AES Berlin 2017
Tutorial T07
Saturday, May 20, 14:30 — 15:30 (Salon 4+5 London)
T07 - Digital Streaming: Implications for Mix and Mastering Practice
Paul Tapper (Presenter)
Streamed audio consumption is becoming an increasingly dominant factor in the music industry. This not only profoundly effects the music business, but also has deep implications for the creative choices made during mixing and mastering. Two major technical considerations are codec compression, and loudness normalization. Codecs produce a better result when the source audio does not have inter-sample clips. Loudness normalization dramatically effects the creative goals of mixing and mastering and the correct auditioning methodology. Producing a “hotter” louder master may well sound better in the studio but will just get attenuated during streaming so the consumer will not hear that increased loudness. Often-times head room and audio quality is sacrificed to achieve this greater studio loudness. These dramatic changes in music consumption patterns necessitate dramatic changes in mixing and mastering practices by audio professionals.
This session is presented in association with the AES Technical Committee on Broadcast and Online Delivery