Just months after officially launching its ‘ISRC in Broadcast WAV’ initiative, the Music Producers Guild has received the support of the BPI and AIM, two trade bodies representing the music industry. Both have agreed to adopt Broadcast WAV as standard.
"We are really delighted to have the support of the BPI and AIM," says Alchemy Mastering’s Barry Grint, who has led the MPG ISRC campaign. "This is fantastic news for all recording artists and copyright owners because adopting Broadcast WAV will make file identification and content tracking much easier and more accurate. It will also help royalty agencies develop more precise systems for payments, thereby safeguarding the incomes of artists and copyright owners when their recordings are played on air."
With two major UK music industry organisations now firmly behind the new format – and with a number of mastering hardware equipment manufactures also on-board - the Music Producers Guild believes it is only a matter of time before Broadcast WAV is adopted by the music industry world-wide.
"WAV is the standard format for music interchange in the production process, but MPG members were frustrated that there was no method of embedding industry standard ISRC information in the format to enable more accurate identification the content of files," Grint explains. "Working in collaboration with the European Broadcasting Union, which created a professional version of the WAV format called Broadcast WAV, we have been able to ensure the carriage of ISRC information in this type of file, thus removing the need for it to be re-entered and reducing the opportunity for error."
The inherent good sense of using Broadcast WAV is now being recognised.
BPI Chief Executive Geoff Taylor says: "BPI is pleased to support this MPG initiative and we’ll be encouraging our members to adopt Broadcast WAV as a standard. By incorporating ISRC data into the WAV file, we can provide a more accurate and reliable means of identifying recordings when they are exchanged between labels and studios."
James Farrelly, membership manager of AIM, adds: "In an environment where labels of all sizes now understand that effective metadata management is the key to maximising revenue from their master rights, the work MPG is doing to adapt the BWF format will result in a clearer, more accurate approach to identifying tracks and minimising potential mis-allocation of income from repertoire usage. AIM is proud to support this initiative and looks forward to working with the MPG and their partners to build industry wide adoption of the format."
The MPG is now planning to address mastering engineers by holding a seminar to demonstrate the ease with which Broadcast WAV can be implemented. This will take place in London in early November (see www.mpg.org.uk for more details).
"For engineers using Magix/Sequioa or Merging/Pyramix, switching to Broadcast WAV will simply involve a software upgrade as both of these workstation manufacturers are already backing the Broadcast WAV initiative, " Grint explains. "Now that this issue is higher up the priority list, we hope other manufacturers will quickly follow their lead."
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About Music Producers Guild (UK):
The Music Producers Guild (UK) is an independent and democratic organisation that encourages the highest standards of music production, and actively engages with other music industry organisations to campaign and lobby on matters of important mutual interest.
The MPG represents and promotes the interests of all those involved in the production of recorded music, including producers, engineers, mixers, re-mixers, programmers and mastering engineers. www.mpg.org.uk
