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from the some-art,-some-science,-and-a-whole-lotta-black-magic dept.
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: 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.