iTunes vs. Me · 24 January 07
From Monday’s New York Times:
Last year, as Ry Cooder worked on “My Name Is Buddy,” an oddball folk and blues concept album about a red cat that travels through a mythic American landscape, he ran into familiar problems. When he subjected the recording to his usual test — playback in his Toyota, on the factory-installed stereo — the result wasn’t to his liking. “It started to sound processed,” he said. “We were losing the feeling of the thing, and this is not music that can withstand this.”
Then Mr. Cooder noticed something else: When he burned a copy of the album using Apple’s iTunes software, it sounded fine. He didn’t know why until one of his younger engineers told him that the default settings on iTunes apply a “sound enhancer.” (It’s in the preferences menu, under “playback.”) Usually, that feature sweetens the sound of digital music files, but Mr. Cooder so liked its effect on his studio recordings that he used it to master — that is, make the final sound mixes — his album. “We didn’t do anything else to it,” he said.
Ah hell… Well, there goes that portion on my income. Who will hire me to make their album sound better when Steve Jobs does it for free? Thanks Steve. First you make the iPhone really expensive and not available in Cananda until 2008, now you do this? Sigh… why do you hate me Steve? Why?
[ File under: Geek & Irritants ]