Bob Katz on Mastering for iTunes

http://www.amazon.com/iTu...Delivery/dp/0415656850

In view of a recent thread regarding the re-release of AC/DC's catalog on iTunes, thought this might be of interest to some.

Before spending money on a book, you might start with reading Apples Mastered for iTunes guidelines:

http://images.apple.com/itunes/mastered-for-itunes/docs/mastered_for_itunes.pdf


I think you might find that there's less rocket science here and more really basic obvious common sense (like "don't clip"). In fact in some more technical circles it's considered kind of a joke that Apple felt they actually needed to tell this kind of stuff to mastering engineers.

I'm thinking those guidelines supplied by Drew and a sufficient knowledge already gained in producing a good mix will save you the price of another Bob Katz book.
 
It isn't complicated at all, tags are not complicated, destination formats are not complicated if you know already what is required to produce final output for that format.
 
You'll notice if you read the guidlines that mp3's are old hat and Apple have been moving toward embracing higher quality and lossless file formats, with AAC being their format of choice for a good while now.  Needing to make any decisions about the mp3 compression has never been an issue because it's dependent on the encoder and one mp3 encoder is normally as bad as any other.  The best decision to make about mp3's is not to use them.
 
Tagging for iTunes offers more scope as well if you read the guidlines and see the way music is presented both on-line and off-line and I think you'll find that tagging is by no means under-utilized by artist or followers alike. 
 
 
You might realize that much Mike when you start streaming some stuff instead of clinging to the idea that a static download on a web-server is still the best way forward as far as connecting with an audience goes... 
 
It isn't rocket science to read instructions, it's what you do when you supply media to anyone that wants it in order give 'em what they are asking for.
 
Mystery and complication is usually introduced to make things seem insurmountably difficult often when somebody is trying to sell books at $30 a pop or because they like engaging in windy debates, the rest of us can just happily do what's required as laid out.
 
Good ol' Bob comes from a time when specialist skills and equipment were essential in providing quality output, these days none of it is beyond the ken of your average savvy singer songwriter. 
 
I can't blame him for writing a book though as many people like to sanctify things by making them seem more difficult, even to themselves, there's still some financial mileage to be had out of that.

This is one of those things where you can either get with the programme and do the best work you can for the distribution platforms that actually exist, or you can obstinately decide to suck at working with the distribution platforms that actually exist. It's nothing new. There are loads of old guys you've never heard of who thought it was beneath them to make stuff sound good on cassette.

I'm totally with Dave Pensado on this. His exact words: "Get off your lazy ass and figure out how to work with what you've got instead of complaining about it".

As a tangential point, people *in general* are listening to the best audio quality they've ever listened to. Audiophile turntables and amps were always a niche thing. Pre-mp3, people were listening to music on off-brand Walkman clones and crackly nasty supermarket all-in-one turntable 'n' tape deck combos. Cheap headphones are better than they've ever been. The frequency range of even mid-grade mp3 is way, way higher than tape was. And so on. The idea that we've entered some dark age of low-quality listening equipment is nonsense.

I think today's mp3 tagging is far superior to the cassette tagging I grew up with.

Undoubtedly the latter.
 
They are mostly trying to address the problems of content supplied by people who frequent forums and take their guidance from the conflicting opinions found there.
 
Good for Apple for making it as bullet-proof simple as it can be in this case.
 
It's a guideline, doubtless there will be reams of hot air expounded over its virtue or otherwise hopefully though people will just follow the plain simple common-sense contained in it.
 
( Then I can make MY stuff LOUDER and have more BASS than anyone elses... )

OK, I'll give you the free version based on Amazon's synopsis:

Topics covered include:

• Contrasting the production of CD albums with iTunes albums - Don't know about this one. Maybe this will cover tracks vs. albums? Or just old vs. new?

• High Resolution audio - He'll talk about bit depth, sampling rates, etc. 

• Dithering - He'll explain dithering, and he'll almost certainly get it right (unlike many explanations you might read elsewhere). But I will be happy to either point you to a reasonable reference or explain it in excruciating detail if you'd like.

• Distortion (and how to avoid it) - Maybe this is about clipping? Or maybe about how other processing (overcompressing) distorts audio?

• Lossy Coding - He'll give an overview of how lossy codecs work. I don't know how detailed it will be, but I suspect he will get it right, as (unlike many writers) he tends to do his due diligence for things like this. 

• Loudness Metering - Jeff will be happy to explain K-system to you for free. In fact, he will be unable to resist explaining it to anyone willing to listen.  

• Sound Check and how it affects our production techniques - Overcompression is even dumber (if that were possible) when your audience's iTunes player is going to automatically turn down overcompressed audio anyway - effectively undoing the loudness "benefit" you got from all that compression, but leaving all the horrible detriments intact.

• Apple’s tools for Mastered for iTunes - What Apple's tools are and how to use them. Because Apple's stuff is always so incredibly hard to figure out on your own. 

Foreword by renowned mastering engineer Bob Ludwig. - Sorry, you'll have to pay for this part.


Now don't get me wrong. Katz is a good writer and a good guy who bothers to get the technical theory type stuff correct (as opposed to the mastering/engineering stuff that you'd just expect someone like him to have expertise in). His Mastering Audio: The Art and the Science is a great book that everyone should read.

I sure it's actually a very good book.

The point is that there just really isn't much to Apple's Mastered for iTunes initiative. It's just a bunch of very basic common sense guidelines and some new tools. I just can't imagine it's worth buying a $30 book on it, particularly when a lot of the information is probably the same as Katz' mastering book already.

I too don't think you need this book, Rain. The key to beating this mp3 monster is to read up on what each digital download company expects. If they allow a wave file to be uploaded so it can be converted by them, your best bet is to totally avoid any loudness wars with limiting and keep the master file at -0.3 at all times. You shouldn't get any clipping and your mp3 conversion or whatever they use should be good also. The only time you may notice something is when a song is long which may force a lower encoding.

If the mainstream encoding turns out to be something around 160 kb or under, you're doomed with a long song no matter what you do. As long as it's 192 kb or above, you should just about always be in good shape. Keep volumes sane, watch your limiting and you should be in good shape.

Some guys export their mastered mp3 right from a project. I don't condone doing it this way because if you are at 24/48 and are going to export a 16/44 mp3 out, once it converts, the levels you had for 24/48 will not be the same for 16/44. So if you are exporting a 24/48 out of your DAW that will be converted to 16/44 mp3, the overall level is going to be different and if you're mixing pretty hot already, by the time you go to 16/44 mp3, you'll be clipping if you used the same output level. So you have to be careful here.

I have plugs that allow me to monitor what a file will look and sound like at 16/44 even though I'm at 24/48. This also shows me where my overs will be because once you convert to 44.1 and dither, you're going to lose that headroom. If I see a reading of -0.3 in my project at 24/48 while using my limiter, rest assured if I export, dither and convert my sample rate, I'll be clipping when I listen to that 16/44 file. This is what you don't want in an mp3 situation....or any situation actually. 

Loudness eliminated, a great mix and easy on the limiter are the best ways to beat this animal in any format. If you get a record deal, it's one less thing you need to worry about. But for the stuff that's for your head or whatever, you should be able to get great results without a book. There's no real science to this in my opinion. Garbage in, more garbage out due to encoding artifacts. Add loudness and excessive limiting on top of it...and man, you're in for a horrible sounding song. That's been my experience. Even my 128 kb tunes sound pretty good to my ears. Of course I prefer 192 and above because I honestly can't tell a difference between them and a 16/44 wave file unless I really listen close for every little detail part at a time over and over. If you can't tell a difference on something after listening 3 times, it's not worth forming an opinion on it really. So keep some of this in mind brother...it works for me all the time. :)

-Danny

SongCraft


Why focused 'only' on iTunes?,.. for example; album and single releases are handled by 'a' distributor; those very same tracks are all distributed to hundreds of other music sites worldwide. Some of those sites also sell CD's.   

So no matter the target (retailer) the final master has to be very well done -- but I suppose this book may have some new tricks up it's sleeve. 

  I just read the article on this in Mix magazine. My take on it is that Apple have found themselves yet another ingenious way to market their Itunes.vs other brands. And from all accounts the competition is gearing up to kick it seriously.
 
 Apple can brag that their "standards" are better,that you are getting the most bang for your buck by using itunes compared to the others. I commend them for at least coming up with a standard for improvement on a product, how much of an improvement it is remains negligible.Cracking down on what is acceptable will push standards up, but any of the competion can do the same thing and mp3  at 256 is still an mp3 at 256 or an AAC mp4 is still what it is.Any of the others can institute similar standards and get the same results.
 
 Unless I'm missing something here(and I could be),this is primarily aimed at getting and keeping the customer in a wider playing field and giving a potential artist/uploader at least the perception that Apple is better.

just for the record, my method:

mix at 24 bit/44.1 khz.


output 24 bit file to wavelab.

apply magic fairy dust ala Waves plugins and a few secret sauces.

dither to 16 bit.


THEN, create (2) output files: 16 bit redbook format wav, and mp3 at 320kbps.

i like the idea of mastering to a ceiling of -0.3

i've historically taken it to -0.2......
but danny makes a good point about trying to hit a number that works across the board for ALL formats.


i did a study of my own, of a bunch of 'louder' modern pro mixes, about a year ago, and almost all of them were at -0.1.

but that's specifically for CD's, and by now most cd players and DVD players SHOULD be able to handle that level without the convertors crapping out.



i just prefer to use 44.1 and 16 bit, as a final output, because it's the lowest common denominator.


and at the point, even tho i prefer wavelab, ANY encoder will work with a 16 bit redbook wav file, so it's a common method of delivery.

Bub

batsbrew

just for the record, my method:

mix at 24 bit/44.1 khz.

output 24 bit file to wavelab.

apply magic fairy dust ala Waves plugins and a few secret sauces.

dither to 16 bit.

THEN, create (2) output files: 16 bit redbook format wav, and mp3 at 320kbps.

I've been doing all my projects 96/32. I export my final master to 96/32 and create a 320/48kHz MP3 from it. No dithering. It's rare that I even make a CD any more so I don't even waste the space with a 16bit file, 32bit one for that matter. I stopped listening to the wav files and just listen to MP3's. When I need a 16bit master, I go back and do it from the project.

I keep my masters a bit lower than Danny. I stopped looking at that number to be honest, and I think my masters have been coming out a lot better. There's a little meter thing-a-ma-bob on Melda's limiter that I use now. I keep it hovering in the middle of the scale and my masters end up around the -2.5 ~ -0.5 range which is fine for me. Depending on the material and how much compression I used, some sound much louder than others anyway, even at -2.5db.

Bub, that's actually smart you go lower than -0.3. That number is what you might want to consider if you were doing some sort of modern rock or metal where you're trying to make things loud for impact etc. But for sure, anything that doesn't fall into those genre's, I'd have it lower also. For the stuff you do that I've heard which is really clean, you'd do yourself an injustice going any hotter than you are. If you start losing that clean sound that I've come to enjoy by you, I'm, coming after you. LOL! (j/k) It ain't easy making things that clean....I commend thee! :)
 
Bats: I dunno man, something about that WaveLab encoder for me too. Nothing else I've tried does what that thing does. I wish I knew what it was but I can literally tell a difference with other encoders on the stuff I do here. I'd say that thing in WaveLab is the best mp3 encoder I've ever used hands down. It's probably all in my head though. LOL! But I swear I always hear something better when I use that WL encoder.
 
-Danny

Danny Danzi

Bub, that's actually smart you go lower than -0.3. That number is what you might want to consider if you were doing some sort of modern rock or metal where you're trying to make things loud for impact etc. But for sure, anything that doesn't fall into those genre's, I'd have it lower also. For the stuff you do that I've heard which is really clean, you'd do yourself an injustice going any hotter than you are. If you start losing that clean sound that I've come to enjoy by you, I'm, coming after you. LOL! (j/k) It ain't easy making things that clean....I commend thee! :)
 
-Danny

Thanks! :) I wouldn't be too hard to find actually ... it's not like Peculiar Missouri is all that big. :)

I really struggled with getting my masters up around that -3 ~ 0db. Then I said to myself, I'm spending so much time doing this, and nobody can really hear the difference between a couple db when they're bouncing down the road listing to the CD anyway ... I just go strictly by that meter now in the Melda Limiter and it's served me well. For being free, that Melda Suite is frickin' sweet. :)