BLOG: Death Magnetic sounds better in Guitar Hero
Metallica take the Loudness War to a new level
Chris Vinnicombe, Tue 16 Sep 2008, 12:36 pm UTC
Guitar Hero (top) and CD clips side by side. Notice the dynamic range of the Guitar Hero clip in contrast to the 'brick wall' of the CD audio.
1 of 2 » View in gallery
Death Magnetic has been widely hailed as the band's best work in 17 years but it seems that Metallica just cannot escape controversy.
What began with fans complaining about the audio quality of lead single The Day That Never Comes has snowballed following the release of the Death Magnetic CD, which seems to mark a whole new level in the Loudness War.
Mastering engineers sacrificing dynamic range in the pursuit of louder and louder sounding CDs is nothing new, but the general consensus amongst fans and critics on hundreds of internet forums seems to be that Death Magnetic has taken this a step too far.
"The mixes were already brick-walled before they arrived at my place. Suffice it to say I would never be pushed to overdrive things as far as they are here." Quote attributed to mastering engineer Ted Jensen
Indeed, on purchasing our CD copy the day before the official release date we gave the disc a spin and couldn't help wondering if our office headphones were faulty as the kick and snare drum seemed to be audibly clipping, along with some of the palm-muted guitar parts.
Most people's first instinct was to blame the mastering, although it seems astonishing that anybody at Metallica's label, their management, the band themselves or indeed producer Rick Rubin would sign off a master with audible digital clipping throughout.
Jensen speaks out
As the internet debate raged on, the following comment was posted by oneway23 on the Metallica forum – attributed to Ted Jensen, the head engineer at Sterling Sound who mastered the album:
"I'm certainly sympathetic to your reaction, I get to slam my head against that brick wall every day. In this case the mixes were already brick-walled before they arrived at my place. Suffice to say I would never be pushed to overdrive things as far as they are here.
"Believe me I'm not proud to be associated with this one, and we can only hope that some good will come from this in some form of backlash against volume above all else."
This seems to lay the blame for any clipping squarely at the door of mix engineers Greg Fidelman and Andrew Scheps, while 2467 fans had signed an online petition to have Death Magnetic remixed or remastered at the time of writing.
Video game killing the radio stars?
Ironically, the last 48 hours have seen claims emerge that the Death Magnetic mixes available for the Guitar Hero video game sound much better and with less audible clipping than the CD, with an illegal Guitar Hero album rip even doing the rounds on torrent sites.
Sceptical? This blog by mastering engineer Ian Shepherd provides the science by directly comparing waveforms from the CD release and Guitar Hero.
UPDATE: Check out this YouTube video to hear the difference between the Death Magnetic CD release and Guitar Hero III versions for yourself.
Neither the band nor their management were available for comment, but pressure is growing from fans who feel short-changed by the CDs they've shelled out for.
Come on Metallica, what are you going to do about it?
User comments (14)
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Well, this is just another example of how much of an idiot Lars is! It's obvious he could care less what the people buying the cds think as long as he gets their money. And he has always had serious resentment for everything internet related rather than being a smart businessman and embracing it. I've been a Metallica fan since day one, but if Lars Ulrich was in my band, I would have fired him a long time ago. His performance on this album is better than it's been in years but still very lazy compared to Master of Puppet days. Everyone else kicked ass! I got my copy of the album and of course immediately put it on my mp3 player and question why it sounded so crappy. So then I played the cd at our recording studio where you can hear every detail and monitor the wave forms and it was obviously distorted and overly compressed. As a studio engineer myself, I am very disappointed with a few of the albums that are coming out this way. I pay very close attention to avoid these kind of mistakes when mixing my own band or anyone else's music for that matter. You need to be able to hear the dynamics of the sounds you are recording and capture enough of the ambience to make it feel live and energetic when the consumers listen to it. Once you enter digital clipping, you begin to lose all of that. My experience has taught me that the levels usually shouldn't exceed -10dB to -6dB with the former sounding better. This practice of people pushing the levels to 0dB is just destroying the music rather than enhancing it. And I believe Ted Jensen's response is true. This happens a lot today it seems. When you have one team doing the initial mixing and another person doing the final mastering, the final mastering engineer is at the mercy of the people who touched it before him. At that stage, there is only so much "studio magic" you can do. Your final product is only going to be as good as what you are given to begin with. And this is not the first time we've heard albums from the hands of Greg Fidelman and Andrew Sheps that sounded this clipped. And I believe that they could have chosen someone better than Rick Rubin for a Metallica album. Rick's good with certain types of music (although I personally don't agree with some of his decisions) but I don't think he was right for Metallica. Anyway, that's my two cents worth.
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You people who tell the complainers to back off must love wasting your hard earned money.
The music is great but the sound quality just sucks. PERIOD!!! Personally I would not have spent $14.00 for this cd if I had known that it sounded so bad.
Compressing and overdriving the levels to the extent they are on this recording is like stealing from the fans. Fans are being ripped off. They are giving there hard earned money to the band etc. and getting trashy sound in return. If you can't see that you need to get off the drugs you're on and wake up. Personally I work to hard for my money to be blatantly ripped off.
That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it. -
You people who tell the complainers to back off must love wasting your hard earned money.
The music is great but the sound quality just sucks. PERIOD!!! Personally I would not have spent $14.00 for this cd if I had known that it sounded so bad.
Compressing and overdriving the levels to the extent they are on this recording is like stealing from the fans. Fans are being ripped off. They are giving there hard earned money to the band etc. and getting trashy sound in return. If you can't see that you need to get off the drugs you're on and wake up. Personally I work to hard for my money to be blatantly ripped off.
That's my opinion and I'm sticking to it. -
Hmm.
"This seems to lay the blame for any clipping squarely at the door of mix engineers Greg Fidelman and Andrew Scheps, "
Bad mix then???
If so, why isn't the GH track equally bad.
Did someone else mix it?(I personally don't think so)
If not, does that mean Ted Jensen is lying? -
Just to echo fireman and Sparrowmans comments really. Great album, crap sound.
As my friend has just pointed out, it's no wonder the Guitar Hero game sounds better than the CD. The game is on a DVD and you can fit loads more data on a DVD than a CD - it's obvious really. -
The previous post by Fireman carries my full consent, this is not about Metallica, but about the depraved tendency to damage beautiful music by mastering that damages the original signal. After the dynamic range is gone, you can _never_ restore it. Especially people who love Metallica should demand they receive the original, full live sound, which is so engulfing! And indeed this is possible, if only we were more aware.
If this is new to you, please be aware of the availability of this material:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
http://www.cdmasteringservices.com/dynamicrange.htm
The youtube link at the bottom of the above article demonstrates, to my opinion, clearly the difference in dynamic range, clarity and punch in the two version Death Magnetic. -
This is not about fans being picky or "hating" on Metallica. This whole issue is about record labels continuing to release badly mixed albums in the ongoing "Loudness War". If a band wants to release a record that clips cause its been over compressed and stripped of its dynamics for the purpose of "the art" well, so be it. They are the artist and they intended it to sound a certain way. In the case of this Loudness War, however, the issue is poorly mastered albums for the purpose of being louder than the next guy. The listener ends up with a CD that sounds (we hope) nothing like what the artist intended it to sound like. The CLARITY is gone. Think about hitting a snare drum for a second. Snare drums don't clip when you play them, they clip when you digitally alter them after recording. From a live drum to your ear there is no distortion, there is the glorious sound of rock and roll drums being hit loud and CLEAR. What we are seeing more and more of is music being compressed SO much that the clarity is almost gone. If you want to listen to your CD's at such a volume that it starts to clip your speakers, that's your choice. But its a choice that is slowly disappearing with albums like this.
From what I have heard, this album rocks. I have been a Metllica fan longer than I can even remember and I have stuck by them through it all and for the most part I have liked pretty much everything they have released, even some of St. Anger. I just miss the clarity and dynamics of the recording. -
Pffuu the whole album sounds very tight just as Metallica intended it, just listen to it on a proper Stereo, it certainly is a loud album but it's sound great overall.
Spoonking, just because some people say the album sounds bad doesn't mean you can't enjoy it anymore, it's a bit of a ridiculous reaction. A lot of people talk shit do you necessarily listen to them? No!!! Think for yourself, you like an album great, other people criticise it, fine, everybody have different tastes.
As for Ted Jensen's comments, if he receives a very hot mix, it's his job to tell his customer especially Metallica, that the album may sound a bit edgy after mastering, I don't think Metallica would have blindly authorised a Master to get out on the market without their consent or even without a listen. -
1. Im a massive Metallica fan, and Im getting rather tired of anybody and everybody picking Metallicas work. It was the same with St.Anger, which I liked...its like people expect something from Metallica, or feel they are owed it....its annouing, and I knew something would happen with Death Magnetic.
2. As for this current debate...I agree that when I listen to the album on the stereo, that the drums can killl the vocals, but I find that on head phones its not an Issue. I dont see what the problem is, this is Heavy Metal, its meant to be loud. Even though people are finding proof of over compression etc...so what....I think now that its very easy for people to get into music production, everyone wants to have an opinion. And now that this opinion is out there, people are gonna start seeing the album differently.
There is a case to make people awear of this "loudness war" but for me...its just people ripping Metallica AGAIN, just like with the Napster thing, the St.Anger no lead guitar, metal snare sound....its just one more thing to maon about.
fine the game version may sound better...but what ever happened to it being about the music...if Death Magnetic is too loud, the Kill em all, Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets are all too quiet. -
@Molloy: We are all entitled to our opinion. Those of us that are complaining about the production are not "haters", just the opposite. The songs are great! But the overly-compressed and "pushed" mastering (and mixing?) kill the listening experience.
I can tell you that especially listening to DM on headphones hurts my ears after a song or two. Records that are mixed too "loud" and have no dynamic are very fatiguing on the ears.
Would highly recommend anyone reading this article to check out the wikipedia article on the "Loudness Wars" for a better understanding of this issue:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
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dcsloan
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