[MLA] Buddy

[Grimm | Eelco]

Forgot to mention that Buddy told me it is more difficult for Apple than for instance Spotify because they will need/want to normalize all and everything on the phone. Including 3rd party apps, so normalization of sound should become part of the Appstore license and QC... And podcasts, who will need to get an offline analysis, that should be done on the phone. Internet Radio can have unknown levels and are live streams, so the only way to avoid a loudness war is to give them a default attenuation in the absence of metadata, but Apple should communicate what kind of metadata can help to go around that. Etc etc... It is a lot of work.

Cheers,
Eelco

On 24 okt. 2017, at 09:46, Grimm | Eelco <eelco at grimmaudio.com> wrote:

> Hi everybody,
> 
> I didn't have a chance to update all of you about my meeting with Buddy. We had a very relaxed dinner. One of our topics of course was loudness normalization. It turned out that the full technical team is very much behind us to turn normalization on by default. Tom Holman is even very strongly pushing it. My 'Tidal' report, recommending album normalization always, has also found much support, lowering some of the last resistance. The problem however is the higher management (not the highest, but the in between levels). Like with all large companies, these guys fly in from other departments or companies, stay short and have little connection to the actual team on the floor. They are very hard to convince, it just depends on their mood of the day. The fact that AppleMusic Radio is turned on by default was apparantly an unnoticed accident. Buddy told me about some internal stuff - typically large company troubles - that I cannot share with you, but the effect is that Buddy is considering to move to another department. If he does I will make sure to be introduced to his successor.
> 
> There was also good news. The fact that Tidal now also will turn normalization on by default has more impact on the management than the internal pressure. Apple has become a follower not a leader. So they will probably be the last to join. Perhaps it is best to focus our efforts on SoundCloud and Google first. At a certain moment the external pressure will become too big for Apple.
> 
> Cheers,
> Eelco
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