MUMBAI: To leverage musical experience, Sony Music for the first time has released the MFIT (mastered for iTunes) versions for Tamil and Hindi albums, namely Maryan and Bhaag Milkha Bhaag.
The company statement states that the sound of these two albums on iTunes will be of the highest quality and has been specially mastered and engineered at iTunes certified studios. Mastered for iTunes is an aid to mixing and mastering engineers in creating the best-sounding tracks possible when converted to the lossy 256Kbps audio format that is commonly used
Directed by ace director Bharat Bala, the Tamil film Maryan stars the multi-talented Dhanush and the ravishing Parvathi Menon with music by multiple Grammy Award winner AR Rahman. On the other hand, Bhaag Milkha Bhaag has music composed by the trio Shankar - Ehsaan - Loy with Prasoon Joshi's lyrics.
Currently, this section contains around 100 albums spanning classics and masterpieces like Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, Marvin Gaye's Let's Get It On, numerous classical albums, U2's Achtung Baby and more.
Mastering a song or album for iTunes means that it will sound better, while remaining just as portable. Bob Ludwig, a mastering engineer who re-mastered Coldplay's latest album, Mylo Xyloto, for the new 'Mastered for iTunes' store said, "From a technical viewpoint, there are cases where the 24-bit AAC file would be superior to the lossless CD. I did an early demonstration for some engineer friends of mine and the difference between the 'Mastered for iTunes' file I created and the one that was ripped from a 16-bit CD was easily heard on the little speakers on my MacBook Pro."
Today, most studio tracks are recorded at 24 bits. The process of mastering a recording is taking the raw mixed song and copying it to another format, with adjustments in the amount of information that can be transferred to the new medium and attendant tweaks to ensure it sounds as good as possible given the new format's limitations. The music on standard commercial CDs is encoded at 16 bits.
With the help of 'Mastered for iTunes', users will be able to experience the finer detailed and lavish productions of both the albums through earphones and speakers.