Mastered for iTunes Logo

You’ve probably recently noticed the Mastered for iTunes (tag) on some serious productions on iTunes recently. As Apple is building a high fidelity catalog for its flagship online store in the hope to distribute lossless format only in the future, right now is about the best time to get on board.

Why is that ?

Traditionally, you would get your songs mastered for cd’s, in very high definition. But for the cd format, the mastering engineer has to cut the sound quality about in half, passing from 24bit/96kHz to 16bit/44.1 kHz. Then you would upload it on the iTunes store, where it would be re-encoded in a lossy format called AAC.

The thing here is that you’ve just downgraded the same file twice. This is really bad.

And that’s not all. When you master for cd, the cd is a format that is highly tolerant to clipping and distortion. However, it is not the case of AAC, for which the conversion codec is very sensitive to clipping. Therefore, a mastering for iTunes includes also a good habit of not trying to slam everything in the converters.

For the same reason, a mastering done for iTunes will translate very well into CD, but the opposite is far from being true…

Cool, so why won’t everyone just get your song Mastered for iTunes then ? – you would say.

Here is the trap… Even if Apple mention it nowhere on its MFiT program website, nor in its pdf, Apple is keeping track of the mastering engineers that called themselves MFiT service providers.

So, once you send your files to Apple, if you use traditional aggregators, such as CD baby, Believe Digital, Zimbalam, etc.

1) they ask you to send 16bit/44.1kHz files, and

2) they can’t guarantee you in any way that you can get the MFiT file.

Currently, the only way to get the prestigious MFiT tag on your album is to make business with a label that publish itself its catalog to iTunes and to give the name of your Apple approved MFiT service provider to your Apple contact while submitting. If you submit a 24bit/96kHz file, with a valid aggregator name, you should get the MFiT tag on your product. Still no guarantee.

That’s why, Quantum-Music is doing its best to take care of it for you. We’re currently on the official MFiT service provider list, and we dealt hard to give access to the MFiT program to the independent artists.

To recap, what are the benefit of getting into the MFiT program with us right now:

• You have a headstart compared to other independent artists.
• You get on the Mastered for iTunes page on iTunes, which incredibly boost your album’s visibility.
• At equal budget, you sound better than the competitor.
• You add a quality seal to your name.
• Dude! you’re on iTunes with MFiT tag, that’s not cool enough already ??

So, let’s make the quantum leap together !

Bests,