mastering for iTunes

[bryced87]

Hello

About a good year or so Itunes upgraded their songs to 256kbps. I am wondering if I have to do anything special when I master my track in pro tools to achieve this.

thanks

Bryce

[cwsand]

I'm not sure exactly what you're asking, but basically an mp3 encoded at 256 is just a higher quality mp3 than one with a lower rate. Pro Tools has an option to export to mp3 and you can choose the compression bit rate, but there's nothing different as far as what you do in Pro Tools because it works only with uncompressed audio.

[bryced87]

What I'm asking is this. When you purchase songs on iTunes it's downloaded as 256kbps AAC file. When I go to bounce to disk I don't see this option. iTunes recommends this option because they say if you upload a mp3 to their store it converts it into less quality and they need the maximum quality meaning 256kbps AAC.

[daeron80]

My understanding is that iTunes wants you to upload full-res files such as WAV or AIFF, not mp3s. They ask for 24-bit uncompressed files at the session sample rate up to and including 96 kHz. They encode them for you. They have a special tool you can use to see exactly how their encode process will affect your file. Their instructions may be found here.

But if you would like to make 256kbps AAC/mp3 for other purposes, the iTunes program itself does a reasonably good job, and there are dozens of free third-party encoders to choose from, as well, especially for Windows.

[Darryl Ramm]

http://www.apple.com/itunes/mastered-for-itunes/

Darryl

[waltz mastering]

As Dave posted there are online tools that itunes provides to run your master through to hear what the apple proprietary aac encoding will sound like.

They suggest sending them a 24 bit wav file (at the native sample rate of the mix or mastering session) to get the best quality.

I'm pretty sure that you also have to apply to be an itunes producer/content provider.

http://www.apple.com/fr/itunes/contentproviders/
http://www.apple.com/itunes/mastered-for-itunes/