The Official Metallica - Death Magnetic Thread

as soon as thsi conference call is over, I'm of to Best Buy to pick it up!!!!

ah the agony of the wait

Jedilink wrote:

Am I the only one who thinks the album was mixed a bit TOO loudly? No matter what I listen with (car, headphones, stereo speakers, so on...) there's always this weird distortiony sound to EVERYTHING. I sound retarded I'm sure since it's supposed to sound like it has distortion...it's metal. BUT! There's just this really overpowering low end or something. You can REALLY hear it on The Day That Never Comes in the big solo part at the end.

Am I the only one that notices this? It seems like they mixed it JUST TOO loud. As though the volume was pushed just over the edge into that distortiony range. It doesn't bother me too much, but it's still weird. It's not EVERYWHERE on the album but there's plenty of parts that I hear this.

I'm not crazy am I??????

No, you're not crazy. This is the compression/digital limiting that I described (somewhere on this board) in another thread. They squash everything to make it as loud as possible...but all this accomplishes is to destroy the natural dynamic range of the recording and many stereos can't deal with the peaks, so it gets translated to digitial noise. In digital anything above 0vu is distortion.

Hot Topic stores are selling the disc for $5. They are also selling (at the store near me) Metallica shirts for $5. A brand new album and t-shirt for $10 bucks, not a bad deal if you ask me.

Got it!!!!! Songs are good, mix is OK, not great.

Just bought it. Will listen to it on the drive home.

I totally love this album. More to come later.

The songs are really good - Metallica is back!!!!

There is way too much compression in the mix. I've never been a huge fan of Rick Rubin produced album mixes (see Trouble, Slayer, RHCP, etc) - it sounds like the guy that mized it had a cold. It does seem they were going for a more live sound in the studio, it just didn't translate well in the mix. That's my only gripe about the album. Other than that, a really good album on first few listens. It will be interesting to see how it holds up to the test of time.

spectrefate wrote:

I totally love this album. More to come later.

Yeah, me too, I'll post more thoughts after I;ve heard it 10 times or so.

The clipping on the songs is annoying. I don't know why people have to mix their albums so loud these days.

spectrefate wrote:

The clipping on the songs is annoying. I don't know why people have to mix their albums so loud these days.

The clipping is horrid, but that's of course more the fault of the mastering engineer than the recording itself. I'm going to load this thing into my computer and see if I can clean it up a tad...then re-burn it.

That's not something that I shouldn't have to do.

Good article on the evils of digital compression...

http://www.mindspring.com/~mrichter/dynamics/dynamics.htm

detuned wrote:

The clipping is horrid, but that's of course more the fault of the mastering engineer than the recording itself. I'm going to load this thing into my computer and see if I can clean it up a tad...then re-burn it.

That's not something that I shouldn't have to do.

I'm trying to clean it a little too. I'm showing the album average volume is 102 db. WOW! That's the loudest I have seen. Its ridiculous.

Death Magnetic > United Abominations

spectrefate wrote:

detuned wrote:

The clipping is horrid, but that's of course more the fault of the mastering engineer than the recording itself. I'm going to load this thing into my computer and see if I can clean it up a tad...then re-burn it.

That's not something that I shouldn't have to do.

I'm trying to clean it a little too. I'm showing the album average volume is 102 db. WOW! That's the loudest I have seen. Its ridiculous.

I'll have to see if I can do the same

mc666 wrote:

Eyesore wrote:

The production on this album is pretty bad.

i disagree, i think it suits the music.

So do I. It's raw. Unlike St. Anger, which they were touting as being raw but was actually just BAD, this album is raw.

xyz wrote:

Death Magnetic > United Abominations

Understatement of the year. I agree.

Megadeth may fart out a turd every couple of years, but Metallica just released an album that is better than all Megadeth's albums released from 1996 on. I'll go for quality rather than quantity.

Why does everyone always have to compare Megadeth and Metallica? I like 'em both.

You make me cry Spec...


Just kidding! Still need to check out Death Magnetic.

xyz wrote:

Death Magnetic > United Abominations

Thats a bunch of

ultmetal wrote:

Why does everyone always have to compare Megadeth and Metallica?

'Cuz it's fun.

Actually I think its because Mustaine likes to still bring up old crap on occasion.

DeathCult wrote:

xyz wrote:

Death Magnetic > United Abominations

Thats a bunch of

Yes it is. UA was a masterpiece, but DM isn't bad.

I thought Dave was over all that stuff? When are you going to post your epic review, Spec?

Schbopo wrote:

DeathCult wrote:

xyz wrote:

Death Magnetic > United Abominations

Thats a bunch of

Yes it is. UA was a masterpiece, but DM isn't bad.

Easily couldve been the follow up to ...And Justice. But, I dont find it as impressive as it was built up as.

The only thing that's epic about me is my turds. I really need to not eat so much red meat.