Well, looks like Metallica's new album is going to sound like crap

SirCanealot · #1 08-26-2008, 08:43 AM

This is from the mp3 release of "My Apocalypse" from the new album. Included for comparison are the original Master of Puppets release (middle) and the original Holier than Thou.

Nice. Improved song-writing, but yet another victim of the insane loudness war. I've already noticed plenty of clipping and digital distortion; my hopes are not high for the CD

Find out about the loudness war here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Gmex_4hreQ & www.turnmeup.org

Why 99% of modern bands seem to feel the need to destroy their music this way, I do not know. Especially a band like Metallica that went through so much trouble to sound good with The Black Album. Would Metallica sell less albums if they mastered their CD at sane volume levels? I think not.

bongomania · #2 08-26-2008, 08:46 AM

Agreed. I have no judgment of Metallica in this because I don't know how much they had to do with the engineering and mastering of any of their recordings, but I agree the loudness wars are only resulting in worse and worse recordings.

bassrique · #3 08-26-2008, 09:18 AM

Great thread and YouTube vid. Thanks.

SirCanealot · #4 08-26-2008, 09:23 AM

This is also a great primer on the issue if you've not read up on it before: http://www.prorec.com/Articles/tabid...the-Limit.aspx

Philbiker · #5 08-26-2008, 10:12 AM

Does this surprise you?

Get a turntable. It's sure to come out on LP and the LP version will retain some dymanics of the original recording. My LP of "ReLoad" sounds great.

scrotimusprime · #6 08-26-2008, 10:17 AM

as much as i'd like to respect metallica I dunno, they aren't the metallica I grew up with. Its not just their music but its them, its their values, its their motive...

that's the stuff I can't get behind anymore.

bassmonkeee · #7 08-26-2008, 10:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by scrotimusprime

as much as i'd like to respect metallica I dunno, they aren't the metallica I grew up with. Its not just their music but its them, its their values, its their motive...

that's the stuff I can't get behind anymore.

Well, of course they aren't the same band you grew up with--just like you aren't remotely like your 13-year old self.

Why would you expect 40-something multimillionaires with kids and married to Playboy playmates to be able to write from the same place as 20-something starving drunks living in squalor? If they had the same values and motives, they'd have died 10-15 years ago.

Baryonyx · #8 08-26-2008, 10:48 AM

On the issue of blasted over-compression and loudness wars, it's not at all pleasing. I'm sick of these dreadful recordings!

As for the people who bitch about Metallica not being the "old" Metallica, the 1980's were a long, long time ago and it's time to move on and stop living in them.

IanStephenson · #9 08-26-2008, 12:09 PM

And in the 80's: no one liked Metallica back then either.

phxlbrmpf · #10 08-26-2008, 12:13 PM

But every rock album these days sounds like that, I'd be very surprised if a mainstream band decided to stop doing the overcompression thing. To be honest, I even like the thick wall of sound you can get this way.

**Eric Perry** · #11 08-26-2008, 12:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bongomania

Agreed. I have no judgment of Metallica in this because I don't know how much they had to do with the engineering and mastering of any of their recordings, but I agree the loudness wars are only resulting in worse and worse recordings.

Agreed here too.

Philbiker · #12 08-26-2008, 12:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris2112

As for the people who bitch about Metallica not being the "old" Metallica, the 1980's were a long, long time ago and it's time to move on and stop living in them.

LOL!!

Benjamin Strange · #13 08-26-2008, 02:04 PM

Dude... it's an mp3. Mp3s are compressed to hell, so of course it's going to sound bad.

I listened to the stream on their website, and of course it sounds awful. It's a reduced quality sample for promotional use only. Is this where you got the mp3?

I VERY seriously doubt that anything Rick Rubin produces will not be up to par sonically. Heck, usually anything Rick Rubin touches is not only great sonically, but musically as well. That said, he's never gone up against such an unmusical group as Metallica before...

BlackLake · #14 08-26-2008, 02:17 PM

Awesome vid in the OP...very informative!

phxlbrmpf · #15 08-26-2008, 02:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Benjamin Strange

Dude... it's an mp3. Mp3s are compressed to hell, so of course it's going to sound bad.

I listened to the stream on their website, and of course it sounds awful. It's a reduced quality sample for promotional use only. Is this where you got the mp3?

I VERY seriously doubt that anything Rick Rubin produces will not be up to par sonically. Heck, usually anything Rick Rubin touches is not only great sonically, but musically as well. That said, he's never gone up against such an unmusical group as Metallica before...

What about Californication? Its production is pretty weak and a friend of mine always uses the album as an example of audible digital clipping. Not that I've ever really noticed, though, I always assumed the sound on the record was intentional.

invader3k · #16 08-26-2008, 02:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by phxlbrmpf

What about Californication? Its production is pretty weak and a friend of mine always uses the album as an example of audible digital clipping. Not that I've ever really noticed, though, I always assumed the sound on the record was intentional.

As crazy as it sounds, that album got me into RHCP quite a bit more. I found there old stuff annoying to tolerable, but liked a lot of stuff on Califonication. Kind of a more mature sound for that band. I never noticed any clipping or anything...maybe I'll have to pop that disc into the stereo when I get home later and see.

Benjamin Strange · #17 08-26-2008, 02:39 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by phxlbrmpf

What about Californication? Its production is pretty weak and a friend of mine always uses the album as an example of audible digital clipping. Not that I've ever really noticed, though, I always assumed the sound on the record was intentional.

I've only heard little blips of that album on the radio, and radio stations compress the hell out of everything too. I haven't cared for RHCP since BSSM, so I haven't been paying attention.

QOTSA's Songs for the Deaf, Mars Volta's first album, Johnny Cash's last records, Neil Diamond's 12 Songs, Nusrat Ali Kahn's Musst Musst - all stellar productions. I'd hope that Rick Rubin would at the very least get a good sound out of Metallica.

Even though the song writing sucks, Metallica's Black album sounds amazing. I wish they'd been able to get that sort of sound on some of their previous stuff, like Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets.

Psychicpet · #18 08-26-2008, 02:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Benjamin Strange

Dude... it's an mp3. Mp3s are compressed to hell, so of course it's going to sound bad.

I listened to the stream on their website, and of course it sounds awful. It's a reduced quality sample for promotional use only.

hallabalujah! finally some common sense.

ANY mp3 sounds like ass, very audibly different from other sources. and as for comparing wave forms as to whether or not a piece of work/art is valuable or good???.... give me a break

fenderhutz · #19 08-26-2008, 02:44 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Psychicpet

hallabalujah! finally some common sense.

ANY mp3 sounds like ass, very audibly different from other sources. and as for comparing wave forms as to whether or not a piece of work/art is valuable or good???.... give me a break

A poorly extracted mp3 can sound like garbage. Using the right encoder at 256k the normal person would have a real hard time deciding which was real or not.

SirCanealot · #20 08-26-2008, 02:50 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Benjamin Strange

Dude... it's an mp3. Mp3s are compressed to hell, so of course it's going to sound bad.

I listened to the stream on their website, and of course it sounds awful. It's a reduced quality sample for promotional use only. Is this where you got the mp3?

There's nothing low-quality about this copy I have of the song; it's from a clean source, and it's been compressed using a high-quality compressor to a VBR stream. There's not really any compresson artifacts in the file that would really effect the audio quality this much. This is from bad mastering, nothing else. And if you want to know, the two comparison pictures are from mp3 copies too (which I used to be fair); there's absolutely nothing wrong with those files.

If you want to be anal, the highs and lows are slightly rolled off, and the overall texture is going to be somewhat lower than the CD, but:

Mp3 compression doesn't add huge amounts of dynamic range compression to the file. Modern mp3 compression does very little to the wave form (I can show you if you like). Lame V0 (around 250-290kps) is actually very high quality and most people will have troulbe telling them from the orignal CD. I use 192kps OGG VORBIS for most of the stuff on my mp3 player. Doesn't sound perfect, but sounds very solid.

Audio compression is very advanced these days; this isn't the 90s