Ry Cooder uses iTunes to master his album
Ry Cooder, an accomplished guitarist, was having trouble with his latest solo effort 'My Name is Buddy.' Try as he might he just didn't like the way that the tracks (that's songs in musician speak) sounded. They were a bit over processed to his ears, however, when Ry burned a CD of his album from iTunes it sounded great.What was going on?
One of the sound engineers pointed out that iTunes applies a 'Sound Enhancer' to each track, hence why they sounded so sweet. Ry then knew the answer, he just took the iTunes CD and make it the 'master' (that's the copy of the final album that all others are created from). See that, you too can create an awesome album with just a little talent, iTunes, a studio full of expensive equipment, and some highly trained professionals.
Sadly, the album isn't available on the iTunes Store (yet).
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Chris said 9:40PM on 1-23-2007
Now, I'm not an expert but isn't the "sound enhancer" only for playback, and not applied for CD burning? In Itunes preferences it shows up on the Playback tab and I don't recall hearing any difference between CDs burned in Itunes and those burned with Toast.
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aaronmcg said 10:20PM on 1-23-2007
correct.
ry's ears are gettin' on a bit at this stage i'd say
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Quix said 10:36PM on 1-23-2007
Wait a minute: is he saying that 128 kbps tracks purchased and burned from the iTunes Music Store sounded BETTER than his master tapes? Then he took those 128 kbps tracks and made THEM the master?
I'm at a loss.
I hope his playing is better than his sound engineering smarts.
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Scott McNulty said 10:37PM on 1-23-2007
Quix, Ry was recording his new album so I am sure he had high fidelity tracks in his iTunes library which he burned to disk.
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Quix said 10:54PM on 1-23-2007
Ah, now that makes sense.
I've noticed the same thing when I've exported vocal narration tracks from GarageBand to iTunes - they sound better. Probably due to the SRS iWow plugin. :)
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Chris Cennon said 10:51PM on 1-23-2007
iTunes CD != iTMS CD. The TUAW post clearly states that the album isn't available through the store, and the article that Scott refers to states that Mr. Cooder ran his album through "Apple’s iTunes software", instead of "bought his own unreleased album from Apple's iTunes Music Store".
It's possible that he could have used 128 kbps compression when adding the songs into his iTunes library, but it's no guarantee. It could have been any number of not-as-lossy formats, which would have translated into a better listening experience than burning a CD of iTMS tracks.
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Guy said 2:05AM on 1-24-2007
I don't want to be a couch critic, but... The songs sounded better after he put them through the iTunes sound enhancer? Honestly, any sound engineer worth his salt should be able to do better than a random computer program, given a studio to play with. Maybe Ry should hire better help, then try again.
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slingshot said 2:37AM on 1-24-2007
Its a very interesting story, but I'm inclined to agree with Guy - any decent sound engineer should be able to do better than iTunes regardless of the format; although if he didn't want to hire one for whatever reason then that's up to him.
Interesting though, I might have to have a play with that later...
By the way - ES, if you're reading, this is a good example of an interesting post regarding Apple, as opposed to bashing M$ OS's.
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Kuahine said 3:36AM on 1-24-2007
Please don't publish run-on sentences like the last one in your first paragraph. It's awful to encounter one, and even worse to have to read it at least twice to figure out what you were trying to say.
Thanks much!
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Timzilla said 3:38AM on 1-24-2007
Guy,
Yup.
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Hawk said 7:37AM on 1-24-2007
Considering some people have gotten awesome guitar tones out of a speaker aimed into a leather bag with a tube coming off it that goes up to your mouth and injects sound which is then resonated and picked up by a microphone (intentional run-on :P).....
Well, I'd say that if it works, do it. Don't piss on the sound engineer for 'not doing better'. Maybe he liked it too.
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AlMeister said 10:19AM on 1-24-2007
Then there's the (true) story of a PRO engineer working on a PRO album who found out that putting a $5 radio shack microphone element inside a bass drum gave the best sound rather then the expensive studio mic...
...or the story where Phil Collins was in the studio recording "In the air tonight" and they weren't getting the drum sound they wanted until by accident, they heard it back through the talkback mic compressor, which was a small electronic circuit not even remotely designed for recording the studio audio...
or how the first guitar "distortion" sound was created by intentionally putting holes in the speaker cone of a guitar amp...
or more recently, how a number of musicians are using lo-fi 8-bit sounds (and things like bit crusher effects etc.) rather than high-quality 24-bit sound samples because it has "the right sound"...
The list goes on an on. The real pro's know that it's the resultant sound that counts, not the gear used to make it.
On the flip side you have the consumer "audiophiles" who insist that big thick monster cables make music sound better... *ducks*
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Preston said 11:41AM on 1-24-2007
Not only does Sound Enhancer only run on playback, but even if he had been able to burn a CD that was "sound enhanced," it would end up sounding inaccurate when played on my system, because I have Sound Enhancer enabled which would be enhancing already-enhanced audio! Double the "enhancement."
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Noah Ramon said 12:52PM on 1-24-2007
In regards to AlMeister's comment, there's also the story of how Peter Gabriel and Daniel Lanois used jamboxes as their studio monitors during the recording for US - the reasoning was that "this is what the songs will be heard on by the public, so we should make sure they sound good through those."
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AlMeister said 12:07PM on 1-24-2007
It's easy to make a CD that is "sound enhanced"; play it back in iTunes with enhancing on, and run the audio outs (analog or digital) and record into your favourite audio recorder.
I think you can also probably use something like audio hijack to route the enhanced audio from itunes right to disk (never tried it though)
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nod said 2:24PM on 1-24-2007
As a mastering engineer, this one has me scratching my head....
We've had to do some crazy things to please various artists, but this seems a little, uh, careless on Ry's part. And if this is just to get some publicity for his record, well I don't get that either.
If his record was sounding "over-processed" (or whatever) he needs to address that with his mastering engineer, or find a new one if he wasn't happy with the sound.
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D said 3:11PM on 1-24-2007
The sound enhancer sounds like nothing more than a slight compressor + EQ.
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Andy said 5:19PM on 1-24-2007
Other than AlMeister and nod none of you know what you're talking about. And I really mean that - you don't know anything about mixing and mastering audio. Not slamming anyone.
I'm sure that "Sound Enhancer" via iTunes is nothing more than a couple of Audio Units with predetermined settings, probably embedded in iTunes. Now the interesting question is what are they? A compressor, expander, tiny tiny tiny amount of reverb?
Interesting.
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Chris said 5:40PM on 1-24-2007
Wow, Andy, does that include me, too?
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Reg Muffet said 6:47PM on 1-24-2007
Sound engineers over time have used novel ways to get the right sound.
For example, Phil Spector's "wall of sound," where hard walls in a recording studio created echo and reverberation would, in theory, have contradicted textbook approaches.
Yet it was wonderfully effective and helped create some of the highest grossing hits of the 60s.
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