Instead, a variety of techniques are used to reduce the bandwidth that is used in the data transfer. What is delivered to the listener’s device is not a bit-for-bit copy of the mix that was originally uploaded to the streaming server. Several different audio data-reduction codecs are in widespread use, but all work on the same general principles.Like many download formats, streaming usually uses data compression. Different streaming services will do different things to your music - and most of them don’t publish any details of what it is that they do! So how can you make sure that your mixes will sound as good as they possibly can to today’s listeners? In fact, it means that if you are going to optimise your output for any particular delivery method, you should choose streaming rather than CD or download. If you’re producing music, this means you can’t afford to ignore streaming. The shift from physical media to online delivery is sure to continue, and within the digital sector, downloads will continue to wane while streaming grows and grows. In streaming, the music business might have found what it has been searching for for more than 20 years: a consumer-friendly way of delivering music digitally and making money from it. Digital revenues now surpass physical sales figures, and for the first time since 1995, overall revenue from recorded music has risen. As of 2015, streaming is now the most important source of revenue for recorded music. Music retailing has changed out of all recognition in recent years, and mastering must follow.This isn’t only true in terms of volume, either. Nevertheless, the figures are so huge that it’s clear that streaming now dominates the market. Obviously, not all streams represent sales, and a download or physical sale might lead to hundreds of listens, whereas a stream always represents a single listen. Last year, for example, 431 billion song streams were logged in the USA alone: that’s well over 1000 for every person in the country! Instead, streaming is now the main route by which music reaches the ears of the public. Not only are we not buying CDs any more, but increasingly, we’re not buying downloads either. The way we listen to music has changed fundamentally in recent years.

So how can you make sure your music sounds as good as possible? Streaming is now the most important way in which music is consumed.

Mastering music