Lossless Music Files - Levelling and Sharing?

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Art Awreet

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Jan 12, 2007
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I have started the long and arduous task of attempting to slowly change over my electronic music library from MP3 to Lossless (Apple Lossless). Which will involve having to re-record much of my house vinyl.

Can anyone recommend the best PC (not Mac) volume leveller if you are drawing your music library from both MP3's and Apple lossless files as sources? I have always used MP3 gain for MP3's but this doesn't work for Apple Lossless. I've heard about ivolume but given that it isn't free I wanted to canvass opinions

Also I was wondering if anyone could recommend a lossless file sharing resource for oldskool. I have always used soulseek but haven't been on for ages and am not sure whether lossless works
 
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ilovepiano

Active member
Jul 9, 2002
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Art Awreet said:
I have started the long and arduous task of attempting to slowly change over my electronic music library from MP3 to Lossless (Apple Lossless). Which will involve having to re-record much of my house vinyl.

Can anyone recommend the best PC (not Mac) volume leveller if you are drawing your music library from both MP3's and Apple lossless files as sources? I have always used MP3 gain for MP3's but this doesn't work for Apple Lossless. I've heard about ivolume but given that it isn't free I wanted to canvass opinions

Also I was wondering if anyone could recommend a lossless file sharing resource for oldskool. I have always used soulseek but haven't been on for ages and am not sure whether lossless works
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You could try Adobe Audition or Soundforge. Both are great for recording your tracks and then normalising / hard limiting.

Given how cheap storage is these days, I'd just stick with .wav files rather than use any kind of compression, lossless or otherwise.:thumbsup:
 
siman91

siman91

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Dec 28, 2002
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Adobe audition every time. I run 1.5 which is an old version but does a great job. Best of luck in re recording everything, fortunately I have recorded wav and mp3's

S
 
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Jiglo

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I can't help you mate, but can I ask why you have decided to choose apple lossless on a pc? Has it got some special properties that you need, or has it got the best sound to compression ratio or something?
 
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Art Awreet

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Jiglo said:
I can't help you mate, but can I ask why you have decided to choose apple lossless on a pc? Has it got some special properties that you need, or has it got the best sound to compression ratio or something?
Click to expand...

The only reason I want to move to apple lossless is because I use Itunes for my music database (Ipods, Iphone user). Unfortunately Itunes is not compatible with FLAC lossless files. I could use WAV's but the files are twice as big as lossless compressed files and also I think there are problems with tagging the files (correct me if this has changed)

Thanks to all for the advice. I was planning on re-recording with my Ion USb turntable again which uses the Audacity software. This can also normalise, before exporting to WAV (which I then convert to Apple Lossless using DBPower Amp software) however I have a lot of tunes in MP3 which I don't have the vinyl for, so a playlist might have a mixture of lossless and MP3 files (which will need levelling to make sure the lossless and MP3 files are all at the same level)
 
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ilovepiano

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What about .wma lossless? Don't know if itunes will play them though. At least then if you leave Appleland it'll save converting everything again.
 
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SCR101.5

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Apr 19, 2003
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You can get plug-ins to play flacs through itunes (at least through a mac), but have to mess around with your ipod if you want to play them (which is what I think you want to do)
The one thing I really miss on a PC is the discogs Foobar plugin, so that instead of painstakingly having to label up your vinyl rips, download the plugin, find the EP in discogs, hit a button & bang, all done for you.
 
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ComaProject

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Oct 24, 2010
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ah if you're using the ION Usb to record, then I wouldn't spend too much time worrying about audio quality mate. The Ion sucks imho. Very poor. Personally I wouldn't waste my time if thats what you are using. Sorry. (i'd even go as far as to say it could damage your records. The arm weight is far too heavy, and isnt adjustable.. nor is there tracking either)

If you want to record to wav/apple lossless then do it right mate. Get a proper turntable with proper stylus.
 
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blue jammer

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ComaProject said:
ah if you're using the ION Usb to record, then I wouldn't spend too much time worrying about audio quality mate. The Ion sucks imho. Very poor. Personally I wouldn't waste my time if thats what you are using. Sorry. (i'd even go as far as to say it could damage your records. The arm weight is far too heavy, and isnt adjustable.. nor is there tracking either)

If you want to record to wav/apple lossless then do it right mate. Get a proper turntable with proper stylus.
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^^^ spot on.

I think the Ion is limited to 128kbps quality recording so I'd avoid that as you'll strip most of the frequencies out and the recording playback will sound terrible.

As for apple and Itunes - don't get me started on that pile of bullshit :gigolo:
 
A

Art Awreet

Member
Jan 12, 2007
158
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London
blue jammer said:
^^^ spot on.

I think the Ion is limited to 128kbps quality recording so I'd avoid that as you'll strip most of the frequencies out and the recording playback will sound terrible.

As for apple and Itunes - don't get me started on that pile of bullshit :gigolo:
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Now you and Coma have got me a bit worried:$ however my Ion turntable does have tracking and an adjustable arm as I try and keep the weight as minimum as possible.

I do still have my old Soundlab decks and KAM mixer in the attic, but wanted to use the Ion because it outputs via the USB straight into the PC (initially I had problems with the gain and had to turn it down). I know its not pure audiophile but thought it would still offer a better lossless sound than a 320kbps MP3 recorded from an expensive deck set-up

Are you sure it only outputs from the USB at 128kbps?
 
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spaceface

Member
Apr 2, 2004
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www.discogs.com
Just thought i'd mention the benefits of cleaning your records before ripping. Maybe you already do, but if not its really worth taking the time. It can make a world of difference to the end result, and in my experience cleaning the record beforehand is worth way more than post-rip processing to remove crackles and the likes digitally.

As for music mangers, have you checked out Music Bee? I found this only fairly recently , but i reckon its the best i've come across. To be honest i've never used any others except itunes (which i ditched a couple of years ago after lack of flac support). Its pretty much identical to itunes except that it doesnt have the fancy album art scrolling display. It does support flac though, and i'm pretty impressed with it so far.
 
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ComaProject

New member
Oct 24, 2010
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Art Awreet said:
Now you and Coma have got me a bit worried:$ however my Ion turntable does have tracking and an adjustable arm as I try and keep the weight as minimum as possible.
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Must have updated it then. Which version do you have?

Best thing would be for you to do a side by side test, and see which gives the best results. May as well, cause if you are going to the trouble of recording your vinyl, you may as well do it properly. You'll probably want to invest in a brand new stylus as well.
 


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