I'm new here, need help on burning CDs

2011-02-20 21:05:05

Hi there folks,

I'm new to the forum. I've got a few problems which hopefully you can help me solve. I'm not that techy with computers and I don't get all the fancy terms used, just know enough for a day-to-day basis. Please try and make your answers relatively simple.

I've got an AC/DC discography which I want to burn on seperate CD-Rs. My car stereo is similar to a stand-alone CD player, so it will only accept audio cds.

I use Burrrn to burn my flac music files at a speed of 8x. Now my main problems are the following:
1. I don't understand what ReplayGain is or what its settings do. Can you please explain the ReplayGain settings and how I should adjust them?
2. Should I even use ReplayGain at all?
3. The volume of the music is significantly low when played on the CD player, really have to crank it up a good amount.

I'm basically looking to achieve a high quality burn and high compatibility for my audio CD (with the available media and hardware I have). I want an increase in the volume of my music without losing sound quality.

I've gone through a lot of frustration and a lot of CDs (now useless) trying to achieve the proper results. Please, if you have any suggestions / advice on the topic of burning audio CDs, do let me know. Hopefully, the members here can help me end my frustration and I may finally be able to enjoy some good quality music.

Thanks in advance folks, looking forward to your answers.

I'm new here, need help on burning CDs

Reply #1 – 2011-02-20 23:40:05

Replaygain is useful to hit a similar volume level for multiple albums (since albums are not all mastered at the same effective loudness level). It typically results in lowered volume.

Using replaygain in the burning process will mean that when Burrrn converts the .flac file to .wav prior to burning, it will scale the volume consistent with the replaygain value.

If you are burning each album from the discography onto a separate disc, you won't get much value out of using replaygain. And anyway it sounds like you don't want the diminished volume.

I wouldn't recommend any attempts to raise the volume (other than don't use replaygain in the burning process) as this will likely move some of the audio samples beyond 100% and result in clipping.

I'm not sure what problems you've had besides replaygain lowering the volume, as the 3 problems you describe are all just lack of understanding about replaygain.

I'm new here, need help on burning CDs

Reply #2 – 2011-02-21 00:03:24

Without altering the mastering, i.e. using multi-band dynamic range compression, hard limiting, and EQ changes, you can only amplify to the maximum possibility of the current mastering. That may already be about max.

If maximum samples are not already at or about 0dBfs, you can normalize the wav to 0dB. Doing this will not in any slightest way hurt the audio quality, it will only make it play louder (for any given setting of the volume control). Besides, you don’t have to change your archive in the slightest, only the copy that you intend to put onto the CD-R.

You might also have some success normalizing each individual track rather than the entire album. This obviously changes the relative loudness of the tracks, making the greatest change in those with the lowest peaks. You probably would not want to do this for listening at home but it might make for a useful gain in the automobile environment.

Basically, automobiles are very probably the main factor, or excuse, if you will, for the terrible mastering practices that have been widely employed in the last two decades. Good music and automobiles just don’t go together. Maybe that doesn’t strictly apply to Rolls or a few other especially expensive sedan type autos, but certainly to the majority.