This guide will shows you the basic steps and basic tools needed to convert your own music CD collection into a decent quality pc based music collection in the mp3 format. Once all the settings done and your first album completed, adding additional albums to your collection thereafter, will be evidently easier!
Please bear in mind that the utilities used in this guide were chosen on their ease of use and track record performances.  The settings mentioned for each utility are of my own preferences and findings so may not necessarily reflect the recommended settings from the software creators. Should you require more in depth info on a specific utility, do not hesitate to consult the utility’s own website.

 Here then are the utilities you’ll need to get you started. (excluding Winamp)  

Once CDex is installed on your machine, the first thing you’ll want to do is  go to its Options menu then to Settings and inside the Encoder tab, select –alt-standard preset  from the Quality drop down list. 
( This setting insures that your resulting mp3’s will be optimized for best possible audio quality/file size. )

Still under Options -> Settings go to Remote CDDB tab and put a check mark inside the Auto connect to remote CDDB check box.
(This will automatically connect you to a huge Internet  CD database which will fill in the cd’s track titles in the  Cdex’s track title window for you.)

You’ll also have to enter your email address under Your E-mail address box.

Go to the “Filenames” tab. Copy the entire line below and paste inside the Filename Format  box.
 %1 - %2\%7 - %4
(This will give each folder created the name of the artist followed by the album’s title) Like this:

and will index each track inside this folder stating from 01 and up. Like this:

Next, inside the two box bellow it, you will need to point to the folder or directory where each albums will be extracted to. Note: In PartyTime Jukebox this will become your master folder.

At this point connect to the Internet and insert the CD that you want to add to your collection.

Wait until all track titles have loaded from the CDDB and from the Convert  menu, choose: Extract CD track(s) to a Compressed Audio File.

MP3Gain will work wonders in correcting all of your albums overall volume levels so that they are closely matched.

You should note that the default value in MP3Gain comes preset at 89 db, and that choosing a much higher value such as 98 db will show some form of track clipping inside MP3Gain.
I should also mention that I have recently seen and heard proof that in some instances, this resulting clipping will be audible so I am  now recommending a more conservative value of  92 db as the target "normal" value.  If this value still introduces clipping inside MP3Gain, then by all mean use the recommended default value of 89 db or even lower.  

The tradeoff of having to use such a low value in order to completely alleviate clipping is that the resulting mp3 will likely have a much lower sound level compared to exact same CD track.  Thus the tradeoff!

Ok here then are the steps to follow in MP3Gain once you have added a full album folder.

Set the target “normal” value (my recommended is 92)

Make sure you have the toolbar center icons set at Album Analysis” and Album Gain in order to correct the volume of the entire album as a whole verses each individual tracks.

Click on the Album Gain icon if you are certain that the overall volume level of the album you’ve just added needs to be corrected.

If you are unsure that the album’s overall volume level needs to be corrected then click on the Album Analysis icon to find out first.

If the whole Album Gain column displays values other than 0’s  then proceed by clicking on Album Gain icon otherwise leave as is.

As a side note, you can do this album volume correction at any time or may even prefer to add multiple folders into MP3Gain and “batch” correct all of their volume at once. This is entirely up to you, though I prefer getting this done straight away myself.

Once installed, open up winamp and go into Options -> Preferences -> Plug-ins -> Output and double click SqrSoft Advanced Crossfading plug-in.

Click on the Presets tab and select Radio from the list of presets.

Click on Advanced tab and put a check mark in Disable popup windows check box.

Once you’ve done the above steps, the only thing that remains to be done is for you to scan your own CD cover and insert the image file into each dedicated folder so that it can be seen by PartyTime Jukebox upon launching it. 

If you do not own a scanner, or do not want to bother scanning your own CD covers, you will most likely find your CD covers by performing a search on this CD cover search engine site .

In the hopes that PartyTime Jukebox and your new music collection  brings you many hours of sheer music enjoyment!  
Happy listening !

Andre Aylestock

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