Metallica - Death Magnetic

[MrBlackthorne]

Has anyone heard the new Metallica album, yet? I just wanted to vent a little bit here.

First off, let me just say that I haven't been a big fan of Metallica since the Black Album, but I thought all their albums besides "St. Anger" were palatable. St. Anger, aside from trite songwriting, was an engineering disaster, in my opinion. The recording, especially the drums, sounded very unpolished to my ears, and not in a good way at all.

Metallica has one-upped themselves in the arena of engineering disasters. Last night, my friend and I were sitting in my studio working on some ideas and generally talking about music. We were playing some tunes using my Napster account when the topic of the new Metallica record came up. I said I heard a rumor that it was poorly mixed and/or mastered.

... This should have been enough warning ...

So, I cruise over to their Napster page. Of course, Metallica's too cheap to let me stream their record, but there were 30 second clips. So I play the first one...

Bad idea. The recording was so much louder than the previous song that it scared us out of our seats, sending me flying for the level knob as quickly as possible. It was so loud, I thought I may have blown my monitors. The only way to make the songs listenable was to turn the knob to the lowest setting, a notch above inaudible.

Is there any reason for this? Seriously... It's easy to blame the mastering engineer, but according to a post on Gearslutz, the recording was already overdriven to hell before they received it.

This is the first record that Rick Rubin has done with Metallica. That's exciting to me, because I'm a big Rick Rubin fan. The Red Hot Chili Peppers' Blood Sugar Sex Magik may be one of my favorite records of all time. But I've noticed this trend with Rick in the last decade... all (many?) of his albums sound clipped, especially in the vocals. I'm quickly losing respect for this guy.

I suppose the Napster clips might be lower quality than the CD, and that might explain some of the issue. However, judging from what I've been reading, this isn't the case. This truly is a shame.

When are today's producers and engineers going to put this loudness war to bed? We've been hearing complaints about it since before I started recording over a decade ago... but it's hit an all-new low. It's time that music got dynamic again! Will somebody PLEASE put musicality above loudness for a change???

Rant over. Thanks,

- Rick

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

When are today's producers and engineers going to put this loudness war to bed? We've been hearing complaints about it since before I started recording over a decade ago... but it's hit an all-new low. It's time that music got dynamic again! Will somebody PLEASE put musicality above loudness for a change???

When folks like you (I'm NOT singling YOU out, you know what I mean ) become more numerous, more vocal, and more judicious with how you spend your entertainment dollar.

Yeah, there's been a lot of bitching and moaning over the past 18 years or so, but it's all been bitching and moaning to each other - preaching to the choir. The problem is, all that doesn't mean spit as long as people like Mr. Rubin continue to call the shots, and as long as people like your average visitor to this forum think that folks like Mr. Rubin can do no wrong, and want to just copy him instead of using their own ears, their own brains and their own creativity.

Then there's the unfortunate fact that the majority of the purchasing demographic (15-22 yrs old) were born after the loudness wars began - or at least didn't get into music until then - and simply expect that is how things are supposed to sound. Sure they've heard the old stuff, but it's their generation's signature sound to go louder; proud to be loud.

It'll change. The Loudness Wars wall die out, It's alredy happening, albeit only very slowly. Maybe if products like the new Metallica album actually start bombing in sales or folks like Mr. Rubin push the envelope just too far, that will help accelerate the change.

G.

 

[Sloan]

This is all over THE INTERNETS.

The stem tracks for Guitar Hero 3 are not limited like this and supposedly sound way better. There's an online petition that already has more than around 10k signatures asking them to remix or remaster the album. But I think they've already sold over 50k copies, so they're not worried.

 

[Dogbreath]

yeah, I read that the Guitar Hero tracks were 10 db softer and sounded a helluva lot better than the CD.

Sad........(But True)

 

[Massive Master]

Inside knowledge: It was definitely NOT Ted's fault...

Otherwise, I have some thoughts on the situation...

 

[iqi616]

Aside from the loudness war there is the issue that many bands just want their music to be similar loudness to other work and that most users just want the music they listen-to to be similar loudness so they don't have to wiggle the volume knob or get nasty surprises when tracks change. They want music to be appropriately close to a similar loudness so their mp3 player is a huge custom compilation album with content drawn from wherever they choose.

At the moment the de-facto standard is simply "bloody loud - the level where it all starts to fall apart and only metal bands dare go further". To meet the above needs there must be a purposely adopted standard - with a suitable name so that bands and listeners get the point and helps sell the idea of a standard loudness. It doesn't matter really what that new standard is but most people agree it should be one that allows reasonable quality.

Bob Katz has suggested -14 dBFS for the average signal level in loudest sections (K-14). This seems to be as good as any and it has his epic tome to back it up. So, that's where I think the new standard should be.

 

[Massive Master]

Agreed... I was asked in an interview in... '93 or '94 (?) whether there should be a "loudness standard" for rock music.

Having "too much faith"about certain things, along with being rather conservative when it comes to regulating things that should need no regulation, I said something along the lines of "Of course not -- It's not like people will severely crush their recordings for a little more volume."



But no doubt -- Something along the lines of -15 or -14dBRMS is a reasonably good place to be with most pop & rock. I've heard mixes at -18 that sounded better at -15. I've never (ever, ever) heard a mix at -14 that sounded better at -12 or -10... And I'm quite sure I never will.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

I'm on record - yet again - as thinking that standards are just as wrong as the loudness wars. In fact, I see practically no difference; they both are nothing but arbitrary bars set to assume that everything is made the same and should sound the same, and pays absolutely zero attention to the actual content of the music.

People today are worried about their playlists and having a constant volume. This is NOT a new problem. Back when I was growing up "playlists" simply had a different name: they were called "mix tapes". Though the vinyl we were "ripping" our music from did not have the dynamic potential that today's digital does, perceived volume levels were still rather unpredictable, and if we just recorded straight with no gain control, we'd have the same kind of problems as with MP3s today.

But we actually used something called "record levels" to even things out on the playback side of things. This allowed everybody down the line to still be able to enjoy the original production the way the producer intended it, without having to compromise to some arbitrary standard, and yet still be able to enjoy our playlists/mix tapes without having to worry about the volume control.

And radio DJs were actually fader jockeys that actually pre-cued their material and set levels accordingly.

I see absolutely zero reason why any of that should change now. The wallpaper may be different, but the room is exactly the same. There are plenty of playlist manager applications that allow you to custom set playback levels for each MP3. And for those who are simply too lazy to do that, put a switchable AGC circuit into their software that automatically crushes everything to the same level, and save the ME the bother and the stress. Again, not a new idea; The better AM radios used to have those as standard features.

Standards are for robots. Music is for humans.

G.

 

[suprstar]

The loudness war is what it is.. It's not going away, at least not now. There are reasons why producers and AE's crank mixes that high, and those reasons outweigh the downfalls.

As far as the new metallica cd goes, I find it kinda boring... The songs are WAY too long, what is the avg track, 7 minutes? They were awesome up until the black album, their 'cool' factor has been asymptotically approaching zero ever since. Their later cd's have a good song on em here and there, but I couldn't stand to listen to an entire cd from start to finish.

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

There are reasons why producers and AE's crank mixes that high, and those reasons outweigh the downfalls.

*Sigh*... no there *aren't* really any valid reasons, it's almost all downside. Myth, misunderstanding and lemming effect are entirely the sources driving the loudness wars.

And now they've been going on so long it's become a generational thing with an entire generation believing that is how things are supposed to sound.

I really don't feel like rehashing this stuff all over again, it's been talked about a zillion times here. This is the frustrating part; the damn myth just won't die. A zillion times just never seems to be enough, there's always someone who didn't get the memo and - thanks to the Internet - starts the baloney all over again.

When push comes to shove, if all else fails, when today's headbangers turn into tomorrow's baby boomers, and they're worried more about how to pay for their reading glasses than they are about scoring their next dime bag, their own children will come along, grow up wanting their own identity, and think about Metallica and ignorance of dynamics the way those today think about the Stones and 80s synth rock. Ancient on one hand, quaint and dated on the other.

Rick Rubin will become the next Phil Spector - not as far as becoming an insane psychopath, hopefully, but rather by being lauded as a producer who introduced new production tools and concepts to the community, spurring further innovation, but just didn't sound all that great on their own through the patina of time.

And that new generation will look at the Volume Wars of the turn of the century and will wonder how they could possibly be the offspring of such square and simplistic parents, just the same way ever generation has since time began, and will find an identity and sound of their own. That sound will probably involve the rediscovery of the wonderfulness of dynamics, but in ways we can't even predict right now.

G.

 

[iqi616]

I'm on record - yet again - as thinking that standards are just as wrong as the loudness wars. In fact, I see practically no difference; they both are nothing but arbitrary bars set to assume that everything is made the same and should sound the same, and pays absolutely zero attention to the actual content of the music.

People today are worried about their playlists and having a constant volume. This is NOT a new problem. Back when I was growing up "playlists" simply had a different name: they were called "mix tapes". Though the vinyl we were "ripping" our music from did not have the dynamic potential that today's digital does, perceived volume levels were still rather unpredictable, and if we just recorded straight with no gain control, we'd have the same kind of problems as with MP3s today.

But we actually used something called "record levels" to even things out on the playback side of things. This allowed everybody down the line to still be able to enjoy the original production the way the producer intended it, without having to compromise to some arbitrary standard, and yet still be able to enjoy our playlists/mix tapes without having to worry about the volume control.

And radio DJs were actually fader jockeys that actually pre-cued their material and set levels accordingly.

I see absolutely zero reason why any of that should change now. The wallpaper may be different, but the room is exactly the same. There are plenty of playlist manager applications that allow you to custom set playback levels for each MP3. And for those who are simply too lazy to do that, put a switchable AGC circuit into their software that automatically crushes everything to the same level, and save the ME the bother and the stress. Again, not a new idea; The better AM radios used to have those as standard features.

Standards are for robots. Music is for humans.

G.

The idea is that the application of this standard would take into account the content. Just because the top RMS limit is -14 dBFS, not all songs would actually hit that limit - only the loud ones. Mastering engineers would place the loudness of each song relative to that level just like they would control the relative loudness of the songs on an album relative to the loudest song on that album - at least like the days when there _was_ a difference in level between the songs on an album!

Didn't you notice that true DJs are long gone from the radio industry? Now we just get "radio personalities" that talk and talk to minimize the radio station's airtime fees and the playlist is chosen by the marketing dept.

Those custom playback level tools are almost as big a PITA as the volume control! I have to say I feel no guilt whatsoever about being too lazy to shift the volume control - I just want the songs to play together nicely because I know that they so easily could.

 

[MrBlackthorne]

Wow, some great insight, here. Massive, I really enjoyed your blog post. It reminds me of a time back a couple years ago when I was working with a new metal band. I was putting the final touches on their tracks and used the Black Album as a reference for the level, since as you said, it's the gold standard for metal albums.

What did the band say to me? "It sounds quiet." Go figure. So I said, "Hey, I used the Black Album as a reference. If you want, I can strangle the hell out of these tracks and make it sound like every other pop metal record on the radio right now. Do you want that, or do you want the Black Album?"

They didn't complain after that.

This whole thing about "consistent levels" is such a farce. As I said, the Metallica album was so much louder than everything else I was listening to, it scared the crap out of me and almost made my monitors jump off the desk. There's nothing consistent about that... This is why they build automatic level enhancement into iTunes and the like. If you want your music "consistent" use that. There's no reason to make people that actually LIKE MUSIC suffer.

- Rick

 

[iqi616]

But people that like music won't suffer. In fact they would suffer less than they are at the moment because K-14 would bring back the level of dynamics we enjoyed in the "good old days". In fact many classic albums are being remastered and having the music squeezed out of them so buying new CDs of classics is an exercise in disappointment if you like music.

 

[MrBlackthorne]

Yeah, I'm not disagreeing with you... I'm disagreeing with the concept that today's music has to be loud to be consistent with everything else. Having a standard, I don't think, is necessarily a bad thing. Or, let's call it more of a "guideline." I think it's hard to have a "one level fits all" approach to mastering, but having a guideline or a goal in mind isn't a bad thing, rather than simply pushing to boundaries of sonic appropriateness.

- Rick

 

[Crash80]

Of course, Metallica's too cheap to let me stream their record, but there were 30 second clips. - Rick

Just an FYI Rick, over at the Metallica.com page you can stream 6 full songs off the site for your sonic displeasure.

I would post the URL but I am not allowed as I have not yet made 5 posts...silly!

 

[SouthSIDE Glen]

The idea is that the application of this standard would take into account the content. Just because the top RMS limit is -14 dBFS, not all songs would actually hit that limit - only the loud ones.

Well, how is that different from just simply mixing and mastering to the music without having to impose any levels? I agree that the numbers are reasonable; the majority of my mixes come out to somewhere in the -17 to -20dBRMS range, give or take, and usually will push fine to -15 to -17. Plus your mention of mastering an album to the lowest denominator often limits an albums to that range anyway, if there are a couple of relatively quite ballads on there. What do we need "standards" for? Just mix and master the way the music tells you to and all will be right in the world.

Plus, while I obviously realize that the Volume Wars are idiotic, I would never take away anybody's right to "break the rules" once in a while if they have an artistic vision that sees fit to bring the levels beyond the "standard" if they so wish.

There are many, many problems with the idea of a standard, as I see it: it's unenforcable, it ignores previous gain structure, and it's arbitrary - even if the numbers are mostly reasonable. But the biggest problem to me is that it's putting the emphasis on the wrong thing and the "fix" in the wrong place in the process. The emphasis should be on the music, not on the numbers. Setting standards will train people to be lousy engineers by causing them to paint by numbers instead of painting what they see with their mind.

And you don't think that when new home recordists create mixes that for whatever real-life reason comes in just fine at -17, and will probably actually sound best at -17 when all is said and done, that they'll still flood this board with the myth-based idea that their mixes and all mixes should be at -14 because that's how the filter of public Internet oversimplification and myth multiplication will interpret the "standard"? You don't think that they'll still complain that that 3dB difference somehow makes their music unlistenable because they just don't understand what's going on yet? You don't think that the only part of the "standard" that 90% of the people that come to this board will ever retain is the number "-14" and that the whole "it's relative, based upon the content, and the number -14 is only a theoretical maximum" part of the standard will be almost completely ignored?

The funny thing is, take away the numbers and teach them instead to develop their ears and to actually learn a little audio engineering - they don't have to be experts, but the fundamentals of gain structure and critical listening would be two great places to start - and the rest of it all becomes moot. No need for standards because everything will fall into place just the way that the gods of audio intended when they created this place.

And let's not forget that any standard is open to twisting and abuse. What's to stop the Volume War idiots from creating a production that has an RMS of -14 and a crest factor of 5dB? Then we're right back where we started. I know that's not what the "standard" describes, it's talking about peak RMS. But that's not going to stop the loudness war chimps. They still are going to try and muscle in a loudness advantage; the only difference will be that the end user has to turn their volume up 14dB louder than they do now to achieve the same SPL.

Didn't you notice that true DJs are long gone from the radio industry? Now we just get "radio personalities" that talk and talk to minimize the radio station's airtime fees and the playlist is chosen by the marketing dept.

Absolutely, that's why I brought it up. But addressing that issue by *changing the actual sound and not just the volume* of the recording given to them is IMHO the wrong place and wrong way to address the issue.

Those custom playback level tools are almost as big a PITA as the volume control! I have to say I feel no guilt whatsoever about being too lazy to shift the volume control - I just want the songs to play together nicely because I know that they so easily could.

But the real life situation is, no they can't. Not without intervention. The question is, do we intervene on the recording and production side, straight jacketing the actual sound of the production, or do we intervene on the playback side, where it only simply has to be a matter of volume control.

If most people have turned into the Eloi that are just too lazy to take care of the volume themselves (note to Intelligent Designers: evolution apparently has noticeable effects in a single generation; wev'e gone in 20 years from a race who actually made an enjoyable pastime out of making their own custom playback sounds to one who is now physically incapable of even touching a volume control ), then the answer is simple: switchable AGC on the playback unit.

In this day of autotuning, harmonic balancing, automatic FFT equalization, and look-ahead intelligent dynamic control, it should be a no-brainer to pop a look-ahead or batch analysis algorithm or circuit into our playback devices that will automatically level everything out for us without too severely mangling the content. A lot of software and playback devices already have some form of volume balancer software available for them.

But let the listener decide if they want to mangle it themselves, or whether they want to hear the original dynamics. Don't impose anything on the artistic end of the process.

G.

 

[Superhuman]

The free download samples on the Metallica website and other sources have clipping, probably so that you don't get a freebie which is fair enough. The actual cd sound is a pristine (re clipping or distortion), nothing like the free samples. The production sounds over-polished and lacking the 'character' of Master of Puppets or sterile originality of Justice for All. Now that I read through these posts and I realise there is a massive difference between the production on DM and the Black album... DM now sounds like all of the other metal albums. I've given up buying metal cd's anymore, the sound of the old days is gone. Strange that the focus is on loundess now and not on getting a signature sound for a release.

 

[Crash80]

The free download samples on the Metallica website and other sources have clipping, probably so that you don't get a freebie which is fair enough. The actual cd sound is a pristine (re clipping or distortion), nothing like the free samples. The production sounds over-polished and lacking the 'character' of Master of Puppets or sterile originality of Justice for All. Now that I read through these posts and I realise there is a massive difference between the production on DM and the Black album... DM now sounds like all of the other metal albums. I've given up buying metal cd's anymore, the sound of the old days is gone. Strange that the focus is on loundess now and not on getting a signature sound for a release.

Let me get this straight, you are saying that the CD version is not a distorted mess? That has not been the concensus on all the forums I have seen. The only thing clean that I have heard about are the stems for Guitar Hero.

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/re-mix-or-remaster-death-magnetic.html

 

[iqi616]

And let's not forget that any standard is open to twisting and abuse. What's to stop the Volume War idiots from creating a production that has an RMS of -14 and a crest factor of 5dB?

That will be their artistic choice but at least the rest of us won't be forced to do the same just to keep bands and listeners happy in their desire to have music that sits nicely alongside other music. We can have our songs in almost all of the dynamic glory they had in the mix. And then the listeners will have a fair loudness-levelled comparison to quality dynamic music versus crushed dull music and maybe that will shift the balance of power.

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree about this

 

[Superhuman]

Let me get this straight, you are saying that the CD version is not a distorted mess? That has not been the concensus on all the forums I have seen. The only thing clean that I have heard about are the stems for Guitar Hero.

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/re-mix-or-remaster-death-magnetic.html

Check out the samples on the Metallica website then listen to the cd - completely different sound. The sample downloads actually clip terribly, there is none of that on the album, crystal clear. However, it is aloud as fuck and there is buggar all difference in volume between anything. Compression and levels etc may be extreme but there is no clipping or distortion (to my busted ears anyway) on the cd itself. A lot of people are reviewing the album from two or three samples that are online and not the actual cd. It has an 'interesting' sound (nothing groundbreaking or memorable), some elements work better than others. I agree about the whole noise wars thing and like I said earlier they are going for loud in your face noise rather than the individual unique sound of the earlier stuff such as Maser of Puppets - which is a shame becuase the older stuff sounded amazing. Also I agree, even though I hated the Black album musically, it has amazing sound quality. Had they aimed for a similar sound it might have been a completely different album...