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[rscamaro73]

PLATTERS = FTW !!!

This is why I don't mind listening to "VINTAGE" stereo equipment with records. They're still clear....

CD's are clearer than 'radio'....but you can tell the differences when you know what you're listening to (and aren't tone deaf....lol).

I'm gonna go to scotts to listen to what he's listening to....drink some beers on his 'new' porch

[BonzoHansen]

SteveR, I am reading reports that the new Metallica album is a sonic mess. Waiting for some verification of this source, but damn.

I did not realize Rick 'I also like it all wrong' Rubin mixed this. I've read complaints about his work with Mars Volta too.

Originally Posted by adamhlava

Distorted and clipped all to hell. Way to go, guys. Try reading this before releasing your next album...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war

So the average reader here is probably saying "golly, why does this matter to me, I like it loud". It's not loud like 'my amp goes to 11'. It's a matter of complete loss of sonic quality. You lose the nuances, the 'light & shade'. Even metal has nuance. This can make a even a great song sound bad.

As once described to me, they could not do this with vinyl, they were actually physically controlled by the allowable size of the grooves in the record. Yet another reason why CDs killed music.

Good article on it: http://www.rollingstone.com/news/sto..._high_fidelity

[SteveR]

LOL is that an actual waveform of the song? I got the cd today and listened to the first 5 songs so far. Its a lot better than St. Anger production wise, but does have a lot of problems. Just by listening to it I can tell what equipment they used, the ears of the mix engineer, and the volume they mixed it at. I can hear that they mixed it loud, and that the mix engineer has the onset of permanent hearing loss, as he overcompensated in the octave of 4-8khz, which is where your hearing will go first. The main problem with mixing loud, is that everything tends to sound better loud, but if you mix loud, you dont hear what you're actually doing. If that's the actual waveform, then they messed up big time. It's not supposed to look like that lol What they did was take the mix of the song, make it really loud, and run it through a limiter where they crushed the waveform so it doesnt go over the 0 db threshold for digital. Doing that changes the tonality of each octave and removes all of the nuances and volume changes in the songs. Thats audio engineering 101 not to do that. There are a lot of other mistakes, some small, some huge that were made in the mix as well. A good mix engineer will treat each song as a separate piece and approach it with a blank slate. That way your ballads dont sound like your hard metal songs and vice versa. That requires that you zero out all the gear and start fresh with each song. You can hear that they cut corners and just left everything the same for each song. What they probably did, and I've seen amateurs do this before, is pick one song and mix that the way they like it, then just play all the songs through that setup and record the output back into Pro Tools as the mix version. You can definitely hear that they did that as soon as you hear the drums and lead guitar come in on Unforgiven 3. You have that nice melodic quiet guitar piece, then loud ass in your face drums? C'mon, thats basic 'not to do' crap right there.

Next, you can definitely hear what gear they are using. This goes back to our talk about everything being 'loud' and 'in your face' from the other thread. Rick Rubin was always good at that, and it was absolutely perfected by Chris Lord Alge (he mixed such great albums as the last Green Day and Rise Against). What happened was during the birth of rap in NY, there werent too many instruments involved, usually just rappers and some cheesy ass beat. So traditional recording gear that was very popular at that time in the rock scene wasnt going to work as it tended to be more soft and rounded out the sounds more than sharpened them. So what Rick Rubin did was take the British recording and mixing consoles by SSL, which had a very harsh and in your face sound, and were used a lot in film post production, and use them for rap artists such as Run DMC, Public Enemy, LL Cool J, and the Beastie Boys. The change in gear made the simplistic production of rap albums sound a bit more full and had more presence. Well, as the boom of rap became greater, and labels were throwing ridiculous amounts of money around to get rap albums made, recording studios responded by selling off their Neve consoles and replacing them with SSLs in the hopes to attract these artists and projects (and big ass wallets too). Meanwhile, Rick Rubin gets back into recording rock albums like Blood Sugar Sex Magic by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and recording the album in an old haunted house outside of LA (Rick would return to this house to record another album in 2006, Minutes To Midnight by Linkin Park). Other albums he recorded from '90 to '95 were Slayer, Danzig, and Mick Jagger. He then went on to record acts like U2, Green Day, Johnny Cash, Tom Petty, AC/DC, and System of a Down. He's also noted as having produced the new Slayer that should be out in a few months and the new ZZ Top that should be out next spring. The big thing with Rubin is making everything in your face.

The problem with this album, is that his new approach to recording and influencing the mix is he wants everything to be 'stripped down'. The problem with that for this album is that now everything sounds too harsh. There is way too little reverb on the vocals and drums and they just sound too bare. The EQs are also off. There were a few places I heard where things walk all over each other and get muddy. With the money Metallica has, I have no idea why they seem to continue to use mix engineers that seem to not only not know how to mix a hard rock album, but dont even seem to have graduated from any form of audio engineering school. The mistakes made on here are elementary. I should give you a copy of some mixes I id for a friend a few years ago. Just basic rough mixes of an album came out light years better than this.

However, the writing and performance on this album is I think the best they've done since And Justice For All. Out of the first 5, there were 4 I liked. I'll give the rest of the album a listen tomorrow.

[SteveR]

On another note;

The mastering can also play a big part in the finished product. Once the mix is done, it'll go to a mastering engineer that basically adjusts the level between songs, the level of each song, basic eqing, etc. so that the album sounds cohesive. It's also possible that the mastering engineer contributed to the squashing of the songs too.

[BonzoHansen]

that was actual cd, as is this:

[79CamaroDiva]

.... lol.

thats all i got.

[SteveR]

LOL thats funny

Ride the Lightning actually looks a bit low. Wherever I May Roam looks good.

[SteveR]

PS- what are you using to get those waveforms?

[BigAls87Z28]

All Nightmare Long is a loud song...real loud.

[BigAls87Z28]

All Nightmare Long is a loud song...real loud.

[Savage_Messiah]

Originally Posted by BigAls87Z28

All Nightmare Long is a loud song...real loud.

Originally Posted by BigAls87Z28

All Nightmare Long is a loud song...real loud.

Doubly loud?

[BigAls87Z28]

Double Mint Gum!!

[Knipps]

[GP99GT]

all nightmare long is my favorite on the album.....but yes i have also noticed the quality is crapola

[shane27]

i got my 5 dollar tee shirt which can be seen here

also pictured: amanda gorun, and my goofy smile

[Savage_Messiah]

shane you look 12 there

[BigAls87Z28]

Originally Posted by Savage_Messiah

shane you look 12 in every picture of you that ever exists, but what do I know, Im a fidget.

Fixed, and fixed.

Metalica sold half a million records from Friday to now, debuting at #1 for teh 5th time in the charts, more then anyone has ever done before, or at least thats what the chick on the Sirius radio said.

[maroman88]

picked it up on sale for 9.99 at best buy.... #6 is my fav so far

[HardcoreZ28]

What I want to know is why Shane's wearing a buttondown under a Metallica t-shirt. I bet if I sent that to Hetfield he'd personally come kick your azz! Hahah kidding man...just sleep with one eye open.

By the way I got GA tix for the Jan 31 show...can't wait.

[Savage_Messiah]

Originally Posted by HardcoreZ28

What I want to know is why Shane's wearing a buttondown under a Metallica t-shirt. I bet if I sent that to Hetfield he'd personally come kick your azz! Hahah kidding man...just sleep with one eye open.

By the way I got GA tix for the Jan 31 show...can't wait.

You mean this guy?

[BonzoHansen]

^no t-shirt over a button down....


There are some good tunes on this cd...too bad it sounds like drunk monkeys recorded it....

[BonzoHansen]

For SteveR:

Source: nme.com
Youtube Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRyIACDCc1I

[SteveR]

Originally Posted by BonzoHansen

For SteveR:

Thats awesome. Sterling Sound is a very good facility and they dont employ amateurs. I need to look up the credentials on the mix engineer.

[BonzoHansen]

FWIW, the song on the new GHIII cd is supposedly better soudning. Why I do not know.

[camaroracer1992]

after they started the BS with napster i am all about NOT buying or suporting metallica. they also suck in concert the one time i saw them. bunch of washed up old heads if you ask me