Add Mastered for iTunes

SPICING IT UP: Mastered for iTunes unofficially began last year, when Rick Rubin was frustrated with his inability to make the Red Hot Chili Peppers' I'm With You sound as dynamic in the AAC format as it did on a CD. Working with Apple, he tinkered with the master recording, landing on a higher-than-usual bit rate—so when he sent it to iTunes for encoding, it sounded considerably better than a typical compressed audio file. "It's much closer to the sound of the CD and it took several weeks of additional experimentation and mastering to reach the final iTunes master," Rubin told MTV News at the time. (6/1a)