Mastering engineers should sue Apple Music

Apple Music takes whatever the "latest version" of a song is if it happens to be around the same length and slaps it on to every release of an album across time. Notably, John Mayer just pulled the Dolby Atmos version of his latest album because it became the "default" streaming copy, not the stereo version he probably slaved over.

This practice of serving up whatever newest mastering "matches" older releases is total disrespect to the people who created the version that just got slapped over by a new mastering and "replaces" what people where hearing previously. There is a version of a Queen Greatest hits that actually says '(1981 UK Edition)' in the title, but if you play it you get Dolby Atmos versions of some of the songs. What?

Am I wrong?

 

What kind of damages do you think mastering engineers suffer from this practice?

 

Maybe when these engineers stop clipping the crap out of releases I might feel sorry for them

 

Not sure about lawsuits, but if this practice bothers anyone as a subscriber, then it might please them to know Qobuz does not do this.

 

You are right, but 99.5% of the population don't care. That same 99.5% doesn't care if a recording is 128kbs or lossless CD quality. It is what it is.

 

How about rolling it into a broader antitrust case where Apple is controlling too much data and content to the point where it's anti-competitive and doesn't just hurts mastering engineers but everyone in every industry that Apple now operates. It's time to break up these trillion dollar companies and force them into one sandbox or the other. They're getting way too powerful and engaging in too many dangerous business practices.

 

I downloaded Apple Music and it matched up to copies of what I already had ripped to my computer. What’s weird is my computer died months ago.

 

Yup.
Many of the 99% are listening to the music on some type of single bluetooth speaker too...as long as the song sounds pretty good, everything is okay.

 

One more reason why people shouldn't make streaming their primary source for music. When you buy it you control it.

 

You can turn Atmos off. If you leave it on, you're asking Apple Music to play you that version when available.

 

I assumed this was normal practice. So in my mind, let's say a new mastering of Billy Squiers Don't Say Know is released - that would be the one and only version available on, say, Spotify. I wasn't aware that any service kept multiple masterings of a single album.

Or am I misunderstanding this whole thing entirely?

 

Nothing to do with mastering engineers, they are hired to master songs, not control what gets released on what.
Artists/labels should get an interest in what's happening to their tracks though.

 

No you’re not. As a previous poster said. If you want to listen to a specific master of an album, streaming is not the service for you. It’s one of the reasons i don’t use streaming. I want to be in control of my music collection.

 

It's easy - don't use Apple products or services. Never did, never will.

 

This. It's completely optional.

If anything, put it on the labels for not re-hiring those who originally mixed/mastered the album (or are overly-familiar with it) when creating the new Atmos versions. Apple will just stream whatever version the label supplies.

 

Quite.

Settings > Music > Dolby Atmos > off. Apple Music will serve the stereo lossy AAC or stereo lossless/HiRes version (according to settings in Settings > Music > Audio Quality) when an Atmos version of a track/album is available.

Problem solved.

Apple are not creating & supplying the Dolby Atmos content, the labels/content owners are.

 

This is one reason for me why I don't support any digital / streaming music service. I listen to music from vinyl and CD.

 

You’re at least partially misunderstanding this thing.

On Spotify, The Yes Album is currently available in the 2003 remaster, 2008 remaster, and the Stephen Wilson remix.

The White Album is currently available on Spotify in the 2009 stereo remaster and the 2018 remix.

It’s not always as easy as it should be to tell apart the different mixes and masters of any given album available on Spotify, but the notion that there’s only one mastering of any given album available on streaming services at any given time is not correct.

As usual, people who adopt an “I will never stream” stance predictably fail to understand some of the facts and nuances about streaming.

 

If I care enough to seek out a specific master of an album, Spotify does offer me some options, as I noted above. However, if I really care about that artist or album enough to get into the weeds of having a favorite mastering, I probably collect that artist on vinyl or CD. If I’m just using streaming to check out whether to buy or swap an upcoming album of the month on Vinyl Me Please, or I just get an itch to hear a particular track or album from an artist whom I’m not invested in enough to collect on vinyl or CD, I really don’t care which mastering Spotify offers.

I like to “control” my collection of the Beatles, Stones, Who, etc.

If I get an urge to listen to the Police one day, I really don’t care which mastering of their music Spotify offers. And I don’t care about the Police enough to own their records on physical media, or care what mastering of “Every Breath You Take” I’m hearing. I just want to hear “Every Breath You Take” at that moment, in some acceptable version, kind of like back in the day when I’d hear whatever version of the song the radio played.

 

I'm not sure why you feel the need to be sarcastic, especially when I am asking a question for the purposes of clarification.

As for my own stance on Streaming, it's you that has misunderstood my stand and previous comments. I'll leave it at that. It's good to have all the information laid out, and asking question as I did is how we learn.

 

In addition, you can locally add your own music to Spotify if you so desire too. Apple Music is the best at this as it allows you to upload your own version up to the cloud so it’s accessible everywhere instantly. It gives you the best of both worlds as you really can listen to the specific version you prefer, but still then stream everything else you want.

 

Agreed. I don’t bother to do that, because, as I noted above, I don’t use Spotify to replace my physical media collection and favorite masterings of my favorite artists.

I use it to supplement my physical media collection. The other day I was on a 60s psych kick and got the urge to check out Spooky Tooth’s debut album. I don’t own that album on CD or vinyl, and, after listening to it on Spotify, I still don’t care about it enough to buy it on CD or vinyl. But it was nice to be able to check it out when the whim struck me. Whether Spotify features the ultimate master of that album, or the mono mix of that album, didn’t really matter to me. I just wanted to hear that album at that moment. That’s how I largely use streaming.

 

There are flaws in nearly every streaming service when it comes to what you are describing - or variations of that.
I do notice that some artists with high-resolution albums, on Amazon Music HD for example, that offer their 24-bit album, plus the 16-bit. I have noticed that even some artists, like The Beatles, offer the 1987 CD mastering, the 2009 remaster, and anything remixed by Giles or Giles and his dad. You have choices. Not all artists or their companies do this, but some do.
It's hit or miss. Also, you might not be given that option at all in some catalogues, and on some streaming services. There are a couple out there with horrendous search functions.
At the very same time, I notice tons of errors in consistent resolution across some albums, like an album showing as "Ultra-High Res", but half the tracks are the 16-bit versions. The rest are high-res, or maybe one or two in some cases. If you dig through the albums, you MIGHT find the other masterings (a search for specific songs brings up every version), but mostly not.
If these services were free, I wouldn't complain. But they're not. And part of that is how little the artists get for streaming revenue. Imagine if...when you listened to an entire album, the artist gets a quarter instead of $0.0000008. Then we would level the playing field. Record companies wouldn't have to develop intricate marketing schemes to deal with the modern state of music & money. Schemes like...putting an album only every offered on LP, CD, or cassette on a streaming service...and taking one track from it and either upsampling to 24/192 or using a legitimate remaster of the most popular track/s.
It doesn't even make sense to me. But it's voodoo marketing, and not every customer is going to notice and they know this.
If anything, Bezos could revolutionize streaming royalties by offering more money per x-streams.
Imagine if streaming were lucrative for artists. We might see the best presentation of entire catalogs in all streamable resolutions.

 

Many songs on Apple Music are named with (2013 Remaster), etc. so different masterings are documented and often actually served. But in many cases, a new version could easily be delivered instead.

 

Or in addition to. For example there are two versions of Susumu Yokota's album Sakura one of which is on Skintone Records 1999 and the other on Leaf Label 2000. Both have the same running time and I blieve the same mastering.