Should I use Replay Gain on Flac rip?

[longhorn]

I have started ripping my collection and am using replay gain (DSP). I have recently read some material which makes me wonder if I should be doing so. Apparently, some people think that the files should be ripped as they were originally mastered. I know replay gain only changes the tag but I will ask the following anyway.

If I wanted to reverse this later (after ripping 100s of CDs) is there a way to do so for a very large batch of files?

Is it problematic or a relatively consistent and easy process?

Do you think it would be better not to rip the originals with the replay gain tags and add them later or simply continue adding this DSP while ripping.

[Spoon]

It (replaygain) is just a tag value, the audio is not altered until playback so is 100% safe to use.

[longhorn]

Originally Posted by Spoon

It (replaygain) is just a tag value, the audio is not altered until playback so is 100% safe to use.

I realize that but I'm looking for a little advice as stated in my post. I guess I atleast need to know the best way to undo the ReplayGain for hundreds of flac file tags at the same time. Should I use a tag edditor or batch converter.....please give me a starting point. I'm not saying that I will be doing this right away but I have commenced ripping my collection and your response will help me decide wheather I will continue adding the ReplayGain tags or not. Thanks for your reply.

[Spoon]

You want to remove the replaygain tags from flac files?

[garym]

First, you're worried over absolutely nothing. the replaygain tag in your FLAC file has no more potential to damage your lossless audio that the tag that contains the track name or album name. Some players use the tags, some don't. But all that do use the tag allow you to turn replaygain on or off in the player. Again, it is not changing anything about the encoded audio. If you don't want the replaygain tags (and can't for the life of me understand that), it is simple to get rid of them. Use some sort of batch approach to delete the tags created by replaygain. This is no different than deleting any other tags related to the file.

[eboyer93]

It would be a waste of time to delete the tags as they do nothing at all to the encoded audio. There only useful for when you have a player that supports it. I wouldn't delete them because they could be used with some players (like foobar2000) and replay gain is cool.

[longhorn]

Thanks for all your help. Now I can continue ripping. I just wanted to make sure I was doing this right because I have hundreds more CDs to rip and don't want to do it twice. Again, I appreciate the help.

[eboyer93]

No problem

[eboyer93]

Here is another player that supports flac and replay gain Songbird