Metallica - Death Magnetic - new album discussion part 2

Metallica in the WSJ this morning.


Even Heavy-Metal Fans Complain That Today's Music Is Too Loud!!!

Can a Metallica album be too loud?

The very thought might seem heretical to fans of the legendary metal band, which has been splitting eardrums with unrivaled power since the early 1980s.

But even though Metallica's ninth studio release, "Death Magnetic," is No. 1 on the album chart, with 827,000 copies sold in two weeks, some fans are bitterly disappointed: not by the songs or the performance, but the volume. It's so loud, they say, you can't hear the details of the music.

"Death Magnetic" is a flashpoint in a long-running music-industry fight. Over the years, rock and pop artists have increasingly sought to make their recordings sound louder to stand out on the radio, jukeboxes and, especially, iPods.

Turning It Up

But audiophiles, recording professionals and some ordinary fans say the extra sonic wallop comes at a steep price. To make recorded music seem louder, engineers must reduce the "dynamic range," minimizing the difference between the soft and loud parts and creating a tidal wave of aural blandness.

"When there's no quiet, there can be no loud," said Matt Mayfield, a Minnesota electronic-music teacher, in a YouTube video that sketched out the battle lines of the loudness war. A recording's dynamic range can be measured by calculating the variation between its average sound level and its maximum, and can be visually expressed through wave forms. Louder recordings, with higher average sound levels, leave less room for such variation than quieter ones.

Some fans are complaining that "Death Magnetic" has a thin, brittle sound that's the result of the band's attempts in the studio to make it as loud as possible. "Sonically it is barely listenable," reads one fan's online critique. Thousands have signed an online petition urging the band to re-mix the album and release it again.

Metallica and the album's producer, Rick Rubin, declined to comment. Cliff Burnstein, Metallica's co-manager, says the complainers are a tiny minority. He says 98% of listeners are "overwhelmingly positive," adding: "There's something exciting about the sound of this record that people are responding to."
Key Witness

But the critics have inadvertently recruited a key witness: Ted Jensen, the album's "mastering engineer," the person responsible for the sonic tweaks that translate music made in a studio into a product for mass duplication and playback by consumers. Responding to a Metallica fan's email about loudness, Mr. Jensen sent a sympathetic reply that concluded: "Believe me, I'm not proud to be associated with this one." The fan posted the message on a Metallica bulletin board and it quickly drew attention.

Mr. Jensen regrets his choice of words but not the sentiment. "I'm not sure I would have said quite the same thing if I was posting it to the bulletin board," he says. But "it's certainly the way I feel about it."

The battle has roots in the era before compact discs. With vinyl records, "it was impossible to make loud past a certain point," says Bob Ludwig, a veteran mastering engineer. But digital technology made it possible to squeeze all of the sound into a narrow, high-volume range. In addition, music now is often optimized for play on the relatively low-fidelity earbuds for iPods, reducing incentives to offer a broad dynamic range.

The loudness war began heating up around the time CDs gained popularity, in the early 1980s. Guns N' Roses' "Appetite for Destruction" upped the ante in 1987, as did Metallica's 1991 "Black Album" and then the Red Hot Chili Peppers' "Californication" in 1999.
Less to Hear

Music released today typically has a dynamic range only a fourth to an eighth as wide as that of the 1990s. That means if you play a newly released CD right after one that's 15 years old, leaving the volume knob untouched, the new one is likely to sound four to eight times as loud. Many who've followed the controversy say "Death Magnetic" has one of the narrowest dynamic ranges ever on an album.

Sound engineers say artists who insist on loudness paradoxically give people less to hear, because they end up wiping away nuances and details. Everything from a gently strummed guitar to a pounding snare drum is equally loud, leading to what some call "ear fatigue." If the listener turns down the volume knob, the music loses even more of its punch.

But many musicians, producers and record-company executives "think that having a louder record is going to translate into greater sales," says Chris Athens, Mr. Jensen's business partner and a fellow engineer. "Nobody really wants to have a record that's not as loud as everybody else's" in an iTunes playlist, he adds.

Mastering engineers are caught in the crossfire. "I've had lots of people -- I mean lots and lots of people -- try and push a record to a place I thought it didn't belong," Mr. Athens says. "We try to deliver something that mitigates the damage the client wants. I drag my feet and give them something a little louder and a little louder."

Albums by some of the biggest names in rock, including the most recent by U2, Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney, have drawn flak. Bloggers last year singled out Mr. Ludwig, the veteran engineer, for the sound on Mr. Springsteen's "Magic," which some thought was tinny and loud.

Mr. Ludwig wouldn't discuss the instructions he was given, but said, "Bruce doesn't let anything out unless it's exactly the way he wants it to be." Mr. Springsteen and his manager, Jon Landau, declined through a spokeswoman to comment.

As for the deafening "Death Magnetic," it struck one fan as fitting for these tumultuous times, thanks to songs like "Broken, Beat and Scarred" and "All Nightmare Long," says Metallica's co-manager, Mr. Burnstein. He says an investment banker emailed to say that "the album and its song titles have just become the soundtrack of Wall Street for fall 2008."

 

There ya go folks. This coming from the band's boss. The rot is deep.

 

Well, just be glad you have the GHIII version to listen to. I'm still waiting for something decent with "Vapor Trails".

 

The album is cut loud enough. It works perfect on my system. If the album was mixed in the digital domain the master would most likely be digital. No news here. IMO, the master on the lp is fine. The mix could have been better, especially the drums and bass. I really don't consider the lp too loud. I haven't heard the cd. Let's not confuse mastering and mixing. If there is compression in the mix the mastering won't be able to get rid of it.

 

I heard "The Day That Never Comes" on the radio the other day... and with the additional compression that FM radio employs it literally sounded like a wall of noise.

 

Which reminds me ..... radio guys were quick playing the RHCPs "Dani California" along with TPs "Mary Janes Last Dance" to make a point .... could they not do this with the regular Death Magnetic CD version and the GH III version of DM to make a point ? Or would legal problems arise ?

 

The industry is basically telling their customers to F-off!

 

I bet these 98% are not visitors to the "Steve Hoffman Forum."

 

The 2LP version was mastered by Kevin Gray. I'm sure he did the best he could with the garbage they gave him. I'm sure he's not proud of it at all. For the official releases the 2LP vinyl will prob sound best.

 

I might get the LP then.

 

I figured as much would happen. There's no way their going to redo anything. It would cost them millions of dollars. Ted Jensen will prob never master for Rick Rubin again either. I'm sure their pissed at him for those comments he made. He should have said "No Comment" like everyone else. I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't sign a non-disclosure agreement that he probably violated with those comments. I also wouldn't be surprised if those comments haven't been whitewashed off the Metallica board already. This issue will lose legs and just fade away...

At least we gots the DEAF MAGNETIC GUITAR HERO III VERSION!!!!

 

Wow, I've never heard 'Beneath the Remains' on LP. Arguably, the greatest thrash album ever!

Back to Metallica. After reading these comments, I'm intrigued. I remember back when Mtv used to play actual music videos, it was a huge thing when Metallica came out with their brand new video for "enter sandman". When I first heard that song, I almost threw up in my mouth! In Justice for All was to be my last Metallica album, well maybe until now...

 

I strongly advise against that. The LP version may be better than the CD, but that's the result of furious damage control. All of the terrible problems with brickwalling and compression are still there, in very painful detail. I don't think I even managed to listen to all four sides before I threw up my hands and sold the damn thing.

No, I'm afraid there is no good version of D-Mag among the commercial releases. You're only option is the Guitar Hero Mix. And that, really, should be a no-brainer.

Please, everyone, don't bother with the CD or LP and wreck your hearing on that flat 2D sound. Download the Guitar Hero version and listen to that. It can be very easily found with a Google search. Be sure to get the lossless FLAC version.

Thanks for pointing us to the WSJ article. It was very well written, and even includes a comparison between albums to demonstrate the monstrous brickwalling on D-Mag. Funny that one investor called this album "the soundtrack to Wall Street 2008."

 

Ok, I hear ya. Again, what a mess this album is.

 

Is it me or is the fact Ipods, and the like are so popular it is killing music, terrible, bloody Apple, the loudness war may never had happened if they supplied Ipods with decent earphones IMO

 

The WSJ article is far too cautious. It presents things as opinion when they're measurable fact: for example, "some say" that it has some of the most limited dynamic range ever? No, everyone who is aware of the RMS on this album knows that it is factually one of the most limited. Further, anyone with ears, when presented with two normalized files, will not find the brickwalled version more "exciting" than the dynamic one: it sounds dull and lifeless in comparison.

Regarding the iPod, of course it has made things worse. Previously, all you could do was listen to a full album, professionally mastered as one coherent piece, on a Walkman or Discman. Now you can listen to a track from 1985 and one from the sonic masterpiece of Death Magnetic, right in a row, and no one wants to sound like the "wussy" 1985 track. Really, a simple proof of this is the following: how loud can older, properly mastered tracks get on the iPod? It partially depends on the headphones, etc., but all else equal, not very loud at all. The iPod works on the assumption that the files you are playing are loud, loud, loud. Engineers, realizing this and the dominance of the iPod as a listening format for much of the demographic, react accordingly.

No sir, I don't like it!

 

It's you. As I have said 1000 times, the "loudness wars" started around 1994, 7 years before the Ipod.

 

He also simply says "people are responding." Note he doesn't mention HOW people are responding.

And assuming that everyone is happy but the people who actually voice complaints is a very bad and dangerous tactic. Generally, it's a small amount of people who bother to actually voice their complaints, choosing to suffer in silence rather than attract attention to themselves. Where is he hearing about these complaints? Forums and articles, I'm guessing - and I'd bet it's a large number of people on those forums who are complaining, and he's saying to himself, "Oh, this represents 2% of listeners." In reality, he has absolutely no idea how many people are actually happy with the album as-is. What people ARE responding to is the music, and he's definitely making a huge mistake thinking the enthusiasm people are showing toward that somehow correlates with enthusiasm toward the sound quality. Some simply choose to ignore the sound problems because there really are no viable solutions - you either ignore them or don't listen.

What he should be paying attention to is the fact that we have never had this kind of publicity about the sound quality of an album before. That should be pounding him upside the head like a fire alarm that something is VERY wrong here.

 

The only way anything will be done with this is, if someone can convince a hungry attorney to file a class action lawsuit against Metallica/Warner Bros. for selling a known flawed product to the consumer. The Guitar Hero III version is proof that the retail CD being sold is severely flawed.

 

Now, I got the 33 1/3 vinyl version. The master it was made from was compressed, but it doesn't sound that bad. I imagine, from all I am reading, the CD is much worse.

IMO, the vinyl doesn't sound that bad. I'm enjoying the hell out of my needledrop of this album. I worked withe the wave files and I saw peaks and valleys. And, EWIW, I think the drums sound better on this album than they do on St. Anger. No garbage cans and cardboard boxes on this one!

 

Love to that GHIII verison,considering how the official one sounds awful.(Clipped and over-compressed)

 

Those positive about the mastering do not make up 98% of the populations of forums of Mission Metallica, Metal-Rules, Encyclopedia Metallica, Metboard (all Metallica forum), Rush message board, Hydrogen Audio, All Metal Forums, Metal Archives, Heart of Metal or Metal Sludge either, let alone all the Youtube posts.

Music fans will put up with all kinds of stuff from their favourite artists. If we like them enough, we'll keep buying their albums, even if they're not as good as their earlier ones, as long they keep going out there trying. But when fans and customers alike are played for suckers and fed lines like this "there's no problem, 98%, blah blah blah".... *sigh* I just hate when that comes from a band, more than I'd hate an artistically honest but musically unsuccessful album. There's already too much political spin and not enough honest art in our lives, y'know? Does this paragraph make sense for anyone else after 4am?

 

Yeah but why does the Ipod supply(ed) such crappy earphones, they have a responsibility towards the 'good of audio' to supply good or at least half decent earphones IMO, If Apple starting making 'Audiophille' Ipods ie user changeable equalizers, Decent earphones (Sony have been it doing so why can't Apple!), removable battery and get rid of all those games and applications and video on the Ipod, then I am sure the mastering of Cd's will go back to what it should be, Apple have sussed the software and design of the Ipods, it is now time that they take responsibility with all those phone companys for being a contributing factor to the loudness wars and the health of there users, after all an Ipod will be no use when he is deaf!
They need to start concentrating on sound and what a music device is for, and the mastering of Cd's will follow suit I am sure?

 

They supply crappy earbuds because they are cheap and for no other reason. Also at the last Apple event Jobs announced some new in ear Apple earphones for I think $80 or $90. Ever buy a walkman back in the day or something similar? Portables have always had crummy earphones.

 

I disagree with that statement, Those Ipod earbus not only sound bad they hurt your ears, I never had that problem with earphones/Headphones in my Sony Walkman, they were not audiophile standard and they didn't last that long but they were exceptable and didn't hurt your ears!