Another excellent article, this time from the Wall Street Journal. It covers the history and scope of the music industry's "loudness wars," which have resulted in steadily poorer and poorer sounding albums. Comparisons between D-Mag and Metallica's 1988 ...And Justice For All demonstrate for you just how terribly compressed today's music has become. All of this in the name of "louder" music that will sell to the iPod kids.
Truly, we are in the age of low-fi audio. What happened here? Has everything in America simply broken down? I have a Marantz stereo from 1977 that will destroy almost anything manufactured today. You should hear the beautiful music that comes from my Pro-Ject Debut turntable. Who decided that taking the fidelity away from music would make it more popular? Hasn't this instead resulted in the steep decline of CD sales? Hasn't this led to the very end of the music industry as we know it?
In a sense, it's another prime example of something Terence McKenna once said. "Capitalism has the intelligence of a termite." Very true, very true. The endless mad rush for more money, more money, more money, and damn the consequences.
I don't know if I'll be writing much more on this subject. Unless something important happens, I think you already know enough to proceed on your own. If you want to hear Metallica's D-Mag, then you would be well advised to avoid the commercial releases. Download the Guitar Hero Mix and listen to that version, which is far superior in fidelity and sound quality. A simple Google search will yield results. Good luck, kids!
Showing posts with label guitar hero. Show all posts
Showing posts with label guitar hero. Show all posts
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Friday, September 19, 2008
Thursday, September 18, 2008
D-Mag Guitar Hero Appears on Yahoo
Yahoo picked up on the D-Mag Guitar Hero story. Good for them. It's nothing new that we haven't already known for days, but the event has been distilled to a news item for the wires. I expect we'll see this popping up all over the place.
The focus of all the attention is shock, shock that a videogame would provide better music than a commercial CD. That's a good hook, so I can't knock it, but I think the real news item is the way the music business' loudness wars has reached a new plateau. Death Magnetic is very nearly the most heavily brickwalled album to date, and the backlash is considerably larger than it's been in the past.
The question now is whether the next question on everybody's minds - will Metallica feel the pressure to remix their new album? - will be planted in the traditional media. That's the ultimate question for most fans, I think. This isn't simply a case of "gee, whiz, that game sounds better than my CD." It's a case of a major album release that's virtually unlistenable. We're dangerously close to doing away with music altogether and just releasing static.
It'll be a new genre of pop music - Channel Zero.
The focus of all the attention is shock, shock that a videogame would provide better music than a commercial CD. That's a good hook, so I can't knock it, but I think the real news item is the way the music business' loudness wars has reached a new plateau. Death Magnetic is very nearly the most heavily brickwalled album to date, and the backlash is considerably larger than it's been in the past.
The question now is whether the next question on everybody's minds - will Metallica feel the pressure to remix their new album? - will be planted in the traditional media. That's the ultimate question for most fans, I think. This isn't simply a case of "gee, whiz, that game sounds better than my CD." It's a case of a major album release that's virtually unlistenable. We're dangerously close to doing away with music altogether and just releasing static.
It'll be a new genre of pop music - Channel Zero.
Video - D-Mag CD vs. Guitar Hero Comparison
Heard about this video earlier today, so naturally I had to post it. I don't know if this does the best job (at least hearing through the speakers of this MacBook Pro), but anything that helps inform the public is good by me. I'll see if I can find more videos.
D-Mag in Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone has now picked up on Death Magnetic and the Guitar Hero mix. Ian Shepherd is credited again for his blog posts, which makes me wonder why we weren't specifically targeting music engineers earlier. His help has been invaluable.
Be sure to do your part to help. Send emails to the major music magazines and websites. Give a call to your local rock station. Remember, our goal is to build the community and generate more attention, so do your part. Share with your friends, contact the media, and let Metallica know you want your D-Mag the way it was meant to be heard.
Let's turn the tide on the loudness wars, people!
Be sure to do your part to help. Send emails to the major music magazines and websites. Give a call to your local rock station. Remember, our goal is to build the community and generate more attention, so do your part. Share with your friends, contact the media, and let Metallica know you want your D-Mag the way it was meant to be heard.
Let's turn the tide on the loudness wars, people!
Monday, September 15, 2008
Metallica & Death Magnetic's Two Mixes - A Summary
I've been posting over this weekend about the newest Metallica album, which has become ensnared in controversy. I don't know if you have managed to follow along, so I'll just give a short summary here.
The situation we're facing is a simple one, really. Metallica released their newest album to great hype and acclaim. To many fans, Death Magnetic is a return to form after the band's trials and tribulations in recent years. It's a great album. Unfortunately, it is also a sonic disaster. The album suffered excessive compression and "brickwalling" at the final mixing stage, which completely destroyed the sonic fidelity and dynamic range of the songs. What comes out of the CD barely even qualifies as music; fuzzy static would be more honest.
Sadly, this is all too common in today's music industry, a phenomenon known as "the loudness wars." Record labels and producers have been in a furious race to make their CD's sound "louder." This is done by heavily compressing the sound, to the point where all that is left is static noise. Listeners suffer ear fatigue within minutes, not to mention headaches. Dynamic range - the difference between loud and quiet - is all but disappeared. And this is one of the major reasons - if not the primary reason itself - that the music industry has been in a commercial tailspin for years.
So that's the situation with Metallica's new CD. I purchased the 2-disc LP and met the very same problems as the CD. This was the fault of the mixing engineer at the final stage of production. Little surprise that many of Rick Rubin's productions are plagued with compression and brickwalling. This commercial release is quite simply unlistenable; the worst-mixed and worst-produced album of Metallica's illustrious career.
That's the bad news. Now here is the good news. It's quite fantastic news, in fact.
There exists a second mix of Death Magnetic, previously unknown. It is the mix that is available for Guitar Hero.
For those of you who don't know, Guitar Hero is a music rhythm game where you play along to real rock songs with a small plastic guitar. Your "guitar" has a series of five buttons, which you press in order to follow along to the songs. When I was a kid, we had this electronic game called Simon. Guitar Hero is really the same at its core, but it goes much deeper. It manages to tap into that air-guitar mood, that fantasy many of us have of being rock stars, without the hassle of learning to play music.
Needless to say, Guitar Hero is currently the hottest thing in videogames. And everyone in the music business wants to get in on the act. Many artists have made their songs available for the game (you pay for these like any CD), and now the move is on to release full albums. Which brings us to Metallica.
Metallica agreed to have the entire Death Magnetic album available for play on Guitar Hero the same day the commercial CD/LP was released. This meant that the game's developers, Neversoft (famous for Tony Hawk Pro Skater) were given album tracks before that final, lethal mixdown.
This is the great news and the great surprise. What we have is essentially, a second mix of D-Mag. This version is revealed to be far superior in every way. These songs are full of dynamic range, full of quiet and loud interludes, packed with sonic details, sharp and heavy as hell. There are none of the compression issues found on the CD. None whatsoever. The Guitar Hero mix is a revelation, and quite literally saves this album. It redeems the album.
At this point, I cannot in good conscience recommend that you buy D-Mag in its current form. The songs themselves may be brilliant, but the mixing completely destroyed any chance you will ever have of enjoying them. You may try to tough it out, but I promise you that you will tire of all the noise. You will tire of the thin, light, wispy sound bubbling out of your speakers. Can any greater insult be leveled at a heavy rock album? Sad but true.
That leaves one major question remaining: will the Guitar Hero version of D-Mag be made available on CD? Well, yes and no. We will hope Metallica, their management, or Warner Bros would recognize the problems with their current CD's, and recall the albums in favor of a proper re-mix. That is more difficult than it sounds for a number of reasons. But it is not impossible to suggest the band could release a clean version of D-Mag.
That's the "no." Here's the "yes." Because more and more gamers and music fans are becoming aware of the superior Guitar Hero mix, the race is on to rip these music tracks and post them online for download. There are a number of options, from simply playing perfect games and recording the music from your home theatre, to ripping the game discs apart and extracting the files. Sooner or later, this will happen. You will have the true version of Death Magnetic, for play on your iPod or CD player.
Of course, this will remain an underground movement. But it should become more freely available as time goes on. My personal hope is that the D-Mag tracks will be made available seperately, so we can create our own custom mixes on computer before burning to disc. For most everyone else, you should be able to download a full "album" as-is.
What can you do? Plenty. You can let Metallica and Warner Bros know how you feel. The loudness wars has been largely ignored by the general public; with enough of an outcry, you can make a difference and perhaps convince the parties to repair their damaged CDs. Spread the word of the Guitar Hero mix and share the album with your friends. Write emails. Make phone calls. Send petitions. Go to concerts and share your concerns with the band in person. Make t-shirts. Make videos. Build the community. You can make a difference, friends, but only if you make your voices heard.
You can start by copying and sending this post to your friends. Spread the word!
The situation we're facing is a simple one, really. Metallica released their newest album to great hype and acclaim. To many fans, Death Magnetic is a return to form after the band's trials and tribulations in recent years. It's a great album. Unfortunately, it is also a sonic disaster. The album suffered excessive compression and "brickwalling" at the final mixing stage, which completely destroyed the sonic fidelity and dynamic range of the songs. What comes out of the CD barely even qualifies as music; fuzzy static would be more honest.
Sadly, this is all too common in today's music industry, a phenomenon known as "the loudness wars." Record labels and producers have been in a furious race to make their CD's sound "louder." This is done by heavily compressing the sound, to the point where all that is left is static noise. Listeners suffer ear fatigue within minutes, not to mention headaches. Dynamic range - the difference between loud and quiet - is all but disappeared. And this is one of the major reasons - if not the primary reason itself - that the music industry has been in a commercial tailspin for years.
So that's the situation with Metallica's new CD. I purchased the 2-disc LP and met the very same problems as the CD. This was the fault of the mixing engineer at the final stage of production. Little surprise that many of Rick Rubin's productions are plagued with compression and brickwalling. This commercial release is quite simply unlistenable; the worst-mixed and worst-produced album of Metallica's illustrious career.
That's the bad news. Now here is the good news. It's quite fantastic news, in fact.
There exists a second mix of Death Magnetic, previously unknown. It is the mix that is available for Guitar Hero.
For those of you who don't know, Guitar Hero is a music rhythm game where you play along to real rock songs with a small plastic guitar. Your "guitar" has a series of five buttons, which you press in order to follow along to the songs. When I was a kid, we had this electronic game called Simon. Guitar Hero is really the same at its core, but it goes much deeper. It manages to tap into that air-guitar mood, that fantasy many of us have of being rock stars, without the hassle of learning to play music.
Needless to say, Guitar Hero is currently the hottest thing in videogames. And everyone in the music business wants to get in on the act. Many artists have made their songs available for the game (you pay for these like any CD), and now the move is on to release full albums. Which brings us to Metallica.
Metallica agreed to have the entire Death Magnetic album available for play on Guitar Hero the same day the commercial CD/LP was released. This meant that the game's developers, Neversoft (famous for Tony Hawk Pro Skater) were given album tracks before that final, lethal mixdown.
This is the great news and the great surprise. What we have is essentially, a second mix of D-Mag. This version is revealed to be far superior in every way. These songs are full of dynamic range, full of quiet and loud interludes, packed with sonic details, sharp and heavy as hell. There are none of the compression issues found on the CD. None whatsoever. The Guitar Hero mix is a revelation, and quite literally saves this album. It redeems the album.
At this point, I cannot in good conscience recommend that you buy D-Mag in its current form. The songs themselves may be brilliant, but the mixing completely destroyed any chance you will ever have of enjoying them. You may try to tough it out, but I promise you that you will tire of all the noise. You will tire of the thin, light, wispy sound bubbling out of your speakers. Can any greater insult be leveled at a heavy rock album? Sad but true.
That leaves one major question remaining: will the Guitar Hero version of D-Mag be made available on CD? Well, yes and no. We will hope Metallica, their management, or Warner Bros would recognize the problems with their current CD's, and recall the albums in favor of a proper re-mix. That is more difficult than it sounds for a number of reasons. But it is not impossible to suggest the band could release a clean version of D-Mag.
That's the "no." Here's the "yes." Because more and more gamers and music fans are becoming aware of the superior Guitar Hero mix, the race is on to rip these music tracks and post them online for download. There are a number of options, from simply playing perfect games and recording the music from your home theatre, to ripping the game discs apart and extracting the files. Sooner or later, this will happen. You will have the true version of Death Magnetic, for play on your iPod or CD player.
Of course, this will remain an underground movement. But it should become more freely available as time goes on. My personal hope is that the D-Mag tracks will be made available seperately, so we can create our own custom mixes on computer before burning to disc. For most everyone else, you should be able to download a full "album" as-is.
What can you do? Plenty. You can let Metallica and Warner Bros know how you feel. The loudness wars has been largely ignored by the general public; with enough of an outcry, you can make a difference and perhaps convince the parties to repair their damaged CDs. Spread the word of the Guitar Hero mix and share the album with your friends. Write emails. Make phone calls. Send petitions. Go to concerts and share your concerns with the band in person. Make t-shirts. Make videos. Build the community. You can make a difference, friends, but only if you make your voices heard.
You can start by copying and sending this post to your friends. Spread the word!
Sunday, September 14, 2008
D-Mag Guitar Hero Mix - Broken Beaten & Scarred
Probably my favorite song from the new album. I'm thrilled to discover that the Guitar Hero mix gives it the respect it richly deserves.
D-Mag Guitar Hero Mix - The End of the Line
More examples are showing up on YouTube of the Guitar Hero mix of Metallica's Death Magnetic. For this video, the player was kind enough to turn off the game's sound effects, so we can hear only the music.
Once again, we're hearing a version that is vastly superior to the commercial release CD and LP. You can hear clear dynamic range, which is essential for songs like this that veer from loud to soft. There is no distortion and no compression that I can detect, which is a great relief. I can't even listen to the vinyl LP anymore, lest my ears begin throbbing within minutes. I will almost certainly be selling my copy tomorrow.
D-Mag is an excellent collection of songs, as the Guitar Hero mix proves. The final mixdown by Rick Rubin's men (he was the album's "producer," after all) are absolutely atrocious and unacceptable. I've learned that this heavy distortion and brickwalling is a major problem with all of his projects of recent years. Very strange.
I'm also noticing that James Hetfield's vocals on this song were slightly worked on for the final mix. Pay attention to the verse (on album there are backing shouts for each line), and the acoustic section (clear here, warbly distortion on final album). Everything is much clearer and honest here, more of a live feel. The sound is not unlike a dryer version of Bob Rock.
Here, take a listen and pass along to your friends.
Once again, we're hearing a version that is vastly superior to the commercial release CD and LP. You can hear clear dynamic range, which is essential for songs like this that veer from loud to soft. There is no distortion and no compression that I can detect, which is a great relief. I can't even listen to the vinyl LP anymore, lest my ears begin throbbing within minutes. I will almost certainly be selling my copy tomorrow.
D-Mag is an excellent collection of songs, as the Guitar Hero mix proves. The final mixdown by Rick Rubin's men (he was the album's "producer," after all) are absolutely atrocious and unacceptable. I've learned that this heavy distortion and brickwalling is a major problem with all of his projects of recent years. Very strange.
I'm also noticing that James Hetfield's vocals on this song were slightly worked on for the final mix. Pay attention to the verse (on album there are backing shouts for each line), and the acoustic section (clear here, warbly distortion on final album). Everything is much clearer and honest here, more of a live feel. The sound is not unlike a dryer version of Bob Rock.
Here, take a listen and pass along to your friends.
Saturday, September 13, 2008
D-Mag Guitar Hero Mix - The Unforgiven III
This song is a real highlight for Metallica. Pity the CD and LP versions are so completely unlistenable. This Guitar Hero mix gives us a much richer sound, uncompressed, with plenty of space and room to breathe. And notice the range between the quiet and loud parts. This song, and Day That Never Comes, make the strongest case for the GH mix.
D-Mag Guitar Hero Mix - Cyanide
I just may have to get Guitar Hero one of these days. It's far more difficult for me because I play guitar for real, and my brain just can't make out the controls. But this is the best way to introduce kids to music since...ever? Another example of the brilliant GH mix for Death Magnetic.
D-Mag Guitar Hero Mix - All Nightmare Long
I think I'm hearing some bending of the notes during Kirk Hammett's solos, which couldn't be heard on the commercial release. In fact, I can't make anything out on the commercial release except static and fuzz. It just gives me a headache and makes me rush to the turntable to change albums. What music industry genius thought that would be a good idea?
D-Mag Guitar Hero Mix - The Day That Never Comes
This video features a short clip of the commercial song, with its heavy distortion, at the very beginning. You can compare this to the song later on. As you can tell, everything is much clearer and sharper, with far more dynamic range and power. This is the first time I've heard this song without the annoying muddiness in the second half.
Death Magnetic - The Guitar Hero Mix
Now things are really interesting. It turns out there is a second mix of Death Magnetic.
A short-short recap on how making albums work. In the recording studio, the artists will assemble and record their songs. Then the songs are mixed into a final mix. Finally, the album is sent to the mastering engineer for final mastering. There's a lot more involved in making commercial albums, but that's the quickie explanation.
The mastering engineer for the CD version of D-Mag was Ted Jensen of Sterling Sound. He wrote an email to a concerned fan, who then posted it to the Metallica forums:
Death Magnetic appears to have been ruined in the final mixing stage. It's here that all the songs were heavily compressed, peak limited, and otherwise turned into static mush. That's where all the problems lie.
That would normally be the end of the saga, aside from our grumbling of the lastest casualty of the music industry's insipid loudness wars. But suddenly a new wrinkle appeared from an unlikely source: the video game Guitar Hero.
Metallica made its new album available for play on Guitar Hero the same day as the commercial album's release. Because of the game's development time, Neversoft, GH's creators, were given tapes that preceeded the final mix. Put simply, they have a second mix of the album.
This is a stunning surprise, one that will in all likelihood save this album. The GH mix contains none of the heavy compression of the CD or LP versions. None of the squashing, none of the squeezing of the sounds. None of the painful jabs into your ears. Dynamic range is present in the songs. Quiet moments in songs like Unforgiven III and The Day That Never Comes are quiet, and the loud parts are loud. This is a completely different album than the version the mixing engineer destroyed.
The next question is rather obvious. When will somebody rip the GH mix so we can listen on our iPods? It's really only a matter of time. We'll have to troll through the internet for the fan mixes. Even better lies the possibility of fan-made mixes of D-Mag. This is possible because Neversoft was given the seperate tracks for their game. When you miss notes in the game, the guitar cuts out, but the rest of the band continues. This means Neversoft managed to create an album mix of their own, while also retaining the seperate channels.
I don't know about you, but I would love to tinker around and create my own D-Mag mix. Even this idea isn't a new one; Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor recently made his latest raw tracks available to the fans, so they could create their own custom mixes. In our internet age, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see more of this in the future. Games like Guitar Hero point to the future of pop music interacting with fans in new ways.
All of which points back to Metallica. In a perfect world, the band would deal directly with the terrible mixes on their new album. It really is terrible, and I remain speechless that such shoddy work would be released to the general public. If we are correct, that all the problems lie in that final mix, then this is a problem we can easily solve. I would prefer that Metallica themselves handle this. After all, it's their album.
But if that doesn't happen, we the fans are more than ready to step in. If that happens, expect "the Guitar Hero mix" to become the stuff of rock legend, like that original mono mix of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
I'll post some YouTube videos so you can judge for yourselves.
A short-short recap on how making albums work. In the recording studio, the artists will assemble and record their songs. Then the songs are mixed into a final mix. Finally, the album is sent to the mastering engineer for final mastering. There's a lot more involved in making commercial albums, but that's the quickie explanation.
The mastering engineer for the CD version of D-Mag was Ted Jensen of Sterling Sound. He wrote an email to a concerned fan, who then posted it to the Metallica forums:
I’m certainly sympathetic to your reaction, I get to slam my head against that brick wall every day. In this case the mixes were already brick walled before they arrived at my place. Suffice it to say I would never be pushed to overdrive things as far as they are here. Believe me I’m not proud to be associated with this one, and we can only hope that some good will come from this in some form of backlash against volume above all else.
Death Magnetic appears to have been ruined in the final mixing stage. It's here that all the songs were heavily compressed, peak limited, and otherwise turned into static mush. That's where all the problems lie.
That would normally be the end of the saga, aside from our grumbling of the lastest casualty of the music industry's insipid loudness wars. But suddenly a new wrinkle appeared from an unlikely source: the video game Guitar Hero.
Metallica made its new album available for play on Guitar Hero the same day as the commercial album's release. Because of the game's development time, Neversoft, GH's creators, were given tapes that preceeded the final mix. Put simply, they have a second mix of the album.
This is a stunning surprise, one that will in all likelihood save this album. The GH mix contains none of the heavy compression of the CD or LP versions. None of the squashing, none of the squeezing of the sounds. None of the painful jabs into your ears. Dynamic range is present in the songs. Quiet moments in songs like Unforgiven III and The Day That Never Comes are quiet, and the loud parts are loud. This is a completely different album than the version the mixing engineer destroyed.
The next question is rather obvious. When will somebody rip the GH mix so we can listen on our iPods? It's really only a matter of time. We'll have to troll through the internet for the fan mixes. Even better lies the possibility of fan-made mixes of D-Mag. This is possible because Neversoft was given the seperate tracks for their game. When you miss notes in the game, the guitar cuts out, but the rest of the band continues. This means Neversoft managed to create an album mix of their own, while also retaining the seperate channels.
I don't know about you, but I would love to tinker around and create my own D-Mag mix. Even this idea isn't a new one; Nine Inch Nails' Trent Reznor recently made his latest raw tracks available to the fans, so they could create their own custom mixes. In our internet age, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see more of this in the future. Games like Guitar Hero point to the future of pop music interacting with fans in new ways.
All of which points back to Metallica. In a perfect world, the band would deal directly with the terrible mixes on their new album. It really is terrible, and I remain speechless that such shoddy work would be released to the general public. If we are correct, that all the problems lie in that final mix, then this is a problem we can easily solve. I would prefer that Metallica themselves handle this. After all, it's their album.
But if that doesn't happen, we the fans are more than ready to step in. If that happens, expect "the Guitar Hero mix" to become the stuff of rock legend, like that original mono mix of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
I'll post some YouTube videos so you can judge for yourselves.
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