Sep 1, 2011
Mastered for iTunes – sonic revelation, or meaningless sales hype ?
[Update: I've made a video demonstrating the difference between the CD release and the "mastered for iTunes" version - to hear the difference for yourself, click here]
So, the new Red Hot Chili Peppers album, “I’m With You” is out – and it seems you can’t read about it anywhere without hearing the news that it’s:
“…the first rock album specially mastered to optimize digital sound quality for iTunes Store customers. The album was produced by Rick Rubin and mastered for iTunes using high-resolution sourced audio to provide fans with an incredibly rich listening experience.”
And you know what ? That pisses me off.
Why ? Three reasons:
- It’s meaningless sales jargon. iTunes is software – an online store and mp3 player. It has no “sound” to optimise the sound quality for.
- It’s still an mp3 file ! OK actually they’re AAC files, not quite as bad as mp3 – but still, the language implies that we can expect to hear something special. But lossy audio will always sound worse than anything on the original compact disc.
- And finally – it sounds terrible. In my not-so humble opinion…
Alarm bells started ringing as soon as I read the blurb.
“We are excited to work with iTunes to make an even better listening experience for fans,” said producer Rick Rubin, who twiddled the knobs for the band’s five previous albums. “We can’t wait for everyone to hear it.”
Oh boy. The band’s “Californication” album is infamous for being one of the first absurdly loud CDs, way back in 1999 – and this one was produced by the same team, who were also responsible for Metallica’s infamous “Death Magnetic” – so you can understand this didn’t fill me with hope.
And sadly, the sound lives up to all my worst expectations.
I’m not going to lie to you, it doesn’t sound good…
To be fair, it doesn’t actually sound quite as bad as Death Magnetic – and in fact looking at the numbers it generates, it’s surprising that it doesn’t sound a hell of a lot worse. But even so the characteristic blunt, flat, clipped loudness-war sound is just… tragic.
If this is what audio “optimised for iTunes” is going to sound like, give me a wax-cylinder gramophone record, any day of the week.
And it leaves me baffled – WHY does it have to sound this way ? Rick Rubin is a self-confessed audiophile – he knows exactly what good-quality audio is about. He believes that people like compression – sure, we do. But not insanely compressed and pointlessly distorted to boot…
Mastered for iTunes ?
So what’s the basis for the trumped-up claims about the audio quality, then ? My guess is that the clue is in the phrase “using high-resolution sourced audio to provide fans with an incredibly rich listening experience.”
On it’s own that means nothing, since ALL audio is mastered from high-resolution sources, these days – but it probably means the AAC files in this case were encoded directly from a high-resolution file, rather than from a CD. Maybe the tracks were even mastered through a real-time AAC encode/decoder, to optimise them for a downloadable file-format rather than CD.
Will this make any difference, in a compressed format like AAC ? It’s impossible to tell with something as sad-sounding as this release, but let’s hope we can hear the benefits of music that’s “mastered for iTunes” in future examples.
I can’t help being reminded of the DVD I just finished authoring for black metal band “Cradle Of Filth” (whose latest album sounds pretty good, by the way – thrashing drums, shrieking vocals and all). It features a documentary called “You Can’t Polish A Turd, But You Can Roll It In Glitter”.
Hmm…
Update: Meaningless hype ? Actually no…
Scott from Masterdisc left a comment below shedding some extra light on this subject – I’m adding it here because lots of people don’t read the comments ! Thanks to Scott for taking the time to reply.
“The goal of the unique AAC master of the Chili Peppers album was to make it sound as close to the CD as possible. The ears involved in the process felt it was a success. Pick up the CD and compare to the AAC file with your ears. It’s really damn close.
Keep in mind, I’m not addressing whether or not you like the sound of the CD. It was RR’s goal to make the Itunes file as true to the sound of the CD as possible despite the data reduction. A lot of time, effort and careful listening went into this project. This was not just media hype.”
So, my guess that “Maybe the tracks were even mastered [through a real-time AAC encode/decoder ?] to optimise them for a downloadable file-format rather than CD” was along the right lines.
How sad and ironic that Rick Rubin asked for so much time, effort and careful listening just to accurately reproduce pointless clipping distortion…
(By the way, for those care about these details, I’m calling it “clipping” distortion because that’s what it sounds like to me – looking at the file it isn’t heavily visually clipped, which suggests the mixes were already distorted when they were supplied for mastering – which was the case for Death Magnetic, too.)
Related posts:
.gif "Dynamic Range Foundation - Active Member")
The goal of the unique AAC master of the Chili Peppers album was to make it sound as close to the CD as possible. The ears involved in the process felt it was a success. Pick up the CD and compare to the AAC file with your ears. It’s really damn close. Keep in mind, I’m not addressing whether or not you like the sound of the CD. It was RR’s goal to make the Itunes file as true to the sound of the CD as possible despite the data reduction. A lot of time, effort and careful listening went into this project. This was not just media hype.
Scott Hull
CEO
Masterdisk
So they used “high-resolution sourced audio”, just to master it down to 3 bits worth of music? I usually do it the other way round. Pathetic.
Hi Ian,
Rick Rubin doesn’t quite seem to act as an audiophile! Either he owns no hi-fi equipment at home – but then again, audiophiles don’t exactly make all of their critical listening on the radio, do they? – OR he knows his CDs sound like s**t and prepares a dynamic mix all for himself. Whatever the case, his work sucks and he’s a hypocrit!
Hi Scott,
Thanks for the reply, and shedding some light. I’ll update the post. What a shame all the effort and hype went into this particular record…
Ian
@ Andrea – Here’s an interview that describes Rubin’s hi-fi:
http://www.musicangle.com/feat.php?id=38
“While I waited for Rubin’s arrival, I noted the equipment: Audio Physic Virgo IIIs (behind which were a pair of enormous Legacy Audio towers), Manley monoblock tube amps, a Hovland HP-100 preamp, and Sony SCD-1 SACD player. Cables included Acoustic Zen interconnects and speaker cables and Shunyata Research AC cords. Yes, Rubin was clearly a serious audiophile”
And, it also describes his thoughts on compression on page 3. Ironically he even says:
“Sometimes actually, if it’s too loud, it sounds worse on the radio”
I wonder how loud he thinks “too loud” is ?
@ Martin – yup, I’m with you
Interesting! Of course I still think it’s meaningless hype but this is fantastic news for us mastering engineers……. as absolutley every album ever now has to be re-mastered for iTunes! Brilliant! Also, if you actually buy the physical CD don’t transfer that to your iPod (as AAC) as it won’t sound right, you’re better off buying the download as well. Absolute rubbish.
Hi Ian,
thanks for the link. It made even more disarmed though… he’s a “serious audiophile” who just can’t get the simple concept that dynamic music sounds better. Most of what he says in the interview is bs, plain and simple. His A/B comparisons are BS. “Death Magnetic” and “Californication” suck no matter the perspective from which you try to listen to them.
Will we ever win this “war”?
It’s all marketing and bullcrap.
There isn’t much to be done using compression or EQ, unless you reduce frequency bandwidth. Anything that should be done to the audio is handled by the encoder using psychoacoustic models.
You’re better having material that is dynamic, where the encoder can discard frequencies that are simultaneously masked by others for example.
What frequencies would you discard when the snare sounds like white noise? I know, all those that were not there in the original snare sound.
Btw, Ian… what Cradle of Filth album were you referring to in your post? I checked the DR on Darkly Darkly Venus Aversa and it was quite squashed :\
@ Simon Lol !
@ Simon – I agree, but I haven’t made the comparison yet so I don’t know how much difference it made. Maybe when things are that crushed there’s more you can do…? I respect the guys at Masterdisc so I’m reserving judgement
@ Andrea – I said it sounds “pretty good” – meaning, not pointlessly distorted – but it’s still not the best-sounding CD in the world…
Roughly twice the DR reading of the RHCP album though – for what it’s worth.
It’s a difficult process to please all the listeners. I am very picky when it comes to overall sound quality and mastering, but I work with music and music engineering so I tend to be more critical. I will say that certain albums that I have bought I will rip from the cd as an AIFF file because I find the sound is not nearly as good on a mp3 or AAC, but that only seems to be with songs that are heavily layered, and contain big and atmospheric use of sound. But with other songs, I’m not so sure. But I do totally get being able to enjoy good sound quality but remember to the majority of people who buy the music, I don’t think they would be so bothered about it as I tend to be. It’s usually people that work with music that are very picky when it comes to sound design.
Andrea says: Will we ever win this “war”?
If the best we can do is “Dynamic Range Day”, no, we won’t.
VIOZ – then what would you suggest to win the Loudness War? Apart from boycotting it, which will never happen on a large scale anyway…
Ruben’s audiophile setup includes AC chords?! I also see no mention of acoustic treatment. Anyone else have audiophool alarm bells going off?
@ Peterson
Room treatments are only necessary if your listening environment exhibits acustic flaws, which isn’t always the case. We have no idea whether Rubin’s room requires them, and besides there are aesthetically pleasing room treatments that can be easily concealed in a living room and go unnoticed.
To Andrea: I suggested on last DRD that we should choose an A-list artist and bombard him/her with a slogan.com created for the cause, via his/her Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, regular mail, etc.; make banners to show him/her on his/her public appearances, hand out paper sheets with the slogan.com site printed on it to fans waiting for the artist so he/she sees it when he/she autographes it, etc.; convince his/her fan clubs to join us… It’ll bring awareness of the cause to the artist, to the people who manage him/her and to the people who follow his/her career. Such large campaign will of course atract the media (I can just see the article on TMZ.com or on E! News: “Who are these people who want -artist- to -slogan-? We’re telling you right after the break). Ultimately, if the people in charge of the artist’s next album see that there’s enough people willing to buy it despite of it not being “loud enough”, they’ll go for it: the album becomes a smashing hit and dynamic records become the new “Auto-Tune effect”. I don’t see that any more farfetched than expecting to reverse a 20 year old trend by patting ourselves on the back.
@ VIOZ
That’s basically a focused version of what I’m doing on Facebook with my favorite artists (asking them if they’d consider releasing a dynamic version of their upcoming record everytime they enter the studio). I would totally be up for it.
IAN – what about doing this, maybe even before DRD 12?
[...] Mastered for iTunes – sonic revelation, or meaningless sales hype ← “Clicking Toward Oblivion” [...]
To Andrea: It’s funny how you say “DRD 12″, because there will be at the very least 12.
There’s just so many bullsh*t on his statement that I don’t know where to begin to refute them.
@VIOZ & Andrea I’ll be honest, I haven’t even started thinking about DRD12 yet !
This is a passion of mine, but I also have to run Mastering Media and do a lot of the work !
I ended up taking nearly a month out of my schedule for DRD11 and although I’m very proud of what was achieved, I need to be careful that I don’t over-commit.
But if you guys (or anyone else) want to do something pro-active for this though, then I’m very happy to help publicise it – provided it fits the message of DRD.
As you know I’m adamant that the message stays positive, and that’s the main restriction. So, if people want to arrange Facebook or email campaigns encouraging artists to check out the resources on http://DynamicRangeDay.com and make their next release more dynamic – fantastic !
Or, polite messages to your favourite band saying you love the music but were disappointed that it wasn’t as dynamic as earlier releases could also work, I think.
I’m cautious about putting all our eggs in one basket though, and publicly choosing only a few artists.
Here’s an idea. We could set up an open Google spreadsheet where people can add bands they thing it would be worth targeting, including links to Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and management email.
Anyone can come and add an artist they think it would be worth contacting, and anyone wanting to get involved can choose whichever they would like to contact and email ?
I could provide a template email on the DRD site that people can copy & paste and edit for themselves.
What do you think ?
Ian
@ Ian
I’m up for ANYTHING we could possibly do to sensitize artists’ awareness of the problem. Complaints about the Loudness War have been going for a while now but the music industry doesn’t seem to care much, so I think we should start to delve into more incisive courses of action.
Personally, I’ve been asking some bands I like for a dynamic mix on Facebook: Threat Signal said they would look into the matter, but now avoid my every request for updates; In Flames and Eluveitie ignored my posts; Europe deleted my post from their wall.
Travis Montgomery of Threat Signal, who’s currently learning to mix and master, acknowledged the issue on Soundcloud when I asked him about the dynamic compression on the material he uploaded for his solo project, and said he would definitely watch his use of the limiters next time.
I’m up for the Google spreadsheat, I’m up for a Facebook campaign… whatever we can do, I’ll partake. I love listening to music and the Loudness War is taking me away the pleasure in doing so.
@Andrea
Yeah, I was writing to Anthrax to make they release a high-DR recording… Result? DR6….
And this may interest you: I’m trying to remaster an album by Rise Against (“Endgame”). Is a long way to finish it – first I need to learn a lot still (the more I learn, the more I know that’s to be learned) and it’s really hard (declip, envelope control, eq, compression, expanding…)
And what’s the worst: it’s muddy… I’ll be trying to do something it this weekend (if I won’t experiment with tuning of my N900 etc.)
Very hard…
And besides… School…
To quote The Offspring (sorry for the vocabulary, but nothing else can reproduce my feeling ’bout this stuff):
“I don’t know much, I don’t know too much… But I know this s**t is f**ked up!”
@Andrea
What did you send to Threat Signal? Maybe I’m talking to bands not the right way
@ Marcin.
This is my first message to Threat Singal:
“Will you consider releasing an audiophile version of your new album with a high dynamic range (12-14db)? I love your music, but Loudness War albums are unlistenable on anything that is not an iPod…
”
Their answer:
“We’ll look into that. It would be cool to have a vinyl or FLAC version as an option.”
After that, all of my requests for updates have been ignored. Travis (one of their guitar players) I contacted through Sound Cloud about his solo material. You can find the conversation here:
http://soundcloud.com/kirkpetrucci/solo-album-teaser
To be honest, I’m really surprised that Scott Hull would come here and completely humiliate himself and call his ears and/or motives into question by trying to explain all this and just not admitting that it sounds like garbage. You’d think someone who got to his position would know better.
I’d have to say now, I question his ears. If I was thinking of using masterdisk, I can assure you I’m not anymore.
Phil
@ Andrea
You made a HUGE mistake in your message by including the word “audiophile” and making them think that music affected by loudness war is good for iPods (which is not true).
First, brickwalled still sounds sh*tty on iPods.
Second, you don’t need to be an audiophile enjoy good dynamics nor noticing they’re there. We don’t want to labeled like that. They think “expensive 180g vinyls for audiophiles and digital crap for the masses”.
We must eradicate the MYTHS like…
*…brickwalled music sounds good on iPods
*…brickwalled music sounds good on hearphones
*…brickwalled music is better for listening in the car
*…rock/metal music is supposed to sounds loud.
*…you can hear t better because it’s louder.
*…it’s good for compressed music (like MP3, AAC)
*…it’s better because is louder, fuller, powerful, energetic, etc.
All MYTHS that they use to confuse/deceive people to put them against us.
And they constantly confuse dyncamic compression with audio compression (like MP3, AAC). The perfect example is when that guitarist mentioned the FLAC option. Lars Ulrich (Metallica) made the mistake. Maybe on purpose, to confuse people and putting them on their side.
People’s worst enemy is their lack of knowledge about the subject.
@ Tormanoid
I agree with you 100%. As a matter of fact, that’s what I’ve been saying whenever I ran into people justifying the LW with the need to be loud on iPods and car audio.
The reason why I used the word “audiophile” is that I thought I’d have more chances if I asked them for a dynamic release BESIDE the brickwalled one, rather than INSTEAD of it. They probably earnestly believe they need loudness to sell*, so I thought if I ask them to make it dynamic instead, they’ll just tell me to f*** off.
* Edguy have recently released a dynamic album that is selling really well and I cited them as an example on Threat Signal’s wall, too. Of course the best case scenario is to get rid of the LW for good; I was just taking a step-by-step approach.
Thats funny cuz what your saying is that all mediums since the record sound like crap? I only say that because every time i hear the RHCP I think they sound like SHIT.. BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH sorry never liked the band I think they are overrated bullshit..
@ TheMan
??? I’m confused, who said that, and where ?
There are actually quite a few independent artists (including some projects I’ve been involved in) that are truly optimized for digital distribution (though not for iTunes): Anyone using bandcamp to sell their music has the option of uploading masters as 24-bit FLACs which get transcoded to multiple formats so every buyer can choose. If the buyer selects 24-bit FLAC, what they get is BETTER than the corresponding CD.
I’ve seen this blurb of ‘mastered for iTunes’ alot recently…
Whatever they say about Rick Rubin and effort they went to, it is still trying to make the best of a bad job in a lossy format.
Will iTune offer more lossless formats in the near future would be an answer I’d like to hear? though the average listener people i suspect doesn’t really care
@Andrea: The way you did is good with up-and-coming artists… The star-bands won’t even bother to reply
). He said he’d speak with the engineer.
I sent a mail to the Imperium one-man band (the name of the man is haaard
But none of the mails to Anthrax and Joey Belladonna received reply
@Lost in Musik: Why the hell make ‘mastered for iTunes’ stuff, when iTunes has only lossy format ;P
There’s flac, there’s alac, there’s ape, there’s wv. And they stick with the damn AAC! When somebody doesn’t care ’bout quality, he won’t see the difference b’tween normal master and iTunes master…
@OakBloodThree: The Cd’s ain’t capable of 24-bit audio. If the devs’d make some effort and make 24bit format compatible with the older CDplayers. it should go that way.
@everyone
: I’d buy some of the records…. but I won’t. Why? Amazon or iTunes don’t give lossless, and I dun trust the sites such as allflac.com. The way I see it, so do many people, most of ‘em downloading flac rips 4 free. And that way the stores n’ artists kick themselves own goal…
The loudness war has gone too damn far! Most records are just unlistenable. As I’ve heard the companies give DR6 if no one tells ‘em not to do so.
And it’s what I love Tracii Guns’ L.A. Guns; DR10-DR12! Hell yeah!!! And that time, Phil Lewis’ L.a. Guns – DR4-DR7 – it sucks!
@marcin: Whose “devs” are going to change Red Book CD format (an IEC standard) to allow 24-bit audio and make it magically backward compatible in players with 16-bit D/As? More likely you get a package that includes one standard CD and one SACD or DVD-Audio disc (both of which can be made lossless). This has been done, BTW. I have one by Moby & one by Fiona Apple.
If you buy a CD from bandcamp, you get a CD. If you buy a download, you get whatever format you ask for but of course no better than the source that was uploaded for sale.
Example: http://music.dianemariekloba.com/album/i-am-an-unknown-artist (disclosure: I played on some songs and cowrote one). The mastering engineer sent the 16-bit masters to the CD plant and 24-bit masters to the artist as 24-bit FLACs, which were uploaded to Bandcamp. Bandcamp transcodes to lossy formats for those customers that want them.
BTW, Amazon does sell a lossless format: The CD!
But when you’re not in the US or UK the shipping costs a lot
And what’s more, some of the CD’s ain’t available in CD-format, such as Artifacts by Joey Belladonna
What ever happened to dynamic range? In my mind, artist are no longer artist when they compress their audio just for that extra volume factor. They’re just shitty musicians who didn’t take the time to truly master their work.
Anyway, this whole “Mastered for iTunes” is crap. Compressed audio is junk and I refuse to listen to it. It’s like watching a movie on VHS when you have a blu-ray player. You’re missing a lot of detail.
It would be nice if these musicians and record studio companies would realize that DVD-Audio exist. Let’s get some 24bit/48khz music on DVD’s, Blu-ray or even download to store in high memory mobile player. Something my ears can enjoy.
I feel like we are moving backwards in technology. We went from tape to CD and now from CD to compressed junk.
I could rant some more but probably should stop here.
The program’s documentation page, http://images.apple.com/itunes/mastered-for-itunes/docs/mastered_for_itunes.pdf, provides a good summary of the intent, which is to get music masters from producers in as-produced form, to be able to generate the highest possible quality iTunes copy within current mass distribution realities. The current format is 256 kbps AAC iTunes Plus; but with high resolution masters, when overall technologies make it feasible, a further boost in iTunes quality will be possible, at which time Apple can regenerate tunes for that quality level. The PDF does not shy away from recording industry issues which themselves have resulted in degraded product.
I’m more than fed up with the cursed loudness wars and the cursed ignorance of the heartless greedy gone $music industry…This sounds utter crap! (Like so many, many others too!) As complaints about bad mastering falls of ‘deaf’ ears [!Ignorance!]…The only solution I see is outright BOYCOTT! This maybe the only solution for the so sick (‘$LOUDER is Better’) infested $music industry to drop this insane rotten over-squashing/brick-walling practice for good and return to musical oriented mastering, not this distorted ear-bleeding noise!
Not too sure what I think of this. After listening to the album my first reaction came to how strangely produced & engineered some of the tracks are – let alone the final “mastered for iTunes” sound…. very strange