This Should Really be called Optimized for iTunes. Part of the reason for this proposal, is that an average Pop Release, when run through the afClip analyzer, show thousands of points where clipping will occur on playback. This will come as no surprise to most professionals who listen to iTunes files. This new methodology gives us an objective measure of the amount of distortion that gets added during the mastering of most modern music. Hopefully this will be an incentive for mastering engineers not to master so hot, and thus move back to the days when mastering was judged on quality and not how loud you could make it. Cheers -pm -----Original Message----- From: Association for Recorded Sound Discussion List [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bob Olhsson Sent: Fri 24 Feb 2012 15:20 To: [log in to unmask] Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] "Mastered for iTunes"? The best way to think of lossy encoding is as really smart dithering that tucks a lot of quantization noise away into parts of the waveform where it can't be heard. Excessive signal processing, limiting and saturation simply leaves lots less space to hide the artifacts. Excessive levels will clip the filter bank that is an integral part of the process making things even worse. Bob Olhsson Audio Mastery, Nashville TN Mastering, Audio for Picture, Mix Evaluation and Quality Control Over 40 years making people sound better than they ever imagined! 615.562.4346 http://www.bobolhsson.com http://audiomastery.com -----Original Message----- From Tom Fine: ... it seems to me like a lossy format defeats a lot of the good being advocated. ... --------------------------------------------------------------------- Music from EMI This e-mail including any attachments is confidential and may be legally privileged. If you have received it in error please advise the sender immediately by return email and then delete it from your system. The unauthorised use, distribution, copying or alteration of this email is strictly forbidden. If you need assistance please contact us on +44 20 7795 7000. This email is from a unit or subsidiary of EMI Group Limited. Registered Office: 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5SW Registered in England No 229231. ---------------------------------------------------------------------