Now, before you start getting upset at me for criticising your taste in music, that’s not my goal! The quality I’m referring to is the audio quality and not the subjective quality of the music you use.
So if you’re all about using ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time’ as a reference, I’m not judging. I simply want to address something simple I’ve been asked a few times.
What source should I use for my references?
I often get asked if CD is better than iTunes audio, if downloading from the internet depreciates the audio quality or if it matters whether you use an MP3 or a WAV file. Those questions are valid but when it comes to referencing, you should be more interested in the core concepts than absolutely pristine high fidelity audio.
In fact, neither my studio computer nor my laptop have a CD drive anymore, so even if I wanted to import from a CD, I couldn’t! Well, I could but I’d have to resurrect my old MacBook and that’s not happening any time soon. By the way, this isn’t intended to start a Mac vs. PC debate – I’m fully aware I’m an Apple addict and there’s no turning back now.
Remember what you’re trying to achieve by referencing
You’re using your taste to get elements of your track to resemble elements of the tracks in your references. That’s it. If you want to go ahead and make sure you’ve got the absolute best quality audio, then by all means do that.
If you’re still not sure about what format to use, here’s what I recommend:
- Make sure you’re using music you’ve purchased or created!
- If you’re using MP3, use 320kpbs MP3 files
- It doesn’t matter if you use downloaded files or files imported from a CD
- You can use MP3, AIFF, AAC, Apple Lossless (.m4a) or anything your DAW will support
If you’ve got a loudness matched reference set, either a 320kbps MP3 or WAV file will do the job. You’re listening out for things like the bass level relative to the kick, not if the file is MP3 or WAV. If you’re listening for that, you’re not referencing the right way.
For anyone interested, my reference set is mostly made up of WAV files, but there are a few MP3 files in there too. My clients also send me MP3 files as rought mixes and references and I have no problem with that.
So what about you?
Do you only reference high fidelity audio or are you more interested in the concept of referencing and what it does for your music?
Leave a comment below!
professional sounding mix every time...
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