Cool-ass MP3 program

[[AK]Sonic Boom]

And it's free! Here's a blurb from the site:

Tired of reaching for your volume knob every time your mp3 player changes to a new song?

MP3Gain analyzes and adjusts mp3 files so that they have the same volume.

MP3Gain does not just do peak normalization, as many normalizers do. Instead, it does some statistical analysis to determine how loud the file actually sounds to the human ear.
Also, the changes MP3Gain makes are completely lossless. There is no quality lost in the change because the program adjusts the mp3 file directly, without decoding and re-encoding.

(Edit: If you don't like the gain changes, you can undo them with no loss, since the program only alters the "global gain" field in the file.)

[[AK]Squidly]

*cough*iTunes*cough*

[[AK]Nuts]

I've never played around with Itunes... are those mp3s?

[[AK]Squidly]

You can rip your cds as MP3 and play them in iTunes, yes. You can also play MP3s from any other source you come up with.

The added benefit is access to the iTunes store, which gives you movies, videos, audio books, and of course, music.

[[AK]Nuts]

Never played with Itunes or used an Ipod... always thought that Apple was sticking with a non-portable media type and not an open format like .mp3. But if I understand, the songs you get from itunes online store aren't .mp3, right? Can you convert them from their format?

[[AK]Hylander]

You can rip your cds as MP3 and play them in iTunes, yes. You can also play MP3s from any other source you come up with.

The added benefit is access to the iTunes store, which gives you movies, videos, audio books, and of course, music.

"I" never owned an iPod per se, but my wife had the original shuffle (stick of gum) and has an iPod Video. She buys a song and/or video here and there off iTunes - but not a whole lot.

That said, I still use iTunes as my primary music organizer MP3 player because I found it works very well and I like to look around the store from time to time and watch some free items, previews, trailors, or sample music/songs.

You can import songs from your CDs in unprotected MP3 format up to 320kbps if I recall correctly. There are also some AAC files you can purchase unprotected, but I don't know about converting them to MP3.