Engineer: Metallica mix better in Guitar Hero than on CD

Robes and crossing your legs like a woman.

Does he have no balls?

/it's Lars
//of course he doesn't

"This is metal we are talking about"

Metallica IS NOT Metal!!!

Sorry about that, I guess I hit a nerve. I apologize for the distress I caused you.

Metallica are bit more well known for their innovations in smooth jazz and trip-hop.

Just call my name and I'll hear you scream... *Alto Sax Solo*

I'm not a Metallica fan at all but what genre would you put them in, Jack? Not all bands can be Immortal.

Metallica is metal, don't be a goof.

Thrash metal, to be specific.

@AwesomeTown: No top-shelf speaker is capable of bringing back what has been removed by dynamic range compression. Depending on the method used, it either crushes the waveform or lops off the top and/or bottom end of it, causing the clipping people are hearing.

Good speakers can't fix that. In fact, they make the problem more pronounced.

A couple good Wikipedia articles on the subject:

http://tinyurl.com/q4vf6
http://tinyurl.com/v76kw

@brad77

Yea, you are right. I don't know what the hell I was thinking when I typed that there.

I'm no audiophile, but at least I'd like to know my music isn't degraded.

Metallica may not have the heavy depth and complex time signatures of death metal/prog metal/speed metal like they used to have in their younger days, but I wouldn't say they're not "metal". Awesometown is correct here. Even I think they've leaned more toward heavy rock since Load, but they're still classified the world over as a metal band, considering they were a driving force behind bringing much of metal's influence to America in the early eighties.

@ poster above me...

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? without metallica there would not be Metal. Metallica was formed as a backlash against all the hair "metal" that was on the radio. They wanted music that sounds like you were pissed off at the world and everyone thats in it. thats what metal is about. without metallica you wouldn't have megadeth antrhax, slayer, dragonforce, etc... METALLICA IS METAL INCARNATE. They are the purest form of metal. Granted, after cliff died they went downhill, but with the release of Death Magnetic Metallica has taken a step in the right direction. Now what I'm about to say is nearly sac-religious. But: St. Anger Was more like old-metallica than Death Magnetic. The Reason why I say it is because, it had killer riffs, and a fast pace. now, what they fucked up with is they (meaning lars) decided that they (meaning lars) were bored with traditional guitar solos. so, they (meaning lars and james) wrote songs without guitar solos. now than all they have to do is re-record St. Anger put in guitar solos, get a better mix and BAM! awesome album, better than death magnetic. And a template for future albums. Death Magnetic, Was a great album, but they should have kept Death is not the end as one of the songs, instead of just stealing the opening bass line.

@ poster above me...

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME? without metallica there would not be Metal. Metallica was formed as a backlash against all the hair "metal" that was on the radio. They wanted music that sounds like you were pissed off at the world and everyone thats in it. thats what metal is about. without metallica you wouldn't have megadeth antrhax, slayer, dragonforce, etc... METALLICA IS METAL INCARNATE. They are the purest form of metal. Granted, after cliff died they went downhill, but with the release of Death Magnetic Metallica has taken a step in the right direction. Now what I'm about to say is nearly sac-religious. But: St. Anger Was more like old-metallica than Death Magnetic. The Reason why I say it is because, it had killer riffs, and a fast pace. now, what they fucked up with is they (meaning lars) decided that they (meaning lars) were bored with traditional guitar solos. so, they (meaning lars and james) wrote songs without guitar solos. now than all they have to do is re-record St. Anger put in guitar solos, get a better mix and BAM! awesome album, better than death magnetic. And a template for future albums. Death Magnetic, Was a great album, but they should have kept Death is not the end as one of the songs, instead of just stealing the opening bass line.

Metallica never sounds good. However, CDs today are indeed mastered with a lot of compression so that they can get more loudness out of the format. It's a very FM friendly way to do things, and given that everyone is listening to everything on headphones now instead of a decent set of speakers, and the by-definition limited dynamic range of CD, it's what is done now.

The proper answer was either SACD or DVD-A, but the lovely lossless or near-lossless 48-192k 24bit audio (optionally in multi-channel) that consoles are spitting out these days is the next best thing.

It's kind of funny because I was just thinking about this very subject playing Rock Band.

How high? Up to 11?

...

...

These ones go to eleven.

Pushing it to eleven is pretty much correct in this case. Basically, they push the top to 11, and now the bottom is 2. That's dynamic range compression in a nutshell.

I'd be interested in seeing the numbers you used to come up with that figure. Surely you didn't pull it out of your ass.

and 1/3 of all the posts on said topics are complaining about that...

It doesn't really have anything to do with the file size compression. It has everything to do with them sacrificing quality for loudness when they mixed the album. Death Magnetic has an extremely compressed (or overproduced) sound, and I thought I heard a decent amount of digital clipping.

Read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audio_level_compression for an explanation of audio compression - basically, it's when the dynamics (highs and lows) are adjusted in volume so that the volume level is uniform, resulting in a "louder" sound.

Although I think it's a much better album than anything Metallica's done post-Black Album, the mixing leaves much to be desired.

"Although I think it's a much better album than anything Metallica's done post-And Justice for All..."


I fixed that 4 U.

"Although I think it's a much better album than anything Metallica's done that didn't involve stealing Dave's riffs."

Shag, how could you let that one get through?

I just pissed myself laughing.

You're picking up the drycleaning tab.

Hilarious, good sir.

I wish I could click the "+" on your comment more than once! "One" will never sound the same again.

As a music critic and (shitty) musician, I hate audiophiles. Go take your FLAC and go back under a rock.

As a fellow music critic and shitty musician, I want to know how you can stand lossy files and crap quality.

I'm with Neebs on this one.. Not to mention you're arguing about a different kind of compression, KeenCommander. People have to understand this isnt the way the file is compressed, it's the way the audio is compressed.

Hit a bass drum as hard as you can, now hit a triangle as light as you can. Now make them the same loudness on your track and you're on your way. In the meantime, make every fucking thing in your song the same. And mix it high.

I hate the loudness war. I collect vinyl, and I love them, but even they are being affected some today in the same way which sucks, but most of them aren't.

@Keen: Read this:

http://tinyurl.com/q4vf6
http://tinyurl.com/v76kw

We're not talking about data compression. FLAC, MP3, WMA, Ogg Vorbis, etc. don't matter much here when the dynamic range of the CD it's ripped from is crushed to hell.

it takes too long to post... sorry about the tripple post.

you are correct, I should have said Glam/arena rock. But, generally speaking metallica was a backlash against pop music of that era.