Woochifer
02-23-2012, 03:00 PM
Interesting initiative now being undertaken with the iTunes Music Store aimed at improving the sound quality for the music tracks sold through that site. Apple has issued a set of technical guidelines for optimizing the music files that record companies submit for sale on the iTunes Music Store. They're aimed at retaining the sound quality of a song as it gets converted from the original master format down to the compressed iTunes Plus (AAC, 256k) music file. Even though audiophiles have been clamoring for Apple to offer up higher res or lossless files, these guidelines are all about making better sounding compressed files, nothing more.
http://images.apple.com/itunes/mastered-for-itunes/docs/mastered_for_itunes.pdf
Apple also opened a new section in the iTunes store of albums that have been "Mastered for iTunes." Right now, the selection is relatively limited, but supposedly all of the albums that have been resubmitted following these new mastering guidelines will be highlighted in this section.
Connecting to the iTunes Store. (http://www.itunes.com/masteredforitunes)
Ars Technica has a good article on this, including some interesting commentary from the mastering engineer currently working on remastering Rush's catalog for iTunes. He outlined the differences in the mastering steps taken with the vinyl, CD, and now iTunes versions.
I have the LP for Moving Pictures, and I remember how horrid the original CD issue sounded by comparison. Turned out that they purposely blunted the highs because they knew that "the end users' stylii would be crap." The Blu-ray audio version that I now have sounds stellar compared to the others.
It's also interesting to hear how much massaging and trial and error is needed to work with the AAC format.
Mastered for iTunes: how audio engineers tweak music for the iPod age (http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2012/02/mastered-for-itunes-how-audio-engineers-tweak-tunes-for-the-ipod-age.ars)
The AAC compression algorithm is "quite quirky." Without compressing a song, and carefully listening to it, then comparing to the uncompressed master, there's no way to predict how the sound will change. Vlado Meller, another engineer at Masterdisk, described mastering for iTunes "like polishing your Bentley in total darkness, then turning on the lights to see where you missed."
I've bought several tracks on iTunes, and the sound quality generally leaves a lot to be desired. I wasn't sure what, if any, quality control steps were taken before the music files would get posted to the iTunes Music Store. I'm not even sure if it's the AAC compression, because tracks that I rip from my CDs and DVDs, and encode into AAC seem to sound better.
Seems like more of a stop gap measure until Apple starts offering lossless tracks. But, given my experiences with iTunes, anything that adds a layer of quality control to the process seems like a much needed improvement.
http://images.apple.com/itunes/mastered-for-itunes/docs/mastered_for_itunes.pdf
Apple also opened a new section in the iTunes store of albums that have been "Mastered for iTunes." Right now, the selection is relatively limited, but supposedly all of the albums that have been resubmitted following these new mastering guidelines will be highlighted in this section.
Connecting to the iTunes Store. (http://www.itunes.com/masteredforitunes)
Ars Technica has a good article on this, including some interesting commentary from the mastering engineer currently working on remastering Rush's catalog for iTunes. He outlined the differences in the mastering steps taken with the vinyl, CD, and now iTunes versions.
I have the LP for Moving Pictures, and I remember how horrid the original CD issue sounded by comparison. Turned out that they purposely blunted the highs because they knew that "the end users' stylii would be crap." The Blu-ray audio version that I now have sounds stellar compared to the others.
It's also interesting to hear how much massaging and trial and error is needed to work with the AAC format.
Mastered for iTunes: how audio engineers tweak music for the iPod age (http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2012/02/mastered-for-itunes-how-audio-engineers-tweak-tunes-for-the-ipod-age.ars)
The AAC compression algorithm is "quite quirky." Without compressing a song, and carefully listening to it, then comparing to the uncompressed master, there's no way to predict how the sound will change. Vlado Meller, another engineer at Masterdisk, described mastering for iTunes "like polishing your Bentley in total darkness, then turning on the lights to see where you missed."
I've bought several tracks on iTunes, and the sound quality generally leaves a lot to be desired. I wasn't sure what, if any, quality control steps were taken before the music files would get posted to the iTunes Music Store. I'm not even sure if it's the AAC compression, because tracks that I rip from my CDs and DVDs, and encode into AAC seem to sound better.
Seems like more of a stop gap measure until Apple starts offering lossless tracks. But, given my experiences with iTunes, anything that adds a layer of quality control to the process seems like a much needed improvement.