MPC-Donkey
MPC Music for the Masses
http://www.mpc-donkey.net
(links to up-to-date versions and translations: english :: français :: espanõl :: nederlands :: polski :: italiano)
Introduction
You have downloaded an album encoded in Musepack format. MPC (short for Musepack) is an audio compression format whose only goal is ultimate quality at reasonable bitrate. In other words, it is like an archival-quality MP3 file.
For more information please visit Musepack.net, the official Musepack website.
Listening Instructions
Listening to Musepack files is easy. We recommend that you download and install foobar2000. Foobar2000 is a great player with native support of most popular audio formats (including MPC) and many other interesting features, including reading directly from ZIP and RAR archives and ReplayGain.
Foobar2000 will allow you to load the RAR or ZIP file you download directly, without needing to extract it to a folder first.
Here are some other options for listening to Musepack files:
- Winamp users can download and install a plugin from Rarewares. There is a plugin available for Winamp 2.x and Winamp 5.x. Note that many other players support Winamp's plugins like XMPlay, so please check if yours does.
- There is a MPC decoder available for DirectShow players (Windows Media Player, RadLight and many others). It was made by the RadLight team and is also available at Rarewares.
- If you're using another player and you're happy with it please search the Internet for a MPC plugin or ask your favourite player's producer to create it. Musepack is getting more and more popular and with popularity comes support.
ReplayGain
Some MPC-Donkey releases have ReplayGain information. ReplayGain is a method of normalizing the perceptual loudness of a file, or, non-technically, it will make all your music sound equally loud. It is set to "album" mode by default in foobar2000, which will make each album sound equally loud while leaving the quiet songs on an album quiet and keeping the loud songs loud. There is another mode called "track", which will make each track sound equally loud.
These settings can be changed in the "Playback" preferences page in foobar2000.
You can find out more about ReplayGain here.
Useful Links
- The MPC-Donkey.net forums - Information on MPC and the latest MPC releases.
- Hydrogenaudio - A place where you can find all the information on high quality audio compression you'll ever need.
If you've enjoyed this release, don't be a leecher. Share it with others! If you like the album, buy it.
For more high quality MPC releases, visit MPC-Donkey.net.
(english version produced by Crocodil and Canar) \\ readme.html version 1.1.2 (updated 2004-06-24)