how to set m4a file volume/gain ??

[youngr69]

I've just purchased R14.2, love the product. I have searched the forum, however cannot find an answer to the following:

I prefer to use m4a files at their highest quality. The volume differences, however, can be deafening.

What process should I be using to set gain level tags on m4a music files that an IPod will recognize???

Thank you in advance for any assistance or guidance you can provide!!

Robert

[Spoon]

Apple have something called 'SoundCheck' which is similar to replaygain, see:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT2425

[youngr69]

Thank you! How would I apply it to dbpoweramp? I am ripping both FLAC and m4a from the original CD. Do I apply Replay Gain to both?? (or does apple m4a ignore those tags).

Was just starting to search on "volume normalizing" when I noticed a reply. I need to see how that works and if I want to apply it or if I should use SoundCheck instead.

An additional question: it seems (from another post) that setting "volume normalizing" on the CD ripping software will set all the tracks to approximately the same volume level. However does that distort the music or otherwise impact it?? (if not, I would presume everyone would use "volume normalizing" instead of Replay Gain, which sets tags for hardware that will read the tags (but IPods won't read Replay Gain tags on m4a files I think))

I'm trying to get the best quality m4a files I can get for my ipod, while at the same time I'm trying to get the volume levels to be relatively (not necessarily exactly) the same.

So do I use Replay Gain, which will set tags I don't think the IPod will read, and also use "volume normalizing"? Or do I use Replay Gain and then the Apple SoundCheck product?? Which combination will give me better quality
m4a files that have relatively the same volume level??

Note: I checked Apple SoundCheck, it said the following "Sound Check is designed to work with .mp3, .AAC, .wav, and .aiff file types. It does not work with other file types that iTunes can play". And I learned the hard way that AAC files are not equal to m4a files on an Ipod. Sounds like SoundCheck will not work on m4a files.