What Else for CD Ripping?

[Michael S.]

I have set up basic options in dBpoweramp for CD ripping - including the naming convention for files, the destination folders, FLAC as the encoder, and so on. I read in a help file that it might be good to set up tags for volume leveling or possibly other parameters - is this needed? I have not had problems with volume being uneven between CD's.

My question is: should anything special besides the obvious steps above be done when setting up CD ripper? If volume leveling or anything else should be added, will this work with Media Center? (I use MC for organizing and playing files). I think Media Center may already have volume leveling options available.

[garym]

Don’t do volume leveling that permanently changes the volume. But I recommend adding ReplayGain tags. That’s the only utility DSP I use in ripping. Settings are ALBUM AND TRACK TAGS, -18 LUFS. Replaygain tags are just metadata just like album and artis name. Any replaygain aware server/player can use them (or in the server or player you can turn on a setting to not use them). Again these are just tags. Using volume leveling that permanently modifies the actual files would be a bad idea.

[Spoon]

It is fine to do volume normalizing if creating a 2nd set of files (from your lossless rips), say mp3 for the car, etc, and the player does not support replaygain volume adjustment.

[garym]

It is fine to do volume normalizing if creating a 2nd set of files (from your lossless rips), say mp3 for the car, etc, and the player does not support replaygain volume adjustment.

good point. My 'don't do it' was related to the primary lossless files. Anything is fine for the lossy files created for other purposes. TuneFusion, by the makers of dbpoweramp, is an excellent program for creating versions for use in car, etc. One can easily transfer FLAC files, convert them to lossy, volume normalize if replaygain player not available, etc. I use TuneFusion to create lossy files for my iPhone to use during travel.