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What's Mastered for iTunes?

What Apple Digital Masters (formerly Mastered for iTunes) means, and why your release will be rejected by Apple if the mastering engineer isn't on Apple's approved engineer list.

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Mastered for iTunes (also referred to as Apple Digital Masters) is Apple's set of recommended mastering guidelines for delivering the highest possible audio quality on Apple Music and iTunes.

  • It's a mastering approach, not a separate file you upload. It refers to mastering from a high-resolution source file (rather than a file already compressed down to a lossy format) so Apple's encoding process has the best possible source material to work from.
  • Releases don't need to be specifically "Mastered for iTunes" to be distributed through EngineEars. It's optional, not a distribution requirement.

 

Important: The mastering engineer must be on Apple's official list of approved Apple Digital Masters engineers for a release to carry the Apple Digital Masters designation. If your release is submitted as an Apple Digital Master but the mastering engineer is not on Apple's approved list, Apple will reject the release. Only use this designation if your mastering engineer is verified on Apple's list.

You can see what the official Apple Digital Masters badge looks like, check the current list of approved engineers, and read more about the program, on Apple's official Apple Digital Masters page.