Common replay gain settings for itunes and others

[mhulki]

Hi, I've read a lot of related threads in the forum, but at the end, I just want to be sure that I'm doing the right thing.
First of all, I'm using multi encoding as for converting to AIFF (for my itunes archive) and to WAV (uncompressed) (for my hard drives in order to use in other players).
1-When converting to AIFF (for Itunes), as the advices I've read in the forum, I'm choosing replay gain/write Track, Album Gain & Itunes Track Normalization/Advanced-Album ID Tag/Ebu R128/ -18 LUFS Target Volume.
2-When converting to WAV, I'm choosing replay gain/write Track & Album Gain/Advanced-Album ID Tag/Ebu R128/ -18 LUFS Target Volume. But here I'm confused about the other choices as "track gain" and "album gain". Does it matter whether I choose only "Track & Album Gain" or "Track Gain" and "Album Gain" ?

[Spoon]

Re: Common replay gain settings for itunes and others

Album gain is basically track gain but calculated over the whole disc, as effectively a single track.

[mhulki]

Re: Common replay gain settings for itunes and others

Thanks for your reply. But I'd like to know: as it's said in the forum, itunes can only read one tag, either track or album gain. So, if you are generally listening from your own playlists, you'd better choose Track, Album Gain & Itunes track normalization, it's ok.
1-Excluding the use of itunes, what happens if we choose "Track & Album Gain" ? Does this choise mean "smart gain" ?
2-And is there any differences between choosing "track & album gain" and choosing two options together as "track gain" and "album gain" ?

[garym]

Re: Common replay gain settings for itunes and others

Thanks for your reply. But I'd like to know: as it's said in the forum, itunes can only read one tag, either track or album gain. So, if you are generally listening from your own playlists, you'd better choose Track, Album Gain & Itunes track normalization, it's ok.
1-Excluding the use of itunes, what happens if we choose "Track & Album Gain" ? Does this choise mean "smart gain" ?
2-And is there any differences between choosing "track & album gain" and choosing two options together as "track gain" and "album gain" ?

for non-itunes use, it is simple: Choose "Track & Album Gain". This will write both tags and then if your player is capable, it can use either of these. SmartGain option in LMS/Squeezeboxes is where the server automatically chooses ALBUM gain if playing an entire album or TRACK gain if playing tracks from different albums (e.g., your own playlist). Foobar2000 calls this "by playback order" mode.

For itunes use, you would want "Track, Album Gain and Itunes XXXXX normalization", where XXXX is either TRACK or ALBUM. As you note, itunes can only deal with one volume normalization value (called SOUNDCHECK). So the question for you is whether you want the itunes normalization value to be based on ALBUM or TRACK gain values. If you listen to a lot playlists (from different albums) in itunes, you'd want to use: "Track, Album Gain and ITunes TRACK normalization".

"2-And is there any differences between choosing "track & album gain" and choosing two options together as "track gain" and "album gain" ?"

I don't think the latter is even possible. You can't choose both track gain and album gain separately. That's why there are options to add track & album gain tag values as noted above.