Whenever we discuss the so-called ‘loudness war’ here at MusicRadar, a key citation is often Metallica’s 2008 album Death Magnetic. The extreme volume of this Rick Rubin-produced record was the result of deliberate mixing and mastering choices, designed to make the tracks as in-your-face as possible when heard on radio - albeit to the detriment of dynamic range…
Mixing the record back then was Andrew Scheps - now universally regarded as one of the industry’s most accomplished mixing engineers. Scheps has overseen records from Adele, Green Day, Lana Del Rey, Lady Gaga and Justin Timberlake to name just a few. Back in 2008, when the loudness war was in full force, Scheps unfairly swallowed some of the criticism for the record’s ultra-extreme peaks.
With the loudness war now (largely) consigned to history, we spoke to Scheps at length about his career in 2023. Andrew reflected on that time period… and the fact that Death Magnetic in a sense was the last word in the audio conflict, as it couldn’t really be topped when it came to volume…
“I was the poster child for ‘loud’ because of that Death Magnetic record. You know, everybody hated that Metallica record that was ‘the loudest thing’. My line is that the loudness war is over because I won. And that's it. And that was the record that did it,” Scheps told us.
“I think, in pop radio, there really was a loudness war,” Scheps elaborated. “You had to be loud. But radio stations compress the crap out of everything. Everything that plays on Radio 1 is exactly the same level, it doesn't matter what level the mix was. So I think it was all a little bit inflated, and it was a lot just completely outside of my awareness… I never did anything because it had to be louder. Ever. Everything I did was always because ‘it's not feeling right’.
For Scheps, sometimes going quiet just wasn’t an option when working with Metallica; “There are people who will say ‘well just make it a quieter mix, and we can turn the volume up,’ but it's just not as simple as that. Forcing all that audio energy through a smaller hole because it's bigger? It just sounds different. It really does.”
On the recording of Death Magnetic specifically - and just how a simple guitars, bass and drum setup yielded such volume - Scheps pointed to Metallica’s technical proficiency as the real underlying engine driving the sound…
“Greg Fidelman recorded that. But no, there aren't a ton of guitars. I think sometimes people just forget that everybody in Metallica is really, really good at what they do. I mean, James’s rhythm parts are insane. His right hand looks like it's not even moving. And it's one of the most aggressive, precise things you've ever heard in your life. So two of those? That's a big machine. If you put more on there, it would actually end up getting smaller because they would just start collapsing together. So it really is just the band,” explained Scheps.
“You're so lucky to work on projects like that. It's not like they aren't still hard work. And it's not like you don't have to do anything. It's really hard work and there's a lot to do. Those mixes took a long time to get right. Songs are very long, and you have to keep people engaged the whole time, but to have that raw material? You know, it's a pretty good start.”
