Pinch me! I am still here, right? Is this the best news since sliced bread?

A couple of days ago, Apple quietly (they’ve been doing that a lot lately) released an exciting advancement for digital music – Mastered For ITunes.

Over time, I have recorded three CDs and, each time, I was relegated to sitting behind the recording engineer while he tried to decipher exactly what I was looking for in my recorded music.

How I wanted to snatch the controls away from him! And, in a moment of weakness and frustration, he relented and let me do my thing at the control panel. But, truth be told, I was itching to leap over the hurdles and just take over the whole project.

Yet overall, after hooking up with an excellent mastering engineer, the final product was quite good even though the music still did not sound fully refined. The original recording equipment was not state of the art, so the mastering engineer had to work within its limitations.

And the digital experience didn’t help matters. The digital music product sounded very compressed (which, in fact it was), tinny and lacked the dynamic strength and sparkle of the original master.

Enter Mastered For ITunes.

Thanks to Apple’s relentless vision for excellence, now everyone’s future recorded products will be a true reflection of their personal vision. In other words, with Apple’s help, one will truly be master of their musical domain. ( had to grab this Seinfeld goodie before someone else thought of it)

Now I just need to find the time to upload some recorded product via Mastered For iTunes. Presently, I am immersed in IBooks Author, working on my first interactive book. But, since I will be in the vicinity of an Apple store very soon, I hope to get OneToOne assistance with both IBooks Author and Mastered For ITunes.

There is a great article from AllThingsDigital.Com that highlights legendary singer-songwriter Neil Young’s frustration at the quality of today’s digital music.

I came across this article via The New York Times, which succinctly summarized the higher level of quality that Apple is bringing to digital music via Mastered For ITunes.

There is also more detailed information about Mastered For ITunes at PCMag.Com and Tuaw.Com.

The Mastered For ITunes guidelines are a long but necessary read, almost fascinating actually if you like this kind of stuff. I wiled away most of my Saturday afternoon just trying to figure out all the terminology. Keep the ‘ole brain going, right?

I won’t pretend to understand every little detail but I do understand the bottom line. Digital music will now reflect the original master, as long as the mastering engineer works within Apple’s framework for excellence. How exciting is that?

I smell another Grammy for Apple. Do you?