From the course: Audio Mastering Techniques

Unlock the full course today

Join today to access over 24,200 courses taught by industry experts.

Understanding AAC, the iTunes file format

Understanding AAC, the iTunes file format

From the course: Audio Mastering Techniques

Start my 1-month free trial Buy for my team

Understanding AAC, the iTunes file format

“

iTunes uses the Advanced Audio Coding, or AAC file format, as a standard for all the music in its store. Contrary to popular belief, it's not a proprietary format owned by Apple. In fact, it's part of the MP4 specification and generally delivers excellent quality files that are about 30% smaller than a standard MP3 of the same data rate. All new music destined for the iTunes Store is now encoded at a constant bit rate of 256 kilobits per second and a sample rate of 44.1 kilohertz. The iTunes Store discontinued selling 128 kilobits per second music files in April of 2008. While the iTunes Store does the encoding for you after the songs have been submitted, here are some of the parameters of the AAC Encoder that are available if you do your own encoding in iTunes. The settings can be found under iTunes > Preferences > General. You click Import Settings, choose Import Using AAC Encoder and then under Setting choose Custom. The first setting is Stereo Bit Rate. This allows you to select…

Contents