"Mastered for iTunes"

what do we all think about this?

http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/blogs/gear-up/mastered-for-itunes-offers-boost-in-digital-sound-quality-20120529?utm_source=loopinsight.com&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+loopinsight%2FKqJb+%28The+Loop%29

'Mastered for iTunes unofficially began last year, when producer Rick Rubin was frustrated with his inability to make the Red Hot Chili Peppers' I'm With You sound as dynamic in the AAC format as it did on a CD. Working with Apple, he tinkered with the master recording, landing on a higher-than-usual bit rate – so when he sent it to iTunes for encoding, it sounded considerably better than a typical compressed audio file. "It's much closer to the sound of the CD and it took several weeks of additional experimentation and mastering to reach the final iTunes master," Rubin told MTV News at the time.'

the red hot chili peppers suck!

'Mastered for iTunes unofficially began last year, when producer Rick Rubin was frustrated with his inability to make the Red Hot Chili Peppers' I'm With You sound as dynamic in the AAC format as it did on a CD.

"He then realized the problem, erased the track and sent out hit men."

just thought i'd point that out...

noted

"it's much closer to the suckiness of the original now said suckmaster rick rubin to a lamp he thought was a reporter."

"Anthony Kiedis was last seen with this unidentified bearded man. Kiedis' whereabouts are currently unknown."
http://www1.pictures.zimbio.com/bg/Kiedis+and+Rubin+Cruise+iz0V2IDQA2Sl.jpg

nobody on ilm likes the red hot chili peppers. or at least would admit to it. fight the real enemy.

Rick Rubin's beard?

shave the real enemy.

he tinkered with the master recording, landing on a higher-than-usual bit rate

mastering is a complex staging of EQ. bit rates are kind of a different deal. it's true that mastering should take into account the end-stage of the track, and it'd be great if everybody could afford to pay mastering engineers three separate mastering fees (one for vinyl, one for CD, one for digitally compressed files) but I suspect "mastered for iTunes" is a misnomer & that the only thing different is a higher bit rate masquerading as a separate mastering.

rick rubin--making terrible songs sound the way they should

it would be NICE if everyone could AFFORD it

yeah i have wondered if when going to a mastering engineer any musicians these days say "this album is primarily going to be distributed/heard on mp3/itunes/etc., does that make any difference in how you approach this?" and what the answer would be.

The answer would be: "All I do is try to make the waveform look like a solid brick."

"i've finally gotten the sound of johnny cash's death rattle to a level where iTunes users will feel like they are actually johnny's uvula and are shuffling off this mortal coil with the man in black", said the delusional man in white.

lol

i mean this is an interesting topic but i would be happy if the thread was just rick rubin zings

yeah i have wondered if when going to a mastering engineer any musicians these days say "this album is primarily going to be distributed/heard on mp3/itunes/etc., does that make any difference in how you approach this?" and what the answer would be.

the mastering engineers I know would say something along the lines of "ideally, you should master for the best overall sound" & explain that people boost levels for compressed files but that it does no favors to your actual sound. my main dude can run a quick A/B and show you what your "for digital" mastering sounds like next to "for quality," and can toggle the difference on and off within the track live - if after that you actually want the "mastered for digital" file then you got tin ears imo

HOWEVER I doubt many artists go to the mastering session & stay for the whole thing if they even ever see the mastering facility at all, it's not the most exciting thing & the mastering place is often a long ways from wherever you are.

weird how The Beatles' Anthology albums were remastered for iTunes last year but (afaik) never got reissued and remastered for CD like the canon albums were. would the Anthology tracks sound worse than the CD versions that still exist then i wonder? or only AS good? #mindmash

HOWEVER I doubt many artists go to the mastering session & stay for the whole thing if they even ever see the mastering facility at all, it's not the most exciting thing & the mastering place is often a long ways from wherever you are.

― cosi fan whitford (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Thursday, May 31, 2012 11:33 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i realize that is the norm, but my studio owner best bro sends most of his stuff to be mastered at a place only an hour or two away and always encourages the artists to go sit in on the session just for the experience of it

my friends' studio has a space where two masterers work right in the same building

i think a lot of mastering engineers discourage the artist from attending the session (mostly because it's a lot of boring A/B'ing and they don't want too much second-guessing, i imagine).

imagine mastering THIS song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izgc7IhcGG4

fucking A i didn't know Alun Armstrong had done Les Miz

only good bit of the show IMO

original vinyl pressing of le miz sounds great. great sound. most lloyd webber vinyl has great sound. don't know about CD though.

I had mp3s of Tony Joe White Rhino handmade box for a year and then I finally found the records and Fuck!! I never really understood how bad mp3s were until I first played those Tony Joe White records. The only word I can think is Large, the records just sound so Large compared to those mp3s.

fucking A i didn't know Alun Armstrong had done Les Miz

― korea opportunities (Noodle Vague), Thursday, 31 May 2012 17:09 (50 minutes ago) Bookmark

there's me predictably briefly bewildered thinking you meant the late 90s former stockport county ledge

The entire Beatles catalogue (studio albums plus Past Masters) is "Mastered for iTunes" for $149. Given that I have no interest in adding another series of CDs to my collection simply so they can take up space, I'm kind of tempted.

Mastered for iTunes means after ripping you put in all the ID3 tags, right?

It being the Beatles, I guess this means we are gonna find out exactly what mastered for iTunes actually entails from an audiological standpoint

I had bought the Past Masters volumes this weekend -- and honestly they sounded great.