Various Questions - Volume Levelling etc.

[DLD-UK]

Hi,

I'm new to dbpoweramp and music ripping/portable media players in general. I've read a lot and decided to rip my music to various formats. Firstly, I'm ripping a copy to FLAC that I'm just going to use as an archive copy i.e. I will not play it or doing anything with it. It is just a backup copy of my CD with no compression etc.

I'm then ripping another copy again to FLAC for playing on my hifi. With this version I'm trying to do volume levelling. I'm also ripping a further three copies. Two are MP3 at 192 and 320 for use on different MP3 players. Lastly, I'm ripping to WAVE because people have said it sounds better than FLAC. I don't understand how this can be if FLAC is a bit perfect copy. However, disk space is cheap so why not given that it is done in the same process?

My problem comes with Volume Levelling, naming conventions, and accuracy. Firstly, with volume levelling. I don't know how I'm meant to do this? I've read the options but they don't mean a thing to me. My experimentation shows that it doesn't seem to work. I'm currently using "peak to peak" but I'm still having to change to volume on playback. What are the recommendations here?

I've also tried all sorts of different naming conventions. I found if I didn't put the track number in the name various media players I've tried would not play an album in the correct order. What do people recommend and why?

Lastly, what is the recommendation for getting the best quality rip? Sometimes I get an "inaccurate" result but when I re-rip the tracks I get an accurate result. What should I be doing?

I've browsed and searched this forum and not found easy answers. Is there a simple guide to get started with the software followed by a detailed guide to all the options? If there is I've so far failed to find it! When I do find anything it is written in very technical terms that I don't understand!

Any help/advice would be much appreciated.

DLD

[garym]

Re: Various Questions - Volume Levelling etc.

Do some more reading on FLAC vs WAV (the "people say WAV sounds better" hypothesis has been roundly debunked with numerous empirical tests. Lossless is lossless! Some of these same people "say" that they hear a difference in sound quality when using $2,000 connector cables!

And you'll find that WAV has very limited (and nonstandard) metadata tagging. FLAC files are much more universal with their tags (referred to as vorbis comments). With FLAC files, you'll want to use the DSP to add ReplayGain tag information (both track and album level). Many players will read these tags to give you the volume adjustments you seek. The tags don't alter the data at all, they are just information in the metadata that is there for players that can read it. With mp3 files you can add the replaygain tags as well. In addition you can use volume normalize to actually alter the mp3 audio data permanently with this information. Since the mp3 files seem to be for portable players, you may want to use the latter option as then it won't matter whether the player can use replaygain tags or not.

[DLD-UK]

Re: Various Questions - Volume Levelling etc.

Gary,

Thanks for the reply. I'm currently using the ReplayGain tags as you suggest but I still seem to be finding a difference in sound levels across tracks and albums. Is this because the playback software does not support it and if so is there a program that you would recommend?

DLD

[garym]

Re: Various Questions - Volume Levelling etc.

What players (hardware and software) are you using?

[Spoon]

Re: Various Questions - Volume Levelling etc.

>Lastly, what is the recommendation for getting the best quality rip? Sometimes I get
> an "inaccurate" result but when I re-rip the tracks I get an accurate result. What
> should I be doing?

That is what AccurateRip is for, if there is a bad rip, re-ripping can sometimes reveal the correct result.