“Apple Digital Masters” (formerly Mastered for iTunes) is a declaration by Apple which guarantees that the music for sale on iTunes is exactly what the artist and engineers intended. To accomplish this Apple has developed a series of software tools which allow engineers and producers to preview high resolution masters with the same compression algorithm which Apple uses to create it’s ACC file for sale on iTunes. In short, Apple has opened up their encoding process to accommodate high resolution recording.
If you are an artist or producer or creator and you want the “Apple Digital Masters” badge on your iTunes page then you will need the following:
- Make certain the mastering house/engineer is “Apple Digital Masters” Certified.
- Make certain that your music is recorded and mixed at a minimum sample rate of 44.1khz and a minimum bit depth of 24 bits, however Apple prefers 96khz/24 bit. DO NOT down/upsample or dither the bit depth. If you record at 48khz/24 bit, then keep your mix at 48khz/24 bit. Make sure that your mixing engineer and mastering engineer understand this because it is common practice for engineers to convert audio to a CD ready format which is 44.1khz / 16 bit audio prior to sending material for digital distribution.
- After you receive your masters from the mastering house make certain the files are the same resolution as your recording.When submitting material to iTunes directly or through an aggregate make certain to declare your intention to receive the ADM certificate.
- When submitting material make certain to include the name of the mastering house and email of the mastering engineer. The engineer will be contacted by Apple for verification.
JMR Music Studio is Official Apple Digital Master provider. If you need any help feel free to contact us.
