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Topic: MP3 Levelling: did I shoot myself or should I care (Read 3609 times) previous topic - next topic
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MP3 Levelling: did I shoot myself or should I care

Hello,
I may have made a big mess but can't tell. Over the last 5 years I have ripped my CD's (500+) into mp3's.
An error I made in a backup program recently overwrote my un-leveled library

I have used itunes, mediamonkey, mediaplayer, winamp, and foobar2000 and MP3Gain
I thought that I had removed or undone all the sound leveling that I tried.
I also thought that none would leave changes.
But, at the front of the files are replaygain tags and itunes comment data words.
At the back are APETAGEX MP3Gain tags

If I undo any MP3Gain changes and then delete the MP3Gain, itunes and replaygain tags
how likely is it that my files would be as ripped?
Or should I just start ripping again?

Am I correct in believing it is OK to run MP3Gain undo on a file that was already undone?
Thanks
Steve

MP3 Levelling: did I shoot myself or should I care

Reply #1 –
Worst case your volume levels will be equalized.  Is that really a big deal?

MP3 Levelling: did I shoot myself or should I care

Reply #2 –
Quote from: Steve_L on
If I undo any MP3Gain changes and then delete the MP3Gain, itunes and replaygain tags how likely is it that my files would be as ripped?
Or should I just start ripping again?
I see it this way: MP3 is lossy. MP3Gain does not degrade quality as I understand it. Permanent gain changes, or undoing it, doesn't matter for me. I have MP3gained (doing the same with fb2k now) all my lossy encoding without saving undo tags. Undoing gain change doesn't make lossy more lossless, as I see it.

MP3 Levelling: did I shoot myself or should I care

Reply #3 –
The only problem i can see would be if it was track gain rather than album gain. Two tracks that should play seamlessly together might have a noticeable volume change during the track change.
If you decide to re-rip everything, go lossless. Buy an external hard drive to store the files if you have to.

MP3 Levelling: did I shoot myself or should I care

Reply #4 –
Thanks for the replies. Leveling, normalization or equalizing is an issue for me when it comes to listening to many of my old rock albums and classicals. 
There are albums I listened to so many times in the 60's that they sound messed up when I level them. 
I think I'll rip a few songs and compare them to the tag stripped tracks and see if they sound different and look at the FFT and bit comparisons to see if they are very different.
I can almost talk myself into ripping again since many of mine were done in the late 90's and the codec's were not so great then.
Happy Trails

MP3 Levelling: did I shoot myself or should I care

Reply #5 –
Quote from: Steve_L on
There are albums I listened to so many times in the 60's that they sound messed up when I level them.
ReplayGain Album gain simply adjusts the volume control once per album. Pretty harmless (unless you object to digital volume controls).

ReplayGain Track gain and Apple's soundcheck adjust the volume control for every track. I don't use it. As andrew_berge said, it can ruin gapless albums, and some people may dislike what it does to most albums.

Cheers,
David.