Pre-Mix Mp3 Treatment Options

[wrong chris]

Yo DJTT, so I know quite a few of the guys on here treat your mp3s before mixes with software such as Mp3gain and Platinum Notes. I've always just relied on Traktor's autogain feature in the past, but I'm curious to hear your opinions on these types of softwares before I jump into one of these myself.
I've always been a bit leery about these tools, but hopefully you guys can give me some pointers and advice on the best software to use and how to use them properly etc.
cheers

[BentoSan]

I just do it manually, i hate re-encoding files and losing sound quality. I also think platinum notes automatic dynamics thing is a bit dodgy and i just don't trust it - though in the latest version you can now turn that feature off, but you still have the issue with re-encoding your files and losing sound quality - the only real useful feature is to catch clipped peeks and round them off. But in all honestly do people even hear those clipped peaks most of the time ? I only hear them if they are way too intense, then even rounding them off is not going to save the file from sounding like crap.

[levvis]

In the same vein does anyone convert their mp3's to vbr (if this is possible)?

[wrong chris]

I just do it manually, i hate re-encoding files and losing sound quality. I also think platinum notes automatic dynamics thing is a bit dodgy and i just don't trust it - though in the latest version you can now turn that feature off, but you still have the issue with re-encoding your files and losing sound quality - the only real useful feature is to catch clipped peeks and round them off. But in all honestly do people even hear those clipped peaks most of the time ? I only hear them if they are way too intense, then even rounding them off is not going to save the file from sounding like crap.

yes that's what im worried about, i don't want to squash the dynamics out of my tunes if it's unnecessary to do so. i guess what prompted my curiousity is that sometimes traktor's autogain feature isn't 100% reliable. What I do like about the autogain feature is that it's a non-destructive approach to handling volume discrepancies between tracks.

so when you say you do it manually, do you edit the volume of the mp3 in a audio editor software beforehand - or just adjust the gains on the mixer to compensate?

[mmauve]

Use Platinum Notes 3.0, turn off the Dynamic Enhancement bullcrap for sure. If you're gonna process files, I highly recommend not doing mp3 to mp3. Basically PN 3.0 will take the original mp3, convert to .WAV, do its thing, and then reconvert to mp3 yet again. Not good.

[Jester]

Make sure all your tracks are the same quality, aka 320kbps, and if you MUST use autogain, run the tracks together first to get the levels right and change the autogain values in the track info then you are golden (like the shower)

[Ola]

You could use something like mp3gain to normalize your files to the same RMS (mp3gain writes the gain info into the id3 tag, so no re-encoding).

I personally use ableton, and I don't bother with the mp3gain stuff. Instead I use a metering plugin to check the RMS of the loudest parts of each track, and then I adjust the clip volume until I get an RMS of around -9dB. Not that much extra work while I'm warping tracks.