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Vandoblue
01-02-2013, 04:36 PM
I recently purchased my first couple of albums from HDtracks, and I have a question about converting the files for use in iTunes.

The albums are in 96/24 FLAC, so I wound up converting each file twice. The first time was to convert the music to 96/24 Apple lossless (ALAC), a high-quality file which can be played using iTunes on my PC. Then I converted those files again to 48 kHz 16-bit ALAC songs, which can be used on my iPod classic (it won't play 96/24 files).

My question is about the use of ReplayGain to level the volume. I applied ReplayGain when I converted to 96/24 ALAC, and again when I re-converted to 48/16 ALAC. I'm not sure the resulting music files sound the way they should.

Should I apply the ReplayGain effect at each of the two conversion steps , or only at one step or the other? Or should I not use ReplayGain at all for HDtracks FLAC files?

Thanks for your help.

Spoon
01-02-2013, 05:33 PM
Use the DSP effect 'Replaygain' with the new Itunes normalise option, you need this beta:

http://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?26315-DSP-Effects-R9

Then iTunes will adjust the volume based on the ID Tag.

garym
01-02-2013, 05:57 PM
Use the DSP effect 'Replaygain' with the new Itunes normalise option, you need this beta:

http://forum.dbpoweramp.com/showthread.php?26315-DSP-Effects-R9

Then iTunes will adjust the volume based on the ID Tag.

This is because itunes and iPlayers don't use ReplayGain. They need soundcheck values (an itunes/ipod thing). I haven't played with it yet, but this new itunes normalize option will create soundcheck values (itunNORM) from RG values. In the past I've done something similar with mp3tag and actions to create SC values from RG values. Nice to see it coming to dbpa, as this will save me a step when creating lossy files from my FLAC files for use in iphone/ipod/ipads.