All things Metallica

MetalRob331 wrote:

I use my phone in the car through the stereo and I have some amazingggg headphones and comp speakers...It's a digital world to me...

In that case none of this matters to you, enjoy.

Troublezone wrote:

MetalRob331 wrote:

S.D. wrote:

For anyone interested the film is getting mostly good reviews, currently sporting 61/100 score on metacritic.  It sounds like fun, I just don't know if I want to plunk down $17.50 to watch it in IMAX 3D.

As for the CD release I've been told that it sounds good and the mastering isn't quite as severe as the norm these days.  The soundtrack boasts a DR-8 (dynamic range = 8db) rating which is fair, but compared to the train-wreck that was Death Magnetic (DR-3) it's a significant improvement.

What is DR?  Yes I know what the letters stand for but all I see anymore is ppl saying the DR sucks etc etc...  I dont listen to music other than on my comp or phone. So plz elaborate a little more plz..

Nothing is gonna sound good on your phone or computer. For someone that says they like music so much, you should have a decent portable CD player at least.

That is just not true, at least not for everybody (not everybody has fine tuned hearing like many around here seem to have). An MP3 player connected to your car stereo (if it's a half-way decent one) sounds just fine. A computer connected to a good stereo system plays well too. I've been doing both for much of the last decade (doing CDs and tapes in portable players the decade before then). If there is a major difference, I'll be darned if ever noticed. Plus, portable CD players are too bulky and it's hard to carry more than a few CDs at a time. It's easier to have a phone or in my case an MP3 player.

Troublezone wrote:

Nothing is gonna sound good on your phone or computer.

Actually not true about the computer.  My soundcard outputs 24bit/192khz which is 250x the resolution of a 16bit/44.1khz compact disc. The computer is hooked directly into my main stereo system, I haven't owned a CD player for several years, I either use the computer or my blu-ray player which also outputs 24bit audio.

There's just way too much worrying lately about how loud an album is or isn't. Why can't we just listen to the music and just be happy with it? I honestly don't hear anything that bad to really make me hate an album or to not buy it. For instance the new Ghost album, I own the 4 different copies of it. US version, Scandinavian, Japan and Vinyl. Every single one sounds exactly the same. The first song seems to be the loudest and it does peek where distorts the sound. Am I annoyed a little? Yea, but I love the album so I take it for what it is and I still listen to it. Same goes for Death Magnetic, but I don't hear it peek as loud as everyone complains and bitches about it being. Its just annoying. Listen to the music. If the album is bad then please go ahead and rip the album apart I don't care, but when everyone starts talking about if something is too loud...... Give me a break! Its Metal! Its suppose to be loud! Just listen to it and shut up!

Rant over.

Phoenix Reign Drummer wrote:

There's just way too much worrying lately about how loud an album is or isn't. Why can't we just listen to the music and just be happy with it? I honestly don't hear anything that bad to really make me hate an album or to not buy it. For instance the new Ghost album, I own the 4 different copies of it. US version, Scandinavian, Japan and Vinyl. Every single one sounds exactly the same. The first song seems to be the loudest and it does peek where distorts the sound. Am I annoyed a little? Yea, but I love the album so I take it for what it is and I still listen to it. Same goes for Death Magnetic, but I don't hear it peek as loud as everyone complains and bitches about it being. Its just annoying. Listen to the music. If the album is bad then please go ahead and rip the album apart I don't care, but when everyone starts talking about if something is too loud...... Give me a break! Its Metal! Its suppose to be loud! Just listen to it and shut up!

Rant over.  

Some people hear it, some don't. I do, and I hate it. To top it off, it does a great disservice to the artist. Some of them may be complacent with it, some are not. What studios are doing are messing with tonal structure and depth that should belong to the artist, not manipulated in mastering. And it's not just about peaking--the greater the compression, the flatter the spectrum. Again, perhaps you don't hear it, but that's fine. I hear it, and find it annoying ESPECIALLY when I want to crank the music up and all I get is garbled noise.

corplhicks wrote:

Phoenix Reign Drummer wrote:

There's just way too much worrying lately about how loud an album is or isn't. Why can't we just listen to the music and just be happy with it? I honestly don't hear anything that bad to really make me hate an album or to not buy it. For instance the new Ghost album, I own the 4 different copies of it. US version, Scandinavian, Japan and Vinyl. Every single one sounds exactly the same. The first song seems to be the loudest and it does peek where distorts the sound. Am I annoyed a little? Yea, but I love the album so I take it for what it is and I still listen to it. Same goes for Death Magnetic, but I don't hear it peek as loud as everyone complains and bitches about it being. Its just annoying. Listen to the music. If the album is bad then please go ahead and rip the album apart I don't care, but when everyone starts talking about if something is too loud...... Give me a break! Its Metal! Its suppose to be loud! Just listen to it and shut up!

Rant over.  

Some people hear it, some don't. I do, and I hate it. To top it off, it does a great disservice to the artist. Some of them may be complacent with it, some are not. What studios are doing are messing with tonal structure and depth that should belong to the artist, not manipulated in mastering. And it's not just about peaking--the greater the compression, the flatter the spectrum. Again, perhaps you don't hear it, but that's fine. I hear it, and find it annoying ESPECIALLY when I want to crank the music up and all I get is garbled noise.

I don't hear it then again, I dont listen for it? Even when I used to jam my albums on my stereo system if it got distorted when I turned it up, I just messed with the EQ.. I just figured that the louder the music, of course it's not gonna sound as great. What I do hear is the different production on albums and that to me is a far more annoying thing than the volume I can listen to my music at..

If you take an overly compressed recording and turn it up loud it distorts and sounds like mud much quicker than a song with good dynamic range, CDs that aren't compressed to hell sound great when cranked at high volume.

So in reality, clear punchy sound at high volume is much more "METAL" than brick walled, compressed crap that is designed to sound good at low volume but sounds like ass when you crank it up.

I'm perfectly aware that there are a small percentage of people that would even know the difference and that many people today who bitch about mastering don't have the faintest clue what they are talking about. Those people should probably just "shut up and listen to the music", but show some respect to the people that CAN notice the difference and have the knowledge/experience of what recordings should sound like when mixed and mastered correctly.

MetalRob331 wrote:

corplhicks wrote:

Phoenix Reign Drummer wrote:

There's just way too much worrying lately about how loud an album is or isn't. Why can't we just listen to the music and just be happy with it? I honestly don't hear anything that bad to really make me hate an album or to not buy it. For instance the new Ghost album, I own the 4 different copies of it. US version, Scandinavian, Japan and Vinyl. Every single one sounds exactly the same. The first song seems to be the loudest and it does peek where distorts the sound. Am I annoyed a little? Yea, but I love the album so I take it for what it is and I still listen to it. Same goes for Death Magnetic, but I don't hear it peek as loud as everyone complains and bitches about it being. Its just annoying. Listen to the music. If the album is bad then please go ahead and rip the album apart I don't care, but when everyone starts talking about if something is too loud...... Give me a break! Its Metal! Its suppose to be loud! Just listen to it and shut up!

Rant over.  

Some people hear it, some don't. I do, and I hate it. To top it off, it does a great disservice to the artist. Some of them may be complacent with it, some are not. What studios are doing are messing with tonal structure and depth that should belong to the artist, not manipulated in mastering. And it's not just about peaking--the greater the compression, the flatter the spectrum. Again, perhaps you don't hear it, but that's fine. I hear it, and find it annoying ESPECIALLY when I want to crank the music up and all I get is garbled noise.

I don't hear it then again, I dont listen for it?  Even when I used to jam my albums on my stereo system if it got distorted when I turned it up, I just messed with the EQ..  I just figured that the louder the music, of course it's not gonna sound as great.  What I do hear is the different production on albums and that to me is a far more annoying thing than the volume I can listen to my music at..

One example that's a bit fun to do is to take two of the same albums, one original and one 'remastered,' and take them for a spin. For instance, my first pressing of VH II sounds awesome at a high level and has that same feel in the lower levels, although there is some noise. The remaster, however, gets messy at higher volumes and sounds incredibly dull in the lower areas no mater what I do with the EQ...except heyyy there's no noise. The difference should be fairly noticeable for many.

S.D. wrote:

I'm perfectly aware that there are a small percentage of people that would even know the difference and that many people today who bitch about mastering don't have the faintest clue what they are talking about.  Those people should probably just "shut up and listen to the music", but show some respect to the people that CAN notice the difference and have the knowledge/experience of what recordings should sound like when mixed and mastered correctly.

Well said.

S.D. wrote:

If you take an overly compressed recording and turn it up loud it distorts and sounds like mud much quicker than a song with good dynamic range, CDs that aren't compressed to hell sound great when cranked at high volume.

So in reality, clear punchy sound at high volume is much more "METAL" than brick walled, compressed crap that is designed to sound good at low volume but sounds like ass when you crank it up.  

I'm perfectly aware that there are a small percentage of people that would even know the difference and that many people today who bitch about mastering don't have the faintest clue what they are talking about.  Those people should probably just "shut up and listen to the music", but show some respect to the people that CAN notice the difference and have the knowledge/experience of what recordings should sound like when mixed and mastered correctly.

I don't have any great specialist knowledge, bat ears or any of the other stuff that gets talked about but I really, really can't believe it when people say that they can't hear any of this stuff! Maybe it's because I listen to a lot of vinyl?

If this current trend in music of brickwalling records bothers some people, I don't see why they should just "shut up"

Boris2008 wrote:

S.D. wrote:

If you take an overly compressed recording and turn it up loud it distorts and sounds like mud much quicker than a song with good dynamic range, CDs that aren't compressed to hell sound great when cranked at high volume.

So in reality, clear punchy sound at high volume is much more "METAL" than brick walled, compressed crap that is designed to sound good at low volume but sounds like ass when you crank it up.  

I'm perfectly aware that there are a small percentage of people that would even know the difference and that many people today who bitch about mastering don't have the faintest clue what they are talking about.  Those people should probably just "shut up and listen to the music", but show some respect to the people that CAN notice the difference and have the knowledge/experience of what recordings should sound like when mixed and mastered correctly.

I don't have any great specialist knowledge, bat ears or any of the other stuff that gets talked about but I really, really can't believe it when people say that they can't hear any of this stuff! Maybe it's because I listen to a lot of vinyl?

If this current trend in music of brickwalling records bothers some people, I don't see why they should just "shut up"

Sure albums sound different. We all notice that and sure when I turn the music up some albums sound way better than others. Im just one of those ppl that just DGAF!!! If Im listening to music I love, it all sounds good to me at any volume

It is possible to have the best of both worlds...modern volume specs that can be turned up in stereos and still sound good.  It just depends on how you go about attaining modern volume specs. Compression is a very good thing when done correctly.  It is too often used poorly and the end results are records that cause ear fatigue.

But again...it doesn't have to be this way.

If you "audiophiles" can't do anything but nit pick about the sound levels on an album, then why even bother listening to music? Unless you were involved in some way shape or form, who cares? The bands know about this stuff and they release it. If they thought it was ear split-tingly bad then I would hope they would say "hey now, our fans aren't going to buy this, this needs to be redone", but its not even close to that point. No ones ears are going to explode from listening to these albums.

Its all well and good you guys can hear these things, GOD blessed you with robot ears, but if you just sit and dwell about this you are just missing out on a lot of great music. Its never going to change.

I'm sorry, I'm just tired of reading about this in almost every post about a new album.

Phoenix Reign Drummer wrote:

If you "audiophiles" can't do anything but nit pick about the sound levels on an album, then why even bother listening to music? Unless you were involved in some way shape or form, who cares? The bands know about this stuff and they release it. If they thought it was ear split-tingly bad then I would hope they would say "hey now, our fans aren't going to buy this, this needs to be redone", but its not even close to that point. No ones ears are going to explode from listening to these albums.

Some artists have actual artistic control over the mastering of their albums (very few, especially if it's a major label release) and do care about the sound quality. I tend to gravitate toward those types of artists.

However, many bands have no say into that part of the production chain, that is controlled by the record labels and they instruct the mastering engineers how they want the albums to sound. The only thing labels care about however is VOLUME, they just want to make damn sure that a CD they release isn't quieter than a competitors CD. That is how the entire "loudness wars" started, record labels wanting to out-volume their competition...then eventually they all sounded like shit.

There are sometimes ways around the loudness wars:

1. Audiophile labels. Companies like Audio Fidelity, Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs and HDTracks. These guys know how recordings should sound and typically don't use any compression or digital limiting on their releases.

2. LPs. Generally LPs aren't mastered nearly as hot as CDs and often don't have the same level of compression. This isn't always the case (like the Ghost album mentioned earlier) but for the most part still applies. The latest Black Sabbath album for example, the CD is DR-5, the bonus CD is DR-4...however the LP is DR-10, twice as dynamic as the CD. You can crank up the Black Sabbath LP and it sounds great, crank up the CD and it sounds like ass.

As I said earlier if you don't notice these things that's fine, buy whatever you want. If it annoys you to read about the technical side of albums then don't pay attention. But I'm not going to have someone tell me to "shut up" about something I'm passionate about.

S.D. wrote:

1. Audiophile labels.  Companies like Audio Fidelity, Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs and HDTracks.  These guys know how recordings should sound and typically don't use any compression or digital limiting on their releases.

Count me in as one who couldn't really care less as I don't really notice it either. That said, if it is such an issue then it's a shame that all releases aren't done with these companies. And why not ? Are the other companies/labels cheaper ?

007 wrote:

S.D. wrote:

1. Audiophile labels.  Companies like Audio Fidelity, Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs and HDTracks.  These guys know how recordings should sound and typically don't use any compression or digital limiting on their releases.

Count me in as one who couldn't really care less as I don't really notice it either. That said, if it is such an issue then it's a shame that all releases aren't done with these companies. And why not ?  Are the other companies/labels cheaper ?

These companies are very selective about what recordings they will work on and the first 2 I listed generally only do reissues.  They spend much longer doing the mastering (and use a very select group of mastering engineers) and thus the cost is much higher to produce, the average CD released by these labels is in the $25 range.  They also release recordings in SACD format (Super Audio CD), DVD-A (DVD Audio) and blu-ray all of which offer superior resolution to a standard CD.

HDTracks is a little different in they do new releases but there is no physical component.  These are high-resolution audio files generally released in either .WAV or .FLAC format and are generally 24bit/96khz or higher.  These can either be played back on a computer or in a blu-ray player.

007 wrote:

S.D. wrote:

1. Audiophile labels.  Companies like Audio Fidelity, Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs and HDTracks.  These guys know how recordings should sound and typically don't use any compression or digital limiting on their releases.

Count me in as one who couldn't really care less as I don't really notice it either. That said, if it is such an issue then it's a shame that all releases aren't done with these companies. And why not ?  Are the other companies/labels cheaper ?

Listen to the Audio Fidelity remaster of Holy Diver and the difference is immediately apparent. You will actually hear things in that album that were buried in a poor mix.

Witchfinder wrote:

Listen to the Audio Fidelity remaster of Holy Diver and the difference is immediately apparent.  You will actually hear things in that album that were buried in a poor mix.  

Technically that would be items buried by poor mastering and EQ choices, it was not re-mixed. But you are 100% accurate about how immediately apparent those differences are, I heard things in that album I had never noticed before and I've been listening to that album since it was first released.

S.D. wrote:

Witchfinder wrote:

Listen to the Audio Fidelity remaster of Holy Diver and the difference is immediately apparent.  You will actually hear things in that album that were buried in a poor mix.  

Technically that would be items buried by poor mastering and EQ choices, it was not re-mixed.  But you are 100% accurate about how immediately apparent those differences are, I heard things in that album I had never noticed before and I've been listening to that album since it was first released.

Yep, me too. That release of Holy Diver sounds fantastic

Phoenix Reign Drummer wrote:

If you "audiophiles" can't do anything but nit pick about the sound levels on an album, then why even bother listening to music? Unless you were involved in some way shape or form, who cares? The bands know about this stuff and they release it. If they thought it was ear split-tingly bad then I would hope they would say "hey now, our fans aren't going to buy this, this needs to be redone", but its not even close to that point. No ones ears are going to explode from listening to these albums.

Its all well and good you guys can hear these things, GOD blessed you with robot ears, but if you just sit and dwell about this you are just missing out on a lot of great music. Its never going to change.

I'm sorry, I'm just tired of reading about this in almost every post about a new album.

1. Why are the F*ck are you putting the word audiophile in quotes. It's an actual word and hobby.

2. This is a legitimate problem that's even disturbing to the artists themselves. Gonna go tell them not to nitpick?

3. Like Shawn said, bands have no control over this. Labels have more clout than you think. Artists wish they could.


4. From Wikipedia "Opponents have also called for immediate changes in the music industry regarding the level of loudness. In August 2006, the vice-president of A&R for One Haven Music, a Sony Music company, in an open letter decrying the loudness war, claimed that mastering engineers are being forced against their will or are preemptively making releases louder to get the attention of industry heads. Some bands are being petitioned by the public to re-release their music with less distortion." There's an entire movement out there against this. Can't say I'm sorry to be a part of it.

5. It doesn't take robot ears. We're not nerds or superficial in over-analyzing. It really doesn't take much to notice these differences.

6. I'm missing out on what? I still buy shit. I just bought Annihilator's Feast which rates at 7db. Not bad but still compressed more than I like. But I love it. I played it twice in a row in my care today. As for your comment in the Ashes to Ares thread, I plan on purchasing that too, and the snare is shit on that album. But I still support these bands and can easily look past the mastering F*ck-ups to recognize brilliant songwriting, skillful composition, etc etc. The music is not bad in any way. It's the mix.

7. What is so wrong with discussing? It's a parameter of producing the final package. We can bitch about artwork, packaging, labeling, photography, vocal arrangements, instrument tonality, but we can't bitch about this? Seems hardly out of place.

I like you PRD but I'll be damned if this isn't one hell of a cranky post.

S.D. wrote:

Phoenix Reign Drummer wrote:

If you "audiophiles" can't do anything but nit pick about the sound levels on an album, then why even bother listening to music? Unless you were involved in some way shape or form, who cares? The bands know about this stuff and they release it. If they thought it was ear split-tingly bad then I would hope they would say "hey now, our fans aren't going to buy this, this needs to be redone", but its not even close to that point. No ones ears are going to explode from listening to these albums.

Some artists have actual artistic control over the mastering of their albums (very few, especially if it's a major label release) and do care about the sound quality.  I tend to gravitate toward those types of artists.  

However, many bands have no say into that part of the production chain, that is controlled by the record labels and they instruct the mastering engineers how they want the albums to sound.  The only thing labels care about however is VOLUME, they just want to make damn sure that a CD they release isn't quieter than a competitors CD.  That is how the entire "loudness wars" started, record labels wanting to out-volume their competition...then eventually they all sounded like shit.  

There are sometimes ways around the loudness wars:

1. Audiophile labels.  Companies like Audio Fidelity, Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs and HDTracks.  These guys know how recordings should sound and typically don't use any compression or digital limiting on their releases.

2. LPs.  Generally LPs aren't mastered nearly as hot as CDs and often don't have the same level of compression.  This isn't always the case (like the Ghost album mentioned earlier) but for the most part still applies.  The latest Black Sabbath album for example, the CD is DR-5, the bonus CD is DR-4...however the LP is DR-10, twice as dynamic as the CD.  You can crank up the Black Sabbath LP and it sounds great, crank up the CD and it sounds like ass.

As I said earlier if you don't notice these things that's fine, buy whatever you want.  If it annoys you to read about the technical side of albums then don't pay attention.  But I'm not going to have someone tell me to "shut up" about something I'm passionate about.  

Your like a broken record about it. I don't even have to read what you wrote here because you have written this a dozen times already. We know, we get it, move on.

corplhicks wrote:

Phoenix Reign Drummer wrote:

If you "audiophiles" can't do anything but nit pick about the sound levels on an album, then why even bother listening to music? Unless you were involved in some way shape or form, who cares? The bands know about this stuff and they release it. If they thought it was ear split-tingly bad then I would hope they would say "hey now, our fans aren't going to buy this, this needs to be redone", but its not even close to that point. No ones ears are going to explode from listening to these albums.

Its all well and good you guys can hear these things, GOD blessed you with robot ears, but if you just sit and dwell about this you are just missing out on a lot of great music. Its never going to change.

I'm sorry, I'm just tired of reading about this in almost every post about a new album.

1. Why are the F*ck are you putting the word audiophile in quotes. It's an actual word and hobby.

2. This is a legitimate problem that's even disturbing to the artists themselves. Gonna go tell them not to nitpick?

3. Like Shawn said, bands have no control over this. Labels have more clout than you think. Artists wish they could.


4. From Wikipedia "Opponents have also called for immediate changes in the music industry regarding the level of loudness. In August 2006, the vice-president of A&R for One Haven Music, a Sony Music company, in an open letter decrying the loudness war, claimed that mastering engineers are being forced against their will or are preemptively making releases louder to get the attention of industry heads. Some bands are being petitioned by the public to re-release their music with less distortion." There's an entire movement out there against this. Can't say I'm sorry to be a part of it.

5. It doesn't take robot ears. We're not nerds or superficial in over-analyzing. It really doesn't take much to notice these differences.

6. I'm missing out on what? I still buy shit. I just bought Annihilator's Feast which rates at 7db. Not bad but still compressed more than I like. But I love it. I played it twice in a row in my care today. As for your comment in the Ashes to Ares thread, I plan on purchasing that too, and the snare is shit on that album. But I still support these bands and can easily look past the mastering F*ck-ups to recognize brilliant songwriting, skillful composition, etc etc. The music is not bad in any way. It's the mix.

7. What is so wrong with discussing? It's a parameter of producing the final package. We can bitch about artwork, packaging, labeling, photography, vocal arrangements, instrument tonality, but we can't bitch about this? Seems hardly out of place.

I like you PRD but I'll be damned if this isn't one hell of a cranky post.

Its not a cranky post at all. I'm just saying that I have really cut back on coming here for a while and the times that I do come back and see whats going on, this same old boring topic is still going on. I'd honestly rather hear bitching about artwork or anything else but the f*cking dynamic range of a cd compared to vinyl. Maybe you guys should just make it its own topic. I really like coming here, but its starting to feel like the movie "Ground Hog Day".

Phoenix Reign Drummer wrote:

S.D. wrote:

Phoenix Reign Drummer wrote:

If you "audiophiles" can't do anything but nit pick about the sound levels on an album, then why even bother listening to music? Unless you were involved in some way shape or form, who cares? The bands know about this stuff and they release it. If they thought it was ear split-tingly bad then I would hope they would say "hey now, our fans aren't going to buy this, this needs to be redone", but its not even close to that point. No ones ears are going to explode from listening to these albums.

Some artists have actual artistic control over the mastering of their albums (very few, especially if it's a major label release) and do care about the sound quality.  I tend to gravitate toward those types of artists.  

However, many bands have no say into that part of the production chain, that is controlled by the record labels and they instruct the mastering engineers how they want the albums to sound.  The only thing labels care about however is VOLUME, they just want to make damn sure that a CD they release isn't quieter than a competitors CD.  That is how the entire "loudness wars" started, record labels wanting to out-volume their competition...then eventually they all sounded like shit.  

There are sometimes ways around the loudness wars:

1. Audiophile labels.  Companies like Audio Fidelity, Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs and HDTracks.  These guys know how recordings should sound and typically don't use any compression or digital limiting on their releases.

2. LPs.  Generally LPs aren't mastered nearly as hot as CDs and often don't have the same level of compression.  This isn't always the case (like the Ghost album mentioned earlier) but for the most part still applies.  The latest Black Sabbath album for example, the CD is DR-5, the bonus CD is DR-4...however the LP is DR-10, twice as dynamic as the CD.  You can crank up the Black Sabbath LP and it sounds great, crank up the CD and it sounds like ass.

As I said earlier if you don't notice these things that's fine, buy whatever you want.  If it annoys you to read about the technical side of albums then don't pay attention.  But I'm not going to have someone tell me to "shut up" about something I'm passionate about.  

Your like a broken record about it. I don't even have to read what you wrote here because you have written this a dozen times already. We know, we get it, move on.

Good Lord. You have got to be having a bad day. I know I'm still a n00b here but I've never seen you this bitter.

 I'm actually in a good mood, but this post went from talking about a movie to somewhere else thats not going to stop anyone from either seeing or listening to it.

Phoenix Reign Drummer wrote:

Its not a cranky post at all. I'm just saying that I have really cut back on coming here for a while and the times that I do come back and see whats going on, this same old boring topic is still going on. I'd honestly rather hear bitching about artwork or anything else but the f*cking dynamic range of a cd compared to vinyl. Maybe you guys should just make it its own topic. I really like coming here, but its starting to feel like the movie "Ground Hog Day".

This