I just realized why people think "Death Magnetic" sounds bad

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A while ago I got an MP3 copy of Metallica's "Death Magnetic", and listening to it on my PC, it was loud and it peaked a lot, but the audio quality didn't seem as bad as people suggested, except for some crackling on the snare drums on "The Day That Never Comes".

Recently, I got a Samsung Galaxy SIII, and listening to some tracks from "Master of Puppets", I noticed that the sound quality was actually much better than on my PC, so I decided to spin the track "That Was Just Your Life" from "Death Magnetic", just to see if it would sound different. What do you know, it had the same sort of crackling I heard on "The Day That Never Comes", but throughout the whole song! Now, I'll honestly admit, it sounds kind of unique, like Metallica were going for a "noise thrash" sound, but I know this was unintentional and that it was simply the result of poor mixing and mastering.

I'm no fan of the loudness war, and I think it's stupid how so many producers nowadays are destroying the sound quality of otherwise good music just to make it more marketable to the unwashed masses, but when they take it to such an extreme level that the music becomes too noisy and unlistenable for "normal" people, it's almost kind of endearing. I'm a weirdo who likes industrial, drone, and noise music though, so what can I say?

Anyway, is it just me, or does the S3 perhaps have some sort of a built-in compressor in its audio system? That could probably explain why I'm hearing details in my music that I've never heard before, or why the songs off "Death Magnetic" sound more distorted to me than usual. I looked through the settings in the Play Music app, and noticed nothing unusual, no pre-set EQ settings or anything. There is an EQ available, but I have it turned off because I already like how the audio sounds on this phone for the most part. It actually makes me want to upgrade the sound card on my computer, just because of how poor it sounds in comparison.

Metallica could release an album that solves the crisis in the middle east and cures cancer and "old school metallica fans" will still find a reason to say the album sucks..

This has nothing to do with the quality of the music, nor is it limited to Metallica. The "loudness war," as it's been called, is a problem with music production and mastering that's been affecting just about every band and artist out there, and it just keeps getting worse. There's no dynamic range anymore; all the levels are cranked up as high as they'll go, making the recordings sound terrible. Google "loudness war" if you want to know more about it.

I think it sounds bad because to me it sounds bad, and in my opinion doesn't even qualify as thrash metal, maybe some people like whatever that style can be classified as maybe somewhere between hard rock and metalcore, but as a metalhead its just not appealing as a metal album. It also seems like there is less energy coming from the band in that album, like they kind of half a**ed it compared to their previous stuff. I certainly do prefer their older stuff because it was thrash, but that's just me.

That said if given the choice between listening to Metallica or Children of Bodom, I'd pick Bodom even over their old stuff.

To be honest, I was looking more to discuss the audio quality and the ratifications of the "loudness war", rather than the music on the album itself. Musical taste is a highly subjective thing, and though Death Magnetic isn't as good as Metallica's old stuff, I still think some of the songs on it are pretty decent, even with the poor mastering.

I should also add that I've listened to the Guitar Hero 3 version as well, and I found its sound quality to be quite middling to be honest. It has more dynamics than the CD version, and it doesn't have crackling distortion, but it also just doesn't sound as heavy or energetic. Fortunately, since it's a simple mix with no real mastering, one could manipulate the sound somewhat, and end up with a version that sounds better than the CD, while still being louder than the GH3 version.

I don't know much about any loudness war..I don't really know that the music I listen to is involved in that. Though as of late I've only really bought vinyls...those sound good do not seem to be sacrificing sound depth for 'loudness'. I think that is more an issue with more popular music though not sure why its a trend to try and make music sound 'loud' over good quaulity even at lower volumes(if I am even understanding right honestly I do not even get how to make music 'louder via recording since volume controls on stereo systems and such exist to adjust volume.....but regardless seems like it would be just as annoying as how all hip hop/rap artists that aren't gangster rap per say use that weird electronic voice mod or whatever you'd call it that makes them sound like a f***ing Furby toy if you remember those things they where quite popular when i was around 10.

Never heard of this "loudness war" of which you speak.

But I do know that on my 1980's/70's recievers lying around the apartment (the unit that has the AM/FM, and which receives the signals from the turntables/cassettes decks/CD decks/8 track decks, and outputs to the speakers) there is a little thing called "the loudness button". If you push it it does create an illusion that the music is louder than it is (so you can rock out at midnight and not wake your parents, or whatever). It was (prolly still is) a standard feature. What happens is that when you push it it causes the mid range to be potted down, and both the bass and the treble to be potted up. Enhancing the two extremes causes the music to have a more penetrating sound even if the overall volume is low. So I would imagine that records could be produced that way to start with.

"Loudness war"-type production, as we know it really only became possible with CDs, as they lack the physical limitations of vinyl records. They are capable of a much larger degree of dynamic range than vinyls, and that's what they were originally used for in the early 80s, but producers discovered that they could use louder, more heavily compressed masters without worrying about making unplayable CDs. If they used the same masters for vinyl, then they would end up with discs that make the needle jump out of the groove! For this reason, and vinyl's new niche as an "audiophile" format, they tend to use much more conservative masters that are quieter and have better dynamics. Ironic as it is, if they made CDs using the vinyl masters, they would probably sound even better than the vinyls!

I don't know I have a lot of CDs as well and there is still depth of music lost on CDs...In my experience vinyl sounds better every time...I think I even have a CD of one of Dio's albums that was made to preserve the sound of the vinyl it was originally recorded on as best as possible, but even that loses some depth of the music so not sure CDs using same masters as vinyls would create a CD sounding better than the vinyl, at least based on that particular CD I have.....Also with CDs I hate that they can skip and such as that can really screw up a song. But yeah annoys me in general like on car radios if someone turns the treble up high, leaves the bass low I hate how that sounds...its something my moms boyfriend insists on doing and it creates a frequency of sound that drives me crazy, luckily I am not in the car with him very often.

That does make more sense though, not as much care is needed to make CDs as vinyls...they can make a lower quality master and just print of CDs, and design it in such a way there is the illusion of a louder more intrusive sound to maybe 'hook' people into it or make it more catchy or whatever the reason is if I am understanding right.

My friend's stepdad is a bit of an audiophile, and though he has an extensive collection of vinyl records, he attests that CDs are technically a superior format. He showed me some of the earliest CD recordings he had in his collection, from before the digital "loudness war", and they sounded incredible. Playing some of my own CDs on his sound system, most of them sounded like garbage, because they were mastered with more loudness war-style production.

Vinyl doesn't have the same capacity for dynamic range that CDs do, and in fact most sound systems designed for vinyl have a built-in RIAA equalization circuit to make up for the compression they have to apply to get the music to fit. Since physical limitations have to be dealt with, vinyl records have to be mastered more conservatively, and this conservative mastering often ends up sounding better, because it has more dynamics. Because of this, and all the additional care that goes into maintaining and playing vinyls, they have become the defacto "audiophile" format, even though they started out as the "everyman" format, and CDs started out as the "audiophile" format.

Nah I understand, it's just when you bring up the topic of disliking new metallica it's just the first thing that came to my mind.

I can't offer much insight because I haven't listened to the album enough but I did very much so notice what you're talking about on st. anger in the sound quality. I actually didn't care much for the sound at all, not so much the music.. it was okay.

This is a useful site for comparing masters.

http://dr.loudness-war.info/album/list? ... h+Magnetic

Hate loudness war

I got a rip of the blood music version of Ensiferum's Iron and the difference is like night and day. I didn't like the album before I heard that master.

From what I recall, St. Anger isn't as badly clipped as Death Magnetic, though they were deliberately trying to go for an unpolished "garage band" feel. I'm really not sure how that album would have worked if the production were better, I think it would have lost some of its charm. I'm one of the few people who actually likes St. Anger though, so my opinion definitely differs from the norm. Death Magnetic on the other hand, could have used better production, even if just to do something about the ridiculous amounts of clipping. Although if their intent was to make a noise record, and not a conventional thrash/heavy metal record, then I'd say leave the clipping in.

Yeah that is kind of interesting but yeah I have a metal shelf to hold CDs that's full and its taller than me lol and then I have a few that don't fit there scattered about...by far the main physical form of music I own but growing vinyl and cassette tape collection. Interestingly enough I've read various articles sources talking about vinyl becoming more popular...and I believe it a couple years ago on any band site I went to look at merch you rarely saw music in vinyl format now every one of those sites has vinyl as well as the more umbrella sites that have merchandise of various bands.

On the bright-side many record stores now carry actual records lol....whereas when I first got into vinyls it was kinda rare to find a store that had a good stock of them. Lol I wonder how Death Magnetic sounds on vinyl.

That could kinda be the issue you cannot really create a garage band feel, if its not a garage band. I mean a lot of metal bands I like actually started out more like that, a lot of black metal bands started out with really sh*tty equipment. I mean I do not know if you listen to symphonic metal band Dimmu Borgir but they had an album called Stormblast which is not going to lie a very bad quality recording...so they re-released the album after gaining a bit more fan base and where able to get better equipment and develop their sound, but people b*tched about that and called them 'sell outs' so in the copy I have that came with a free patch in the lyric book theres a statement written by the vocalist about how the re-release is a better example of where he wanted to go with the sound in that album but previously didn't have the equipment and where still developing their sound. I like their older albums and all their more recent stuff and the older albums have a much more rough/raw sound that is much less symphonic.

for example:

vs.


Admittedly the first one would make pretty cool video game music...lol

In this case it seems like Metallica downgraded or at least attempted to create the sound of having done so? I did check out a couple songs from it on youtube but didn't like the music enough to bother considering recording quality.

I'm not going to comment on that particular band and/or the quality of their output

As far as your S3 having some kind of EQ/compressor built-in, it is highly likely. Manufacturers often push cheap electronics as far as they can with gimmicks such as that to improve the percieved audio quality and make a quick sale. For example, you're at the store and listen to an S3 and a competitor's phone, and go for the S3 because it seems like you can play your music louder and therefore rock harder.

I had a quick look and found this info on the audio processor in the S3: http://www.androidauthority.com/samsung ... hip-97729/

Whether this is a good or bad thing is up to you

EDIT: This could be handy for finding that nice spot between loud and distorted:
http://gs3.wonderhowto.com/how-to/get-f ... 3-0150779/

EDIT EDIT: From that press release:
"the WM1811 provides crystal-clear voice quality and enriched audio playback for music"

So yes, it has some kind of 'audio enhancement' stage which is likely a dodgy compressor/eq