In mastering one of our main jobs is to deliver files that are technically compatible and that sound good, no matter what delivery format or playback system is used.
Artists and record labels use digital distributors to release music on streaming services and digital download stores.
These services accept WAVs at up to 48kHz 24bit, which they then convert to the format requested by each service and send to them. They also send all the metadata and artwork associated with the release. Once the music is released the distributors also collect and distribute any money due to the artist or label for sales or streams.
The various streaming and download services use a huge variety of formats and resolutions, most of them lossy like MP3, AAC or OGG.
There is no way of predicting how your music will sound coming back from all the different services, however making sure the input file sounds excellent is a good start. Mastering World’s engineers have years of experience of mastering for all digital formats so we master music to translate well across all formats.
Some streaming services like Tidal and Apple now offer lossless / high resolution streaming.
This has been made possible by the steady increase over the years of internet connection speeds andthe processing power of computers and smartphones.
It's now perfectly possible to listen to music at the same resolution that it was mastered.
It has taken the Internet 30 years to catch up with the resolution that CDs gave consumers. We applaud the remarkable technical achievements and we enjoy the excellent sound quality that these services are delivering to our homes and our devices.
A large number of streaming services now offer playback normalisation, some default this feature to on and some, like YouTube, have no option to turn it off.
This feature measures the perceived volume of every song and assigns it a playback volume accordingly. Quieter songs with all the dynamics intact are turned down less or not at all. Louder songs are turned down, the loudest songs turned down most of all.
This feature is turning the tide on the loudness wars. Because songs are played at the same perceived volume, songs that are mastered quieter end up sounding objectively better than super loud mastered songs that are turned down to match them.
When this feature becomes ubiquitous on all services all incentives to make super loud masters will be gone and we can return to using compression and limiting in mastering for solely creative reasons.
YouTube was the first major platform to adjust the playback volume according to the music's volume. As discussed above this means louder tracks will be turned down and the advantage of super-loud mastering is lost.
Even if a loud master is still required for the main release it's worth considering using a more dynamic master specifically for the YouTube release.
We can supply a second, more dynamic, master of any song we master at a small extra cost.
CD Masters are normally delivered to the plant as a set of files called a DDP (Direct to Disc Protocol). This includes the music in one file along with all the timing and text data.
If you have ISRC codes they can be included in the DDP metadata.
There are no technical limitations to consider when creating a CD Master - we export files at 44.1kHz 16bit for the CD and eventually the CD Player will play back that exact data. When we and the artist are satisfied with that final sound then that's the sound that will be delivered to the client on CD.