Thankfully, it appears as though the industry is growing more and more serious about ensuring the best quality out of high res audio. News has come out that the Producers and Engineers Wing of the Recording Academy, the same body that is responsible for the Grammy Awards, has plans to create high-res music production guidelines on how to record, mix, and master high-res music.
If all goes according to plan, the high-res recording guidelines will be ready for the AES (Audio Engineering Society) convention this October. The guidelines are expected to cover:
- The value of establishing workflow protocols and procedures for recording new projects at 96kHz/24-bit and higher.
- The need for utilizing best practices when transferring analog masters to hi-res digital formats.
- The importance of packaging Hi-Res Audio files with high quality digital liner notes, credits, and other descriptive metadata that complements these recordings.
- The use of best efforts when documenting the origin format (“provenance”) of these recordings, in order to provide as much transparency to consumers as possible.
- A list of recommendations that support the minimum production requirements necessary to enable music labels to deliver Hi-Res Audio content.
This isn’t the first time that the Recording Academy has The Recording Academy has previously issued several industry guidelines ranging from recommendations to delivering music projects, recommendations for surround sound projects, and guidelines for digital audio workstations.
The Producers & Engineers Wing is comprised of more than 5,500 producers, engineers, remixers, manufacturers, technologists, and other related music recording industry professionals; when you join The Recording Academy in the category of producer or engineer, you also become a member of the P&E Wing.
This organized voice for the creative and technical recording community uses its nationwide network of experts to address critical issues affecting the art and craft of recorded music.
Among these issues are: the development and adoption of new technologies; recommendations for best practices in recording, master delivery, archiving and preservation; and support for both music education and education in the recording arts.
