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According to many Metallica devotees, the official version of the band's 2008 record Death Magnetic is not the one worth listening to. Upon the album's release, fan forums exploded in disgust, choked with complaints that the songs sounded shrill, distorted, ear-splitting. These listeners liked the music and the songwriting, but everything was so loud they couldn't really hear anything. There was no nuance. Their ears hurt. And these are Metallica fans—people ostensibly undeterred by extremity. But this was too much.
The consensus seemed to be that Death Magnetic was a good record that sounded like shit. That the whole thing was drastically over-compressed, eliminating any sort of dynamic range. That it had been ruined in mastering. Eventually, more than 12,000 fans signed a petition in protest of the "unlistenable" product, and a mass mail-back-a-thon of CDs commenced. The whole episode provoked a series of questions, not just about what had gone wrong with Death Magnetic but about the craft in question: What is mastering, exactly? How does it work? Beyond the engineers themselves, almost no one seems to know.
An article on sound engineering, but the real question is, people listened to Metallica after 2000?
(Score: 2) by martyb on Thursday May 26 2016, @12:07PM
Thank you so much for your post! I found it to be educational and extremely entertaining.
Many years ago when I was in college, I got involved with the 'Instant Audio' group out of our student union. We set up the mics, mixing board, amps, speakers, ... everything having to do with sound for concerts held at the student union. Had great fun doing that and learned a lot.
I even got to mix a concert once. Was long ago, but ISTR that show had 5-6 performers on stage, each with a feed for vocals and their instrument. I think we had 3-4 mics on the drum kit, too. So, I'm sitting at the mixing board and looking across the sound stage.
I listen to the lead guitar. Sounds a little too bright. Turn down the high end just a smidge using the parametric equalizer on the board. That's better. Bass end is a little weak... turn that up a smidgen. That sounds okay, but is a little hard to hear among the rest of the band... a little nudge to the volume for that input. Good! Oh, wait. He's standing left of center, but the sound is coming from right smack in the middle of the stage. A little twist on the pan control to get them to coincide. Got it!
Next up were his vocals. Ignore everything else and just listen to his voice. Adjust, tweak, nudge. Bingo!
On to the saxophone. And then the horns, and drums, and so on.
Then one more listen to the whole sound stage. How well is the mix balanced? Anyone too loud/soft compared to the others? How does it sound across the whole frequency spectrum? Is it too bright or boomy? A few more nudges and adjustments.
I can remember it like it was yesterday. There has been nothing else to compare with that experience since. I could reach out, and with exquisite control, adjust each and every voice and instrument — independently and as a whole.
The next day, I'm in my dorm room and turned on my single-speaker radio which had two knobs: volume and tone. That was painful!
My first car (bought used) had an aftermarket sound system installed. The speaker in the passenger door would pop in and out depending on how I hit bumps in the road. :(
So, I've found myself in the position of both the audiophile and the harried soccer mom of your wonderfully-written comment. So many times since then, I've wished I could decompress songs and bring out greater dynamic range. Seems that once you have made a 'sound soup', there's no getting the ingredients separated again.
Again, thanks for posting your comment! Thoroughly enjoyed it and brought back some fond memories.
Wit is intellect, dancing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 26 2016, @04:07PM
Glad you enjoyed it!
I think that the next, new audiophile format will be a set of raw stems, and the next, new audiophile equipment will be a mixing board.
If you want to recreate that experience, here's what you do today:
First, get equipment. A multichannel audio interface for your computer, a mixing board, and a couple of monitor quality speakers. This is less expensive than you think, but if you're shooting for quality, be prepared to drop four figures on it. Depending on the mixing board, some of them can take in multiple channels of audio through a USB interface. For software, use your favourite DAW, or just download Audacity. It works fine.
Next, get your stems. There are lots of remixing groups online, and it's not hard to get stems as a rule. Sometimes even big-name bands provide stems.
Then, load up your stems in Audacity (or whatever), play them through your mixing board, and listen. Let the tweaking begin!
You may find that your remixes do well in competition, if you have a knack for it.
If you really get into it, you can add effects units, and get really deep into remixing. It's a big topic.