few choices in ml_iPod.
a. Don't use it.
b. Use album gain.
c. Use track gain.

Track gain equalizes all tracks. The way yo go if you shuffle songs.

Album gain equalizes whole albums to each other, but doesn't change the level between the songs in the albums.

Thanks Bilbo. I will give this a try.

What value should I set the slider to if I want to use track gain?

After setting the value, will it be applied to all the music currently in my iPod?

And what's the Global Gain for if the track gain already does the normalizing?

Thanks!

ml_iPod converts rg data to the sound check equivalent. If their is no RG info in the file being transfered, than it would use the value in the slider instead.

If all of the music you are transfering is RG'd, than this has no function. You can easly ad RG in Winamp. Just select the songs or albums, right click, send to:, Replaygain.

Hmmm sorry I'm still not quite understanding it. The current music on my iPod are not Gained nor normalize. I want to apply the Gain to the current music, and the same Gain to tracks I upload in future?

This setup would only apply to new transfers. You could probably add RG data to songs already on the iPod (although I havn't tried it), but you need "Sound check" data to be used on the iPod. As far as I know, that conversion can only be done by ml_iPod on the transfer of songs to the iPod.

Since I have all my songs in the ML, I simply retransfered all the songs to the iPod. All future songs would be done on transfer.

Hmmm Ok ... I really want to apply Replay Gain to the existing music but I don't have them in my ML so I can't just retransfer. I'd have to export all of them out. Argh.

Thanks Bilbo, you've been very helpful.

Great info on Replay Gain in this thread. Thanks!