I’m getting more and more people asking me about the need to get a dedicated master made for vinyl releases – maybe because I’ve posted videos like the one above – for more details check this link:

Red Hot Chili Peppers – ‘I’m With You” vinyl sounds better than CD

But I’ve got news for you – you don’t need to. It’s a myth.

A great master for CD can be a great master for vinyl, too.

Regardless of what you may have been told, most vinyl these days is cut directly from a CD production master – and it’s been that way for years.

Vinyl masters will probably use a higher-resolution file format, for example 24-bit and perhaps 48 or even 96 kHz sampling rate, but if the CD has already been mastered these will probably be available from the original mastering engineer for little or no extra cost.

And even if hi-res files aren’t available, a great CD master will give decent results, even at 16-bit 44.1 kHz.

So where does the myth come from ?

Why do people think a separate master is needed for vinyl ?

The main answer is (yet again) the Loudness War – but not for the reasons you might think.

I often read people saying that you can’t cut super-hot “loudness war” audio to vinyl, for fear of the needle skipping and jumping off the record.

But that’s wrong. In fact, the exact opposite is true !

There’s no reason not to put “loudness war” style music on vinyl – to use a well-known example, the vinyl and CD releases of Metallica’s “Death Magnetic” sound very similar indeed.

But very dynamic bass can cause this problem – and the solution is actually more compression – to reduce the dynamic range.

The original reason George Martin first started experimenting with overdubbing and heavily compressing Paul McCartney’s bass (on “Paperback Writer”, for those that are taking notes) was to stop the needle jumping, so they could match the “louder” sound of American releases of the time.

Yes, you read that right – The Beatles were part of the original loudness war !

Hang on, though…

Now, it IS true that if the average level on vinyl is consistently too high, the record may not sound as good and the lathe may even be damaged, so for this reason it’s the average level (or “loudness”) that determines how “hot” the record is cut, rather than the peak level.

But that means that with “hyper-compressed” loudness-war music there’s plenty of headroom left above the average signal on the vinyl for peaks and transients, which is why some people choose to make more dynamic masters for vinyl release – like the RHCP example above.

But it’s only necessary if the original master was stupid-loud in the first place.

If your CD master has what I consider optimal dynamics – DR8 or more overall – then it’s perfectly suitable for a flat transfer to vinyl. At least, assuming you don’t have any wild sibilance, hugely out-of-phase content, or all the bass panned to one channel !

And even if you do, the cutting engineer will take account of that as a matter of course during the cut – it doesn’t require a separate mastering session. Some engineers may make a few other subtle tweaks, if you agree, or even make it sound different, if you ask them to – but it’s NOT a technical requirement.

The optimal level for a vinyl cut depends on the RMS or VU level, and on the running time and speed (33 or 45 rpm) – whereas on a CD, the only absolute technical restriction is the peak level.

Summary

The short version is – there’s no “need” to get a separate vinyl master done, but it’s an option if you’d like to. The main advantage will be to get a more “dynamic” sound – more contrast between loud and quiet – but only if your CD master is “loudness war” loud.

The most cost-effective way to get a great-sounding release on vinyl is simply to send the hi-res master files directly to the cutting engineer. They will choose the best settings to get good results from the vinyl format based on the sound of your material, as part of the normal price. For a well-mastered album, it’s simply a case of choosing the correct level and perhaps a few minor tweaks – no extra mastering is required.

And in fact, it works backwards, too ! If you master with a great vinyl release in mind (using a VU meter?) then the chances are your music will sound superb on all the most advanced 21st-century formats, as well.

How’s that for irony ?
Getting well-balanced dynamics in your music is one of the keys to great sound – and you probably need to use compression to achieve it.

In mastering, multi-band compression can be an invaluable tool – to find out more, click here.

Why custom mastering for vinyl isn’t necessary is a post from Ian Shepherd's: Production Advice
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Imogen Heap is a genius.

A mad, crazy genius, but a genius nonetheless.

I knew this already of course, but the full magnitude of her mad, crazy genius-ness didn’t really hit me until last night, watching the live Facebook webcast of her new song – “Me The Machine” (aka #heapsong6).

And it made quite difficult watching, if I’m honest.

Because this was Immi as we hadn’t seen her before – un-prepared, un-happy and perhaps even a little out of control. As the fascinating, scary “making-of” movie that opened the webcast vividly described, this was a project with “thousands” of things that could go wrong – and they all depended at the last moment on Imogen’s slightest gesture.

And things did go wrong – as Imogen herself admitted afterwards. And it was obvious that she was unhappy about it. The performance didn’t go as she wanted it to – but how could it be ? She wanted it to be perfect.

Well, it wasn’t perfect – but it was stunning, spine-tingling, and extraordinary, all the same.

I’ll describe the performance as it seemed to me in a moment, but first I’ll quickly summarise the circumstances, to give you a little context of the craziness:

• Over the last two years, Imogen has been developing “The Gloves” – a new musical instrument that transform her movement and gestures into music
• She also composed the soundtrack to a film, “Love The Earth“, which was premiered live at the Royal Albert Hall last year. All the footage was crowd-sourced from her fan-base
• She has also been writing her new album, one song at a time, and involving her fans at every stage of the process. Song five took place during a 6-week trip to China; the sixth of these was to be “The Glove Song”, and last night, Earth Day, was chosen for the premiere
• Not only would she be performing the new song in it’s entirety using The Gloves without a backing track, but she’d also be wearing clothes that respond to the sound of her voice
• In a huge dome constructed in her back garden, and broadcast live on the internet
• The film of “Love The Earth” would also be shown, with a newly recorded and mixed soundtrack – also completed only in the last few weeks
• And the whole thing would be powered entirely off-grid, by a fascinating blend of green technologies…
• …including both solar power and 50 people on bicycles, who would get to hear her performance at the same time on headphones – because they were part of that same performance
• And as if all that weren’t enough, only days before the event, Imogen hadn’t had enough time to finish writing the lyrics

I told you it was crazy !

But she did it – it all happened, just as she said it would. And even though almost everyone interviewed in the making-of film said at some point or another words to the effect that “we may have made a mistake”, that’s not how it came across on film.

The vast majority of the performance was literally spellbinding.

As it begins, Imogen stands, arms outstretched, gathering (I think !) sound samples of the 50 power-generating cyclists around her from the microphones mounted in the wrists her Gloves.

Slowly she begins to move and sway, and as she does the whispering textures of the cycle samples begin to move with her, swirling around the stereo soundfield in response to her 21st-century conducting. She sculpts the sound with her hands, filtering and shaping it, crafting a gentle pulse that will run throughout the whole song.

Somewhere within this delicate texture she begins to sing, the sound of her voice blending seamlessly into the cycle-sample textures around her – and the singing is simultaneously refracted, reflected and bounced back on itself as she twists and turns her left (gloved) hand to control it.

Everything floats for a moment, suddenly she sweeps her arm around and a synthesized chord sequence swirls gradually into view – deep, brooding and complex, and controlled by the movements of her hands. Over this she sings the first few lines of the song – “A break in the algorithm, a break in the clouds…”

Around her the cyclists pedal steadily, including at least one person under the age of ten. The melody winds its way through the song, Imogen simultaneously playing the synth line, processing it by opening and closing her fist, and triggering delicate bell-like chimes with her other hand – and then she clenches her fists and she’s playing drums, air-drumming the beat, looping it and adding to it – all controlled by gestures to subtle for us to see. Just as suddenly everything freeze-frames, judders and stutters – and then relaxes back into the second verse.

The next section is where some of the rough edges begin to show, perhaps – Imogen later explains that she completely forgot the words, which is hardly surprising, given that she’d only finished them in the early hours of that same morning, after days in a row without sleep ! Hardly surprising too, given that the new “instrument” she is playing the song with is still being invented. She’s scarcely had time to learn how it works, let alone how to play it, perform and sing – all at the same time.

No-one has ever heard this song before, so we can’t know for sure if the heart-felt cry at the center of the song – “I can’t do everything” – was improvised or not, but for a moment it sums up the performance up perfectly.

But what might have spelled disaster in a performance that relied on a pre-recorded backing track, in fact succeeds here in comprehensively proving the entire concept of The Gloves themselves. Immi is able to “jam it” – to improvise for a moment, take a step back and allow the sounds to speak for themselves while she collects herself – and then against the odds pull everything back together brilliantly for the close of the song, as her arms stretch out again and her voice drifts hauntingly away into the shifting, swirling cyclist-textures again.

Imogen may not have felt ready for her performance (she said she was “terrified”) and it may not have gone quite as she had hoped, but the end result was truly mesmerising, and proves that very soon in the future she will be able to do everything she wants – musically, on stage, at least – if she chooses to.

The applause was rapturous, the response from her fans in the Facebook chat-room even more so – most people seemed not to have realised that anything went awry until she mentioned it – and echoed the sentiments of the replies Imogen got from her fans on Twitter when she tweeted earlier in the week that she was worried the event might be a disaster:

@MimAbbyMason: “Remember humanness and beautiful imperfection is more poignant and moving than perfection”

Sunday’s performance proved that – beyond a shadow of a doubt – in every way.

Perhaps what’s most impressive is that this was a real song, performed on this new instrument, not just some looped-up improvisation. Imogen is successfully dancing her way along the bleeding knife-edge of music technology in the 21st century, and I for one can’t wait to see what this mad, crazy, honest and brave genius does with it next.

To watch the whole live event yourself on the Facebook live event page, including the fascinating “Making-of” video – click here.

[Update - Imogen took plenty of time after the show to give full credit to the large team of people involved in developing The Gloves and performance. Kelly, her engineer, posted a great photo of the whole team celebrating afterwards - you can see it here.]

Me The Machine – Imogen Heap and The Gloves Live Broadcast on Earth Day is a post from Ian Shepherd's: Production Advice
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The time has come to let you know about something I’m really excited about – my new product, the Home Mastering Masterclass.

Probably the easiest way to tell you about it is to give you a sneak preview of the introduction video – so that’s what I’ve done ! Take a look at the video above, if you haven’t already – and you should be right up to speed.

What is the Home Mastering Masterclass ?

The idea is to give you a set of “fly on the wall” screen-capture videos while I master a selection of songs on my home setup. They’re from a range of different genres – rock, pop, dance, metal, acoustic soundtrack and jazz, using a range of software packages and plugins, including the popular Ozone plugins by isotope, for example.

I’ll share exactly what I’m doing, how and why – and you’ll learn a mass of useful tools and techniques along the way.

I’ve also been talking to the people whose music I’m mastering – just as I would in a real mastering session – and recording the conversations, to give you some insight into how they were recorded and mixed – and why. I can say already that the recordings are almost as interesting as the actual mastering videos in some cases, and there’s a mass of extra information in these, too !

Why have I made it ?

Because you’ve asked me to.

Well, maybe not you, personally, but every day I get emails, tweets and Facebook messages from people wanting to know more about how they can do a better job mastering their own music at home.

Some people actually asked me to master their songs for them, and then share what I’d done and why. This is a great approach, but there was always a huge amount of extra detail and information that I couldn’t share – simply because there wasn’t enough time to write it all down for them !

That’s where I came up with the idea of making screen-capture recordings for them, and that’s where the idea for the Home Mastering Masterclass comes from. These videos were the most efficient way I could think of to share as much information as possible quickly – and allow you to hear exactly what I’m talking about, too.

For less than the price of mastering a single song plus a follow-up Skype consultation, you’ll get seven mastering tutorials, my interviews with the artists, and an “Essentials” video where I’ll share with you my philosophy of mastering, including the “Three Ms”:

1. My mastering workflow
2. The requirements of mastering monitoring and
3. How to get into the “mastering mindset”

By the end you’re going to have a really comprehensive understanding of what, why and how you can get the best results mastering your own music at home.

Of course for the very best results I still recommend you come to a professional – but if you want to do it yourself, this set of videos will help you do the best job possible !

Great ! When will it be released ?

Soon…

Or more accurately – when it’s ready !

I can’t promise exactly when they’ll be done, because it depends on my other work demands but more importantly, I don’t want to rush things. If you’d like to be notified as soon as the final product is available though, add your email address to this box, and click Submit.

Announcing the Home Mastering Masterclass video package is a post from Ian Shepherd's: Production Advice
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Here’s the theory

People are listening to music on iPod earbuds, they’re listening to it on laptop speakers, they’re listening to it on mobile phone speakers.

So that’s what we should use to make our final mix and master decisions on, right ?

Make it sound good on what end users are listening to it on – the lowest common denominator. Simple, right ?

Wrong

Here’s the problem

That theory is nonsense.

Here’s why

Have you ever heard a really great sound system ? One that’s incredibly accurate, that’s incredibly revealing, that’s incredibly expensive ?

Your music sounded great on it, right ?

Wrong again…

• The better the reproduction system, the more music that sounds bad on it.
• The more revealing the monitoring, the more revealing it is - of flaws and problems.
• The more accurate the playback is, the harder it is to make something sound great.
• The closer to perfection the speakers are, the closer to perfection your mixes need to be.

Only a handful of albums sound outstanding on the very best playback systems in the world.

Whereas crappy playback systems hide all those flaws.

Most people listen to their music in the background, while they’re doing other stuff, talking on the phone, with the kids playing in the background – so why do we bother with dedicated studios ? Why not mix on laptop speakers, sitting at the kitchen table ?

Because all that stuff is distracting, it adds noise, and it masks details.

The same thing is true of crappy speakers. Their poor frequency response, substandard imaging and high self-distortion hide all the details in your mix and master. They also hide the damage you can do with over-compression, excessive distortion, digital clipping - and plain old bad mixing.

If all you use to judge your mix is a cheap pair of earbuds or a set of laptop speakers, you can do huge amounts of damage – without realising it.

If you aren’t listening on the best quality system you can get, you might as well have your fingers in your ears.

Hang on, though

If all that’s true, why do so many people swear by NS10s ? Why were those crappy auratone speakers so popular ? And why do so many engineers still check their mixes in the car ?

Because those are still useful perspectives. They can still tell you useful stuff.

The best-sounding mix in the world can fall apart on a crappy speaker. And despite everything I just said, people do listen to music on some of the lowest-fidelity systems imaginable. On mobile phone speakers, FFS !

So every so often, you need to do a reality check, and make sure that amazing subby baseline is actually audible on small speakers. You need to make sure that those vocals still cut through on laptop speakers. And that you can still hear the drums when you’re doing eighty on the motorway.

But those are the worst-case scenarios, and if they’re all you mix for, you end up with worst-case mixes. Who knows how it will sound on a best-case system ? Or even just a half-way decent one ?

When you make your real decisions, your final calls, your best choices, do it on the best gear you have – for the best-case scenario. Then you get best-case mixes, that still work in the worst-case scenario.

Mastering engineers have been doing it this way for decades. Because it works.

Mastering and mixing for the lowest common denominator ?

BAD idea.

Image by Jonathan Powell

Mastering for earbuds ? BAD Idea is a post from Ian Shepherd's: Production Advice
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Dither is one of the most widely misunderstood elements of the digital audio chain.

People don’t know what it is, they don’t know when to use it, and they don’t know how.

This post aims to fix that, and make it really simple. But before we get started though, let’s quickly answer a few of the questions.

What is dither ?

Dither is low-level noise added to digital audio when reducing the bit-depth to prevent quantisation distortion.

Quantisation what ?

Imagine a really quiet audio signal, just poking its head above the quietest signal your digital recorder can resolve. It’s so quiet, it’s only using the last available bit.

Without dither, all the encoder can do is choose to have that bit switched either on, or off. So instead of an accurate reproduction of the original signal, you get a gritty, grainy, gated fizz instead – you’ve added quantisation distortion.

And dither helps… how ?

In the simplest case, you just randomly switch that last bit on and off. The result is white noise – hiss – simple dither.

Now add in your very quiet signal again, and instead of having to constantly decide whether to switch that last bit on and off for the incoming signal, all the encoder does is add it onto the random dither value, and encode that instead.

The result is a better representation of the very quiet signal. It’s bathed in dither hiss, but it’s no longer gritty, grainy or gated – it’s just a very quiet sound covered in hiss.

That’s what dither does. The gritty grainy gated fizz is quantisation distortion – and you can remove it by adding dither.

(Actually strictly speaking, you’re not really removing it, you’re just de-correlating it from the input signal – but I said I was going to keep this simple…)

In fact, dither actually allows the system to resolve sounds below the theoretical noise-floor, unlikely as that might sound.

Can we really hear the difference ?

All this stuff is happening to only the very quietest elements of the mix, though – so surely it’s too quiet for us to hear ?

No.

The results can be plainly audible at normal listening levels on many musical signals. Like mp3 artefacts they’re subtle, until you notice them – but after that they’re not subtle at all.

Quantisation distortion makes things sounds brittle, gritty, and collapses stereo imaging. In comparison the correctly dithered versions sound fuller, warmer, smoother and more “analogue”.

So when do we do it, again ?

It’s necessary whenever you reduce a digital signal to a lower bit-depth – for example from 24 down to 16-bit – but also, whenever you process a sound using fixed-point arithmetic.

Let me say that again.

Whenever you process a sound using fixed-point arithmetic.

So if you only ever work in one audio application, which works exclusively with 32-bit floating-point DSP, and always saves it that way, you’re OK. Oh, and all your plugins need to do it the same way, too. And they need to do it right. And they need to do it in a way that’s 100% compatible with your DAW. And not have any bugs.

Now that’s not an impossible scenario, by any means – but the question is, how do you know everything is working right ? If any plugin isn’t working as intended, your audio could get messed up without you realising it at any point. If you use that plugin on multiple tracks, it could be happening multiple times in a mix.

Don’t Panic

The good news is, there are several things you can do to avoid this problem

1. Work at 24-bit as a minimum

Quantisation distortion at 24-bit will be much less audible. Notice I’m not saying completely inaudible, though. Depending on the material, sometimes you can hear it even at 24-bit. Especially if things get processed over and over again.

2. Always use dither

This is a catch-all. If you always use dither when bouncing or saving fixed-point files, you won’t get quantisation distortion. (Well, you might, with a really badly-written plugin – but hopefully that’s a very rare scenario.)

Hang on !

There are people who’ll tell you this is a bad idea too, though.

Because remember, every time you dither, you’re adding a little extra noise to the signal.

And (again, depending on the material) sometimes that extra noise can change the sound slightly, too. Especially when you take into consideration all the different “flavours” of dither – almost every manufacturer has its own variety – Waves, POW-R, Apogee…

Relax – its just noise

All this debate is a red herring, though. Just stick with simple “triangular” dither, and you’ll be fine. After all, it’s just noise – and very quiet noise, at that.

All your favourite recordings from the 50s to the 90s were bathed in hiss – and they still sounded great. And that hiss was at a much higher level than any dither. Yes, dither may have a TINY effect on the sound – but you’re going to make much bigger changes with almost every other process you can apply, at any stage. Stop agonising.

When it comes to the final mastering stage, reducing down to 16 bits for CD burning, by all means pick your favourite fancy variety of dither – but before then, just switch on something simple and worry about things that really matter.

Dither is just hiss, and hiss is your friend.

Whereas quantisation distortion is one of the most unnatural, irritating, insidious, digital-in-a-bad-way forms of audio nastiness you can inflict on your music.

Don’t do it it.

When in doubt, dither.

Image from Wikipedia

When in doubt, dither is a post from Ian Shepherd's: Production Advice
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Update – Check out the end of this post for an exclusive offer !

The TT Loudness Mater is no longer the only (or best) way to measure the dynamics of your music.

One of the most popular posts on this site has always been “How to avoid over-compressing your mix” – an introduction to using the TT meter, plus an introduction to the ideas of “dynamic range”, or “crest factor”.

Over the years since I wrote the post and have been promoting the meter, it’s come in for some criticism for the way that it calculates the DR measurements, and even the idea of measuring “loudness” or making recommendations about it at all.

But just in the last year, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) has agreed official definitions of loudness measurement – the “loudness unit” (LU) and both short and long-term “loudness range” recommendations. These are now being adopted internationally as standards – and are even becoming law in the US as a means of regulating the loudness of adverts between programmes.

This means that regardless of whether you think measuring loudness is valid or useful, it’s happening – and in the future, the playback volume of almost all streamed and broadcast music is going to be based on similar measurements.

All music will be standardised to an average playback level, so the “loudness” of your music will have no effect on its playback volume, in many situations

What will have an influence on the way it sounds though, is the use of dynamics.

And understanding how this works, and how to read the new meters that measure these new standards, will be crucial to getting the best results

If your music is crushed up against the 0dBFS digital limit, it might read as little as -6 or -4 LU on the new meters. These values are roughly equivalent to DR6 and DR4 on the TT meter. During playback their volume will be adjusted down to the recommended ITU average of… -23 LU !

(This may sound surprisingly low, but is designed to take account of the much higher peak levels of some broadcast material – for example feature films and classical music.)

So if your music reads -4 LU on the new meters, it will have only those 4 dB to use as headroom above the -23 LU average – for any contrast, for light and shade and dynamic impact.

Whereas something that the TT measures as having DR8 or more will read something like -8 LU on the new meters, and will have all of those 8dB (or more) available to help make it sound great at the new standardised playback volume.

This is what we’ve been talking about all along – the “red herring” of crushing your music in an attempt to make it loud will be completely cancelled out on playback

Music with more dynamics will have more punch, impact and power – in a word, it’ll sound louder !

Learn how the new meters work

To see how the meters work in practise, and how their readings relate to the TT meter, check out the video above – it demonstrates two of my favourites from the new batch of loudness meters that are being released, plus a recap of the TT meter and comparisons between them.

Both the just-released TC Electronic LM6 and Nugen VisLM are excellent, but both cost over $500. However there are also several much more affordable options. One I mention in the video is the free (PC only) KVR AC-R128 meter, which only gives numerical readouts – but there’s also a plugin I didn’t know about when I made the video, the Toneboosters EBULoudness plugin, for both Mac and PC. I haven’t tried it yet, but it has a “history” graph similar to the one in the Nugen VisLM, although still without the “range” indicator that I like so much. It only costs $14 though, so has to be worth a look !

I also tried the Waves WLM meter, although it’s not featured in the video – this also features a comprehensive set of tools for measuring ITU loudness – including the ability to automatically recognise dialogue – but lacks the intuitive graphical displays of the Nugen or the TC meters.

The final option in the video isn’t an EBU-based meter at all though, it’s quite different – and it might be my favourite of all them. It only costs $9, and I strongly recommend you give it a try

What is it ? You’ll just have to watch the video and find out : )

Happy metering !

Update – exclusive offer

I’ve arranged a fantastic 25% discount for Production Advice readers on the Nugen VisLM meter that I demonstrate in the video.

All you need to do to take advantage of the offer is click this link:

http://www.nugenaudio.com/shop_exclusive.php

and use the discount code “solved” (without the quotes) in the shopping code to save a whopping $120 !

The offer will only be available this month, so if you want the very best loudness meter money can buy at a bargain price, grab it now !

The best loudness metering plugins money can buy – and my favourite alternative (for only 9 dollars !) is a post from Ian Shepherd's: Production Advice
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If you aren’t already listening to Joe Gilder and Graham Cochrane‘s excellent Simply Recording Podcast – maybe now is the time to start !

I know lots of people here are interested in home mastering, and that’s exactly what the latest episode is about.

So, if you fancy learning something about this subject – and not from me, for a change – click here !

(Full Disclosure – Although I’m not actually in this podcast, I do actually get mentioned. Several times. So, sorry about that.)

Now, there’s a lot of great stuff in that episode, and for the most part I agree, 100%. But there are a couple of points I think it’s worth picking up on:

1. Joe mentions that limiters tend to have automatic make-up gain. Actually that’s not true – some do, some don’t. Waves do, but others don’t. It’s no big deal, just something to be aware of.
2. Joe and Graham discuss setting the output of your limiter to allow a little headroom – I agree, and these days I’m leaving more headroom in my masters than I used to, to stay well clear of the chances of inter-sample clipping – I recommend you set the output of your limiter to no higher than -0.6 dBFS
3. Graham mentions using multiband stereo width processing and “harmonic exciters” – and he stresses that you should take care with them. I couldn’t agree more, and actually I think this is one of the problems with Ozone and other “all-in-one” mastering solutions. Because these features are “right there”, there’s a temptation for people to use them much more often than is wise. Personally, I use these kind of effects on perhaps one in ten masters. But, your mileage may vary !

PS. If you’d like to hear me talking about home mastering – and lots of other fun stuff – and you haven’t heard this episode of Dave Chick‘s most excellent Inside Home Recording podcast – feel free to check it out.

PPS. Since we’re talking podcasts, don’t forget the Home Recording Show - there’s a reason I once called it “probably the best audio podcast in the world“. And yes, I’m in this episode, too ! There is no escape…

PPPS. In at least two out of these three podcast episodes, you’ll hear people talking about my eBook and video – Mastering with Multiband Compression. There’s a reason for that – people tell me it’s pretty damn good ! If you’d like to know more about it, click here.

Home Mastering Advice – from someone else, for a change ! is a post from Ian Shepherd's: Production Advice
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So as the dust starts to settle on this year’s Dynamic Range Day, I have a moment to revisit “Mastered for iTunes” – hopefully for the last time !

Why do I need to ? Because since my recent posts about this subject, I’ve been criticised for them. Some of it’s justified, but much of it isn’t, and I wanted to answer some of the comments.

The story so far

So first of all, if you haven’t already read my summary of what “Mastered for iTunes” is – and what I think of it – please read this post:

Mastered for iTunes – the saviour of great sound?

(Short version – I applaud Apple’s initiative; I’m excited by the implication that lossless audio from Apple may be just around the corner; and I fervently hope that MFi will ultimately lead to an improvement in audio quality – but the early signs aren’t enouraging.)

Now, the other two posts I’ve made about MFi are both more critical of the way the idea is being publicised, and they focus particularly around the suggestion made by some engineers that we should be making special “tweaked” masters to compensate for way that AAC encoding changes the sound of our audio.

(Bear in mind – the hype about this process was how we first found out about “Mastered for iTunes”, not via the recently released Apple guidelines.)

If you want to read the posts, here they are:

Mastered for iTunes – sonic revelation, or meaningless sales hype ?

Mastered for iTunes ‘sounds closer to the the CD’ – I’m calling BS

These are the two posts that have attracted the most criticism. I’ll go through some of these points and address them.

1 – I only demonstrates my test on one song – that doesn’t prove anything

True !

Hands up – absolutely, and in the heat of the moment when making my “null test” video I completely ignored this, and used words like “proof” – I should have known better. Small sample sizes can never prove anything.

On the other hand, I’ve yet to hear an example of “tweaked” MFi audio that lives up to the hype…

2 – Apple never said MFi sounded “closer to the CD”, they said it sounded “closer to the source”

Well yes… and I never claimed they did.

The “closer to the CD” comments were made by the engineers who worked on the RHCP album, after my original post.

Many sites picked up on my “null test” post, and some people interpreted it as if I were saying that Apple were trying to deceive us – but that was never my intention. I added updates to the original post to make my point clearer.

On the other hand, Apple do have a section in the iTunes store called “Mastered for iTunes”, featuring albums like “I’m With You” and “Beyond Magnetic” which actually disregard Apple’s own guidelines. These clearly state that “clipped” samples should be avoided – but here’s the output summary of Apple’s own “afclip” utility from the song “Hate Train” from “Beyond Magnetic”, developed to help mastering engineers avoid this pitfall:

total clipped samples Left on-sample: 105510 inter-sample: 286969
total clipped samples Right on-sample: 130525 inter-sample: 360890

Whereas the whole second half of “Bredan’s Death Song” from “I’m With You” reads an intersample peak level of +1dBFS.

Until very recently this release was one of the first you’d come across in the MFi section of the store.

And even Coldplay’s “Mylo Xloto”, mastered by the legendary Bob Ludwig – who has often spoken out against the loudness wars – fails to take maximum advantage of the extra quality offered by the new 24/96 masters requested by Apple. It’s DR values are indisinguishable from the CD, sadly – although they are at least more reasonable than many recent releases.

Bob has even confirmed in an interview that unlike the engineers I mention above, he has no special approach to mastering for an AAC encode:

The creative part of the mastering process hasn’t changed one bit with the Mastered for iTunes program. Ludwig said he masters his music exactly the same way. The change comes after the creative process is finished — that’s where Mastered for iTunes comes in.

This makes perfect sense to me, but confirms my instinct that the benefits of Apple’s new MFi guidelines at this stage will be minimal on most music.

3 – Null tests don’t tell you anything about the way things sound

True. (Although they can give you clues.)

But again, I never said they did. I used a null test because my ears told me something didn’t sound right first, and the test simply confirmed this – ie. that there was a bigger difference between one pair of files than the other.

4 – My null-test was invalid – I don’t have the original files

The suggestion here is that to do a “scientific” comparison, I need access to the original 24/96 masters.

Actually, no. Because again, I wasn’t testing Apple’s claim that their new AAC encoder sounds closer to the source, I was testing the engineer’s claims that their tweaked masters sounded closer to the CD. So all I need to make that comparison is the CD, and their final files – which I have.

But while we’re on the subject:

DO Apple’s new encodes sound “closer to the source” ?

Well, perhaps theoretically – but in my tests, not much. Not in their current 16-bit, 44.1 kHz form, anyway.

I took a few 24/96 masters from my own archive and encoded them using Apple’s new “droplet” utility, and the standard iTunes encoder from my own CD down-sampled and dithered versions.

There was a difference, yes – but I doubt if most people will hear it. So how do I know there really was a difference ? Because the null test shows it. But unlike the EQ tweaks revealed by testing the MFi “tweaked” masters, this null revealed differences so small I could barely hear them at normal listening levels.

Of course, it may be that the files I used just happened not to reveal any differences – but they all had plenty of >20 kHz frequency content, which is the only area that could make a significant difference.

More likely is that whereas as mastering engineer, I’ve chosen the very best sample-rate conversion and dithering software I can find, there’s plenty out there that isn’t as good – and Apple’s version may well sound better than these options.

That in itself is enough justification for supplying hi-res files as Apple suggest – but won’t make much difference to professionally mastered audio.

Conclusion

Apple’s “Mastered for iTunes” initiative is great, and I’m behind it all the way. Sadly, I’ve yet to hear an MFi release that even begins to realise the potential of the idea, and several that change the sound in pointless ways – in my opinion.

Null tests and clipping-detection utilites are far less important than what our ears tell us of course, but so far they are backing up what my ears tell me – that “tweaking” masters for AAC encoding is misguided and ineffective, and despite the hype and it’s genuine potential, “Mastered for iTunes” is a concept that has so far failed to make any real impact on the quality of the audio we’re hearing on mainstream releases.

Mastered for iTunes – null and void testing ? is a post from Ian Shepherd's: Production Advice
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So, the top prize in the 2012 Dynamic Range Day competition is…

an SSL Buss Compressor.

Wait, what ?!?

The prize in a competititon intended to raise awareness of the loudness wars is… a compressor ?

Exactly the kind of tool that was used to make many of those crushed, distorted “casulaties” in the first place ?

Right.

Because, as SSL’s chairman Antony David tweeted on last year’s DRD:

Compression and limiting is about managing dynamic range, not removing it

We have nothing against compression. (At least, not against dynamic compression, anyway – mp3-style data-compression is different – see here for more info.)

It’s when compression is over-used, on everything, that there’s a problem – which is exactly what’s happening with the loudness war.

Pop and rock music have always had a much narrower dynamic range than acoustic music – it’s part of the sound. Ever since the 60s, compression has been an integral part of the way pop and rock music is produced, and we wouldn’t have it any other way – provided it’s used for creative, musical reasons, and not because of an urban myth.

Even the winner of last year’s DRD Award, “Build a Rocket, Boys” has moments that are very compressed – but it has real light and shade, drama and build. Overall it’s a very dynamic-sounding album, and sounds great - especially by today’s standards.

(By the way, you can help choose this year’s award-winner – just click here.)

So having a classic compressor as the prize for this competition makes perfect sense. And what better way to manage the dynamic range of your mix than with an industry standard like the SSL ?

Other great prizes this year include Bowers & Wilkins CM-1 speakers and the TC Electronic LM-6 Loudness Meter plugin, with more to be announced soon.

So, what are you waiting for ? Entry is simple – for more details, just click here.

Good luck !

Dynamic Range Day Competition 2012 Announced is a post from Ian Shepherd's: Production Advice
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The third Dynamic Range Day is on March 16th – only a week away !

And to get the ball rolling, in collaboration with TurnMeUp.org, we’ve published an open letter to the music industry calling for and end to the Loudness War.

To read the letter and find out what the infographic above is all about, click here.

About Dynamic Range Day 2012 – The Competition

Everything is coming together nicely – there’s going to be a competition again, with prizes from Solid State Logic (SSL), Bowers & Wilkins and new supporters TC Electronic – with more supporters coming on board every day.

Local Events

“#DRD12” has also taken on a truly global aspect this year, with local MeetUp events already announced in North and South America as well as all over Europe.

Colleges and courses like the San Diego Art Institute of California are holding Dynamic Range Day themed events for their students – Northbrook College in the UK is holding an open day that anyone can attend – while other MeetUps are just meeting for beers with friends to play great-sounding, dynamic music.

In Iceland, long-term supporter Sigurdór Guðmundsson is planning a new recording of John Cage’s legendary 4’33″ – which will then of course be mastered to “loudness war” levels – we love it !

To find a MeetUp group near you, or organise your own, click here.

The Award

We’ll again be giving an award to a great-sounding dynamic album from 2011-12 – and this year you can nominate entries and vote for your favourite on the “People’s Choice” award on our Facebook page – click here for more details.

We’re also hoping to arrange a love online event you can join in with – more details on that when we have them !

Get Involved

There’ll be more details about all of this soon, but in the meantime, please help publicise the event:

• Like and share the Facebook page

• Post links to this page on all your favourite social media sites
• Sign up to attend a MeetUp event – or even host your own !
• Post one of our promotional “meme” images with a link the the DRD site
• Put a post on your blog or website talking about the Loudness Wars

Whatever you do though, please do it now - start spreading the word so we can get as many people involved as possible on March 16th

Thanks for reading !

An open letter to the music industry – Stop The Loudness War is a post from Ian Shepherd's: Production Advice
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