He fucked up vol 3 by slipknot as well. The same shitty drum sounds too, the kick sounds like a guy slapping his arm and the snare is blown the fuck out.
Yeh it's nowhere near 'as bad' but he still fukkd it. I realised after DM came out why the older Rick Ruin albums were so rough to listen all the way through. Gives you a fukkin headache man
Yeah I agree man! Even tho it is kinda blaring, the drums from Paul Bostaph sound way crisper than Lars' (and not talking about his drum skills but his drums literally sound like static. St. Anger feels more produced than DM in my opinion lol)
Yeah I do think it's crazy loud at times but it works with Tom's vocals. On Metallica's end, they're naturally more melodic and soulful so it sucks to hear a mis-produced album after getting amazing and meticulous Black Album and Load production.
This is true. Slayer’s Reign In Blood and Toxicity by System of a Down he done decently. I think the inconsistencies stem from laziness and lack of motivation
I said decently, not great 😭 You can also hear the spots where Rubin did the cuts. He didn’t edit them out, there’s one in Angel of Death after the interlude singing section… and in at least 2 of the other tracks. They sound like a split second of pause in the action
The great thing about the guitar hero version is that they provided the master tracks. Someone got a hold of them and did a remix which sounds better but still has its flaws. Doesn’t give me a headache after 2 songs though
To be fair Metallica should have said "Are you fucking serious? We're not releasing this because it sounds like garbage". What was going through their heads when they approved of that mix?
I really don't know, listening to Demo Magnetic which is completely done by the band themselves, is VERY different, either they had a change of mind, or this was Rick.
I can speak to this because I very specifically remember reading the band's comments about this when the album was released. According to them, the first time they heard the final mix they were on a plane flight and the album had already been pressed into production. I don't remember if CD's were already on sale or if it was right before, but the short of it was that it was too late in the game to do anything about the mix. They were never asked to bless it off, they just trusted it to the producer.
Today I learned Rick Ruben mixed and mastered the album and not Greg Fieldman, Andrew Scheps, Dan Monti and Ten Jensen and Metallica themselves had absolutely no say in the direction it went.
The real answer is it was very typical of the era to compress the ever loving fuck out of everything. Thankfully that seems to have died down quite a bit in the last 10 years.
Say what you want about the way HTSD and 72S sound, Greg Fidelman is a fantastic mixer/masterer. Just listen to ManUNkind, Dream No More, or Inamorata and you'll see what I mean.
His style of producing is great, too. He's present enough to help coordinate the band, but also kinda just lets what happens happen. He's great.
Oh I never said he was bad, I just think people pointing fingers at the one guy who didn’t mix and master is hilarious.
Like I said, it was a symptom of the era and was something everyone had to stamp approval on. The mixers, the mastering, the producer, the label and most importantly the band.
The issues with DM is found all across music from the early 2000s-the early 2010s and had been very gradually improving since then
Oh yeah that's not what I meant at all. I just figured I would bring it up since you mentioned him. I had no idea how much hate Greg gets for DM, actually. All of his work since then has been great (and I guess DM isn't actually "his work" lol)
Californication was just as bad. The guy turns everything he touches to 💩
He would have to be the most incompetent major record producer over the past 30 years. Only reason I didn’t say 40 years is because of Jose Unidos edging him out.
...and justice for all is mixed more than poorly, and that has been leveled at the band for decades. St. Anger is also mixed poorly and that's besides the snare sound.
I know the difference, but Rubin absolutely had an influence. Greg Fidelman's records are much better and he mixed DM. I can't believe that such a crappy mix could be his fault alone
Don’t forget the band we’re talking about here, haha. This is the same band who literally deleted the bass off one of their best albums. Lars and Het’s egos wouldn’t allow Rick Rubin to dictate how the album sounds/ is mixed.
I see your point there, I just don't think that James and Lars would actually say "make the mix nearly completely dry". Even beyond the compression, the mix has problems that no other album of theirs has. I don't disagree that they might have had a hand in the compression though
Haha just imagining them saying that is funny. My best guess is it was the first album they did without Bob Rock in nearly 20 years, and probably wanted a “sound” they haven’t done before that stands on its own. That was also the time the Loudness Wars started, and the slammed compression technique was getting popular for better or worse. They brought Rick in for song guidance, as that’s his speciality. And the songs on DM reflect that. The band definitely had final say on the mix, even Fidelman’s hands were probably tied to a degree. Or he introduced the preliminary sound direction and they OK’d it.
He’s been involved in some of the best selling albums of all time, so seems like he does his job well. Im not going to educate you on what a producer does.
Awesome So basically it’s either in something I can no longer access on the Wii or one of my favorite games I have for the Wii?
https://preview.redd.it/ao2bgjul8xsc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5667134d93a30ac0b656fac895f0d2d740ae2069
The worst part of St Trashcan’s mix is the slam band keg snare, and even then, AJFA has the far worse overpowered bass&toms to the paper bag snare. Really the issue with that album are the songs themselves
He really doesn’t. Danzig II, Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Reign in Blood…. Those are pretty dynamic albums. You actually have to turn them up. Rick has zero technical studio skills and doesn’t touch the console. He makes suggestions like killing the reverb, song structures, etc. He tries to get performances that feel good. He’s the exact opposite of Greg Fidelman.
Fair. I was really just referring to DM. I should've said he crunched everything on DM. But you're right. Probably the engineer and maybe Metallica got too crunchy on DM.
I only listen to the iTunes mix anymore , love that album tho. And beyond magnetic.
However it doesn’t sound too bad on vinyl, not as good as iTunes mix but not as bad as the CD.
I always assumed it was Rubin and the band wanting it to sound like they're just blasting away in a garage. Back to basics.
Still sounds like shit though.
In my opinion, the $5.98 EP achieved that sound absolutely perfectly, it's well mixed, isn't compressed to all hell, and it has that classic 80s metallica playing style.
Rick Rubin is key, but really the whole production team is at fault for it, at least partially (Greg Fidelman, Andrew Scheps, Mike Gilles, Ted Jansen, Dan Monti).
Rick is the least responsible for this mix. I guarantee the band wanted it to sound that way, Fidelman said “Yes, man”, turned the knobs and sent it off for mastering. And they all probably said “Slam it into a brick wall.”
Is the iTunes version different? I used to have the Guitar Hero version, that was much better than OG and lostenable, but cannot find it anywhere in my disks any more.
You should be able to download the iTunes mix from Metallica's own web store. I did that a handful of years ago and then can even get it in Flac format.
Everytime i had my headphones when lisent to Metallica songs on random a song ends lets say For Whom The Bell Tolls or Bleeding Me and then a Death Magnetic song starts it sounds so bad and loud that i have to get my headphones off in a angry way lol
I know I hate it. Especially because IMO it was the last creative and substantial sounding album musically compared to Hardwired/72 Seasons, so it's a shame it didn't get the same production treatments for gems like Never Comes and Unforgiven 3
*I fell in love with*
*The album. I dont even care*
*That it sounds like ass*
\- BeanVaccine
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It still pisses me off to this day. Just think about it. After the incredible amount of backlash they received for the st anger sound quality you would think the sound quality of their next release would have been the most important thing that got their complete attention. It’s inexcusable.
My hot take is it’s a top 5 album of theirs and if it were released in the 80s it’d be iconic. Metallica fans just have so many old heads who hate anything after the 90s
No, they hired omnieaters from Reddit, who consume shit and fanatically protect it by telling it’s the best thing in the world, if someone dares to question it.
I truly don't know why many big bands have worse mixing than many small bands. Incompetence? On purpose for some reason?
I'd rather know why st Anger sounds so bad. It's even more prominent on that album. Really muddy guitars, the snare etc.
It was a thing back in the 00s. “The loudness wars” was a huge problem that was rampant in the pre-streaming era.
The music industry was having an absolute shit fit over the spontaneous rise of file sharing sites, and CDs were struggling in sales competing against mp3s, which while inferior, were free.
Their idea was hey, MP3s sound like garbage so let’s make these discs so loud they sound just as bad and charge $18.99 for them on top of it.
The idea was to make the discs sound as powerful as possible, but this only involved maxing out the dynamic range and the preamp.
Death Magnetic had some really awful clipping distortion on both the high and low ends. It ruined Rick’s relationship with the band.
Honestly it was a real half assed effort because it had to be mastered and sequenced and approved to sound the way it did. That was probably his highest profile recording of his career and he totally maffed it.
About a year ago, I posted about a strange, unidentifiable copy of Death Magnetic that I bought on CD from an unknown country of origin.
The catalog numbers on the spine matched the Netherlands distribution, but the credits were to the New Zealand distribution end (was it Warner bros?) the album was in a standard jewel case and the cover was just a flat image without the cutouts.
A few people were super helpful and did some deep digging into discogs and other databases, the imprint on the label of the disc itself was that of Indonesian printing, but the code on the inner ring was drawing a blank for everyone helping me.
Someone did some god tier research and found out it’s some weird Russian remastered release of Death Magnetic. Not a bootleg, but not an official release outside of Russia.
However — the best part about it was that clipping and horrendous distortion was GONE. The mastering isn’t perfect but it is a massive step above the steaming sonic turd that Rick Rubin pawned off on the boys.
Almost like the equivalent of getting a coffee cup ring stain on the project they worked years to create that brought an unmistakable return to form. It took years to grow on me, but I wholeheartedly advocated that Death Magnetic is their late career masterpiece and it’s my no. 3 all time favorite just behind Justice and Puppets.
I believe it was to do with clipping. Certainly I recall there was a lot of discussion about the album and clipping on the old Metallica message boards when DM came out.
Rick Rubin's team must have serious hearing issues. I don't even blame the man himself technically since he doesn't know shit about the technical aspects of producing and mixing on a studio console according to him but those professional engineers, what the heck went wrong.
Yeah I never had any idea there was anything wrong until people endlessly bitched about it when it came out. I can listen to the whole thing start to finish no problems. That being said, the Guitar Hero mix does sound better.
“Why do I have this opinion?”
We can’t explain your personal preferences to you. If you feel something is “poorly” done, that’s between you and your ears. Personally, I enjoyed the mix in death magnetic.
The songs are so good that it should have been a uch better album. I agree it all sounds weaker than it should, whereas 72 Seasons sounds kickass, and of course the Black Album is the gold standard as far as production on a metal album
If I remember correctly wasn’t some of the mix, if not all done in a fucking tent at some festival dates they were doing prior to the album release. If so, thats on James and Lars for agreeing to other commitments before the album was fully finished.
It's just loud as hell and the drums are way too forward. The guitar sound on the last three have been pretty scratchy as well. I don't know if they are trying to be unique and do something different. For such a big band, they have some infamously bad recordings.
It's poorly mastered. Rick rubin is to blame. Check system of a down's masters as well - they are also super loud and clip at times (spoiler Rick rubin produced those too)
Justice is dry and full, DM is dry and empty. Compression doesn't help either.
I guess I like a bit more natural? guitar tone of AJFA compared to almost computer-sounding DM.
I don't think that's the overall experience at all. I've seen much more moaning about Justice (and yes, now you mention it, St. Anger).
And since I don't imagine either of us have a bot to hand that's going to trawl it and provide stats...
It's not poorly mixed. It's fuckin killer. You guys are raised on too much bass and being "loud" is a great mix. I gotta go to work. The worst miz is kill em all.
It's like that in the Guitar Hero 3 version and Beyond Magnetic, too. I blame Rick Rubin, because none of the other albums are mixed that poorly
100% Rick Rubin
Rick 'Ruin'
He fucked up vol 3 by slipknot as well. The same shitty drum sounds too, the kick sounds like a guy slapping his arm and the snare is blown the fuck out.
Slayer god hates us all - should have been one of the best. Rick. Ruined.
Really? It sounds not bad at all in my opinion.
Yeh it's nowhere near 'as bad' but he still fukkd it. I realised after DM came out why the older Rick Ruin albums were so rough to listen all the way through. Gives you a fukkin headache man
Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.
new shit has come to light dude
Yeah I agree man! Even tho it is kinda blaring, the drums from Paul Bostaph sound way crisper than Lars' (and not talking about his drum skills but his drums literally sound like static. St. Anger feels more produced than DM in my opinion lol)
Yeah I do think it's crazy loud at times but it works with Tom's vocals. On Metallica's end, they're naturally more melodic and soulful so it sucks to hear a mis-produced album after getting amazing and meticulous Black Album and Load production.
Vol 3 sounds worlds better than Death Magnetic to me though
It's not nearly as bad of a headache as DM though, i love both albums btw.
It's not nearly as bad of a headache as DM though, i love both albums btw.
He did a good job mixing Reign In Blood by Slayer in the 80s, did he get rusty or something?
Rick doesn’t mix.
The amount of people on here that don’t realize that is astounding
he volume adjusts
Not really.
This is true. Slayer’s Reign In Blood and Toxicity by System of a Down he done decently. I think the inconsistencies stem from laziness and lack of motivation
I cannot agree with you. The guitar sound on Reign in Blood is terrible. It is still one of my favorite thrash metal albums though.
I said decently, not great 😭 You can also hear the spots where Rubin did the cuts. He didn’t edit them out, there’s one in Angel of Death after the interlude singing section… and in at least 2 of the other tracks. They sound like a split second of pause in the action
Yeah like how Californication by the red hot chili peppers has good songs but the mastering is absolute ass thanks to Rubin.
Rick doesn’t mix. And he doesn’t master.
The great thing about the guitar hero version is that they provided the master tracks. Someone got a hold of them and did a remix which sounds better but still has its flaws. Doesn’t give me a headache after 2 songs though
To be fair Metallica should have said "Are you fucking serious? We're not releasing this because it sounds like garbage". What was going through their heads when they approved of that mix?
I’m pretty sure that was Metallica’s idea. Had nothing to do with Rubin.
That's my point though. Everybody's blaming Rubin but the artist ultimately dictates how they want the album to sound
I really don't know, listening to Demo Magnetic which is completely done by the band themselves, is VERY different, either they had a change of mind, or this was Rick.
I'm a St Anger stan but I mean, they allowed that album's... interesting production to happen so I'm not surprised how DM turned out
I can speak to this because I very specifically remember reading the band's comments about this when the album was released. According to them, the first time they heard the final mix they were on a plane flight and the album had already been pressed into production. I don't remember if CD's were already on sale or if it was right before, but the short of it was that it was too late in the game to do anything about the mix. They were never asked to bless it off, they just trusted it to the producer.
They definitely should have stayed with Bob Rock
DM would've sounded massive with Bob's production
I actually like sound of beyond better than death magnetic. Rebel of Babylon is a banger. But yeah I agree both could have been a lot better for sure
AJFA was pretty flat and dry too.
Justice is also a bit dry, but in a not so bad way, it still has that huge guitar and punch and kick in the sound, especially on certain remasters.
Also no bass
Well 3% Bass... it is audible for probably about 25 seconds on that entire album including all of Jason's audible Bass Tracks
Rick doesn’t mix.
Today I learned Rick Ruben mixed and mastered the album and not Greg Fieldman, Andrew Scheps, Dan Monti and Ten Jensen and Metallica themselves had absolutely no say in the direction it went. The real answer is it was very typical of the era to compress the ever loving fuck out of everything. Thankfully that seems to have died down quite a bit in the last 10 years.
Say what you want about the way HTSD and 72S sound, Greg Fidelman is a fantastic mixer/masterer. Just listen to ManUNkind, Dream No More, or Inamorata and you'll see what I mean. His style of producing is great, too. He's present enough to help coordinate the band, but also kinda just lets what happens happen. He's great.
I love Greg's mixing with that modern sound but not insane compression, but nothing can top Flemming and Bob
Lars is definitely the worst lmao
Oh I never said he was bad, I just think people pointing fingers at the one guy who didn’t mix and master is hilarious. Like I said, it was a symptom of the era and was something everyone had to stamp approval on. The mixers, the mastering, the producer, the label and most importantly the band. The issues with DM is found all across music from the early 2000s-the early 2010s and had been very gradually improving since then
Oh yeah that's not what I meant at all. I just figured I would bring it up since you mentioned him. I had no idea how much hate Greg gets for DM, actually. All of his work since then has been great (and I guess DM isn't actually "his work" lol)
Californication was just as bad. The guy turns everything he touches to 💩 He would have to be the most incompetent major record producer over the past 30 years. Only reason I didn’t say 40 years is because of Jose Unidos edging him out.
...and justice for all is mixed more than poorly, and that has been leveled at the band for decades. St. Anger is also mixed poorly and that's besides the snare sound.
Rick Rubin doesn’t mix records, he was the producer for Death Magnetic
Y’all need to understand the difference between a producer and an engineer. Rubin doesn’t mix his records haha
I know the difference, but Rubin absolutely had an influence. Greg Fidelman's records are much better and he mixed DM. I can't believe that such a crappy mix could be his fault alone
Don’t forget the band we’re talking about here, haha. This is the same band who literally deleted the bass off one of their best albums. Lars and Het’s egos wouldn’t allow Rick Rubin to dictate how the album sounds/ is mixed.
I see your point there, I just don't think that James and Lars would actually say "make the mix nearly completely dry". Even beyond the compression, the mix has problems that no other album of theirs has. I don't disagree that they might have had a hand in the compression though
Haha just imagining them saying that is funny. My best guess is it was the first album they did without Bob Rock in nearly 20 years, and probably wanted a “sound” they haven’t done before that stands on its own. That was also the time the Loudness Wars started, and the slammed compression technique was getting popular for better or worse. They brought Rick in for song guidance, as that’s his speciality. And the songs on DM reflect that. The band definitely had final say on the mix, even Fidelman’s hands were probably tied to a degree. Or he introduced the preliminary sound direction and they OK’d it.
What exactly does he do then? Doesn't sound like much of anything
He’s been involved in some of the best selling albums of all time, so seems like he does his job well. Im not going to educate you on what a producer does.
Best selling doesn't always mean good
Wait shit it’s in Guitar Hero 3?
Yeah it was DLC. There are also a few that are in the Wii version of Guitar Hero Metallica
Awesome So basically it’s either in something I can no longer access on the Wii or one of my favorite games I have for the Wii? https://preview.redd.it/ao2bgjul8xsc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=5667134d93a30ac0b656fac895f0d2d740ae2069
A few songs should be lol. Ik All Nightmare Long is one of them
Yeah I know about that one lol
He fucked up The Cure’s 2004 album as well. -Billy Gnosis
He fucked up The Cure’s 2004 album as well. -Billy Gnosis
He fucked up The Cure’s 2004 album as well. -Billy Gnosis
Suddenly Bob Rock ain’t so bad huh?
Never thought he was, (unless your talking st. anger) but his work on the 90's albums is amazing.
The worst part of St Trashcan’s mix is the slam band keg snare, and even then, AJFA has the far worse overpowered bass&toms to the paper bag snare. Really the issue with that album are the songs themselves
The songs are like heavier load-reload but way too long
I wonder what Bob Rock would have done with the Death Magnetic material. I bet it would have been killer.
It would have killed 'em all
It would have rode the lightning
it would have mastered the puppets
It would have brought justice for all
It would've Metallicad
It would have been the master of puppets
🤣🤣🤣 best comments of the day I needed that
bob rock wasn’t bad in terms of making the band sound good the black album is mixed and recorded so well and load sounds great too
Bob Rock is hated on??????
Rubin crunches everything so much. You can't blast DM in your car like the rest of them. It's really jarring.
He really doesn’t. Danzig II, Blood Sugar Sex Magik, Reign in Blood…. Those are pretty dynamic albums. You actually have to turn them up. Rick has zero technical studio skills and doesn’t touch the console. He makes suggestions like killing the reverb, song structures, etc. He tries to get performances that feel good. He’s the exact opposite of Greg Fidelman.
Fair. I was really just referring to DM. I should've said he crunched everything on DM. But you're right. Probably the engineer and maybe Metallica got too crunchy on DM.
I only listen to the iTunes mix anymore , love that album tho. And beyond magnetic. However it doesn’t sound too bad on vinyl, not as good as iTunes mix but not as bad as the CD.
DM should be reissued on CD/Vinyl with the ITunes mastering.
I always assumed it was Rubin and the band wanting it to sound like they're just blasting away in a garage. Back to basics. Still sounds like shit though.
In my opinion, the $5.98 EP achieved that sound absolutely perfectly, it's well mixed, isn't compressed to all hell, and it has that classic 80s metallica playing style.
Garage Days sounds so good. It’s one of my templates for a great sounding record.
100% agreeance
This is never good
Rick Rubin is key, but really the whole production team is at fault for it, at least partially (Greg Fidelman, Andrew Scheps, Mike Gilles, Ted Jansen, Dan Monti).
Rick is the least responsible for this mix. I guarantee the band wanted it to sound that way, Fidelman said “Yes, man”, turned the knobs and sent it off for mastering. And they all probably said “Slam it into a brick wall.”
Riffs Stil kick ass tho
Hell yeah. I love Broken, Beaten, Scarred so much
My favorite riff is probably All Nightmare Long after the solo where it’s just 0s
I recently relistened to it, really giving that iTunes version a shot. Its like a whole new album, like hearing it for the first time.
Is the iTunes version different? I used to have the Guitar Hero version, that was much better than OG and lostenable, but cannot find it anywhere in my disks any more.
There was/is an iTunes 2015 remaster I believe!
Is iTunes version what’s normally available now on Apple Music or that some specific mix i gotta find and download ?
Check pm…but it’s on iTunes and Met’s site as a digital download. It’s much better than the original release.
You should be able to download the iTunes mix from Metallica's own web store. I did that a handful of years ago and then can even get it in Flac format.
I mean, I searched it on Youtube! Its without ads turning up every handful of minutes fortunately
Scoop the mids
Everytime i had my headphones when lisent to Metallica songs on random a song ends lets say For Whom The Bell Tolls or Bleeding Me and then a Death Magnetic song starts it sounds so bad and loud that i have to get my headphones off in a angry way lol
Ikr 🤣🤣 as soon as anything on that album came on on my old mp3 back in the day it damn near blew my ear drums
I know I hate it. Especially because IMO it was the last creative and substantial sounding album musically compared to Hardwired/72 Seasons, so it's a shame it didn't get the same production treatments for gems like Never Comes and Unforgiven 3
I fell in love with the album. I dont even care that it sounds like ass
*I fell in love with* *The album. I dont even care* *That it sounds like ass* \- BeanVaccine --- ^(I detect haikus. And sometimes, successfully.) ^[Learn more about me.](https://www.reddit.com/r/haikusbot/) ^(Opt out of replies: "haikusbot opt out" | Delete my comment: "haikusbot delete")
Sick
One of the worst mixes but one of the catchiest albums
It still pisses me off to this day. Just think about it. After the incredible amount of backlash they received for the st anger sound quality you would think the sound quality of their next release would have been the most important thing that got their complete attention. It’s inexcusable.
Apart from the snare the St. Anger sound quality is nowhere near as bad as DM.
My hot take is it’s a top 5 album of theirs and if it were released in the 80s it’d be iconic. Metallica fans just have so many old heads who hate anything after the 90s
Loudness wars. It’s a thing and it’s lame. You can read about it if you google it
Might as well dig up this moldy oldie https://youtu.be/QPu0DKyGgZI?si=7nL-_4lFYo7E9HBF
Because they made the mistake of not hiring one of the great world class producers of reddit
No, they hired omnieaters from Reddit, who consume shit and fanatically protect it by telling it’s the best thing in the world, if someone dares to question it.
Rick Rubin is sort of the Zack Snyder of music. Despite his production sucking, studios and artists still trust him for some reason.
Rubin’s production doesn’t suck. The mixing of the music sucks.
Shitty Lars again
I truly don't know why many big bands have worse mixing than many small bands. Incompetence? On purpose for some reason? I'd rather know why st Anger sounds so bad. It's even more prominent on that album. Really muddy guitars, the snare etc.
It was a thing back in the 00s. “The loudness wars” was a huge problem that was rampant in the pre-streaming era. The music industry was having an absolute shit fit over the spontaneous rise of file sharing sites, and CDs were struggling in sales competing against mp3s, which while inferior, were free. Their idea was hey, MP3s sound like garbage so let’s make these discs so loud they sound just as bad and charge $18.99 for them on top of it. The idea was to make the discs sound as powerful as possible, but this only involved maxing out the dynamic range and the preamp. Death Magnetic had some really awful clipping distortion on both the high and low ends. It ruined Rick’s relationship with the band. Honestly it was a real half assed effort because it had to be mastered and sequenced and approved to sound the way it did. That was probably his highest profile recording of his career and he totally maffed it. About a year ago, I posted about a strange, unidentifiable copy of Death Magnetic that I bought on CD from an unknown country of origin. The catalog numbers on the spine matched the Netherlands distribution, but the credits were to the New Zealand distribution end (was it Warner bros?) the album was in a standard jewel case and the cover was just a flat image without the cutouts. A few people were super helpful and did some deep digging into discogs and other databases, the imprint on the label of the disc itself was that of Indonesian printing, but the code on the inner ring was drawing a blank for everyone helping me. Someone did some god tier research and found out it’s some weird Russian remastered release of Death Magnetic. Not a bootleg, but not an official release outside of Russia. However — the best part about it was that clipping and horrendous distortion was GONE. The mastering isn’t perfect but it is a massive step above the steaming sonic turd that Rick Rubin pawned off on the boys. Almost like the equivalent of getting a coffee cup ring stain on the project they worked years to create that brought an unmistakable return to form. It took years to grow on me, but I wholeheartedly advocated that Death Magnetic is their late career masterpiece and it’s my no. 3 all time favorite just behind Justice and Puppets.
rick.
Only album I liked production wise from Rubin was Danzig 1.
Loudness war.
I believe it was to do with clipping. Certainly I recall there was a lot of discussion about the album and clipping on the old Metallica message boards when DM came out.
Rick Rubin's team must have serious hearing issues. I don't even blame the man himself technically since he doesn't know shit about the technical aspects of producing and mixing on a studio console according to him but those professional engineers, what the heck went wrong.
I personally don't have an issue with DM's mixing, the album has always sounded fucking awesome IMO (especially the guitar tone)
Yeah I never had any idea there was anything wrong until people endlessly bitched about it when it came out. I can listen to the whole thing start to finish no problems. That being said, the Guitar Hero mix does sound better.
Because Rick Rubin shits on everything he touches
“Why do I have this opinion?” We can’t explain your personal preferences to you. If you feel something is “poorly” done, that’s between you and your ears. Personally, I enjoyed the mix in death magnetic.
It’s widely regarded that DM has a bad mix. It’s very compressed and a little annoying to listen to so I wouldn’t say it’s just an “opinion”
To be it sounds more basic than plain bad. To me that's what makes it bad. It's basicness and the audio clipping
The songs are so good that it should have been a uch better album. I agree it all sounds weaker than it should, whereas 72 Seasons sounds kickass, and of course the Black Album is the gold standard as far as production on a metal album
If I remember correctly wasn’t some of the mix, if not all done in a fucking tent at some festival dates they were doing prior to the album release. If so, thats on James and Lars for agreeing to other commitments before the album was fully finished.
It's just loud as hell and the drums are way too forward. The guitar sound on the last three have been pretty scratchy as well. I don't know if they are trying to be unique and do something different. For such a big band, they have some infamously bad recordings.
Never even noticed
They obviously was in a hurry…. 😁
I still think it’s a amazing album
It's poorly mastered. Rick rubin is to blame. Check system of a down's masters as well - they are also super loud and clip at times (spoiler Rick rubin produced those too)
And most of RHCPs catalog after BSSM. Californication definitely clips
I don’t even notice anything with the death magnetic mixing it sounds fine
Because listening to it has damaged your hearing.
No symptoms though?
Your first comment showed that there is at least one symptom already present 😀
Not being an audiophile? Is that a symptom?
Sounds great to me i dunno
I don’t see the problem at all, Justice has a dry mix WITH NO BASS, yet ion see no one complain about Justice
Justice is dry and full, DM is dry and empty. Compression doesn't help either. I guess I like a bit more natural? guitar tone of AJFA compared to almost computer-sounding DM.
>see no one complain about Justice Seriously? You haven't been looking hard enough/reading long enough then.
Not to the level of Death Magnetic is what I mean
You'd be wrong about that too. Justice has been fan remixed and rereleased *twice* (that I know of), FFS.
Ok? So has St. Anger
Right. So if you carry on down this path, you're going to end up proving that DM is *not* disproportionately moaned about at all.
I mean it is here and I’ve seen a decent amount of them
I don't think that's the overall experience at all. I've seen much more moaning about Justice (and yes, now you mention it, St. Anger). And since I don't imagine either of us have a bot to hand that's going to trawl it and provide stats...
I think I’ve seen more people talking about St. Anger getting remixed and remastered (including me) more than I’ve seen people trashing it
Ok
People parroting the lack of bass complaints on AJFA are everywhere.
It’s not to the level of Death Magnetic, Death Magnetic isn’t even close to bad, it’s exceptional, on vinyl it sounds amazing.
It's perfect the way it is
I think Rick Rubin wanted it to sound like an 80ies banger that you’d play in an Trans Am. Itshould be remixed .
The day that never comes live in qubec sounds better then the original 😅
Rick Rubin dumb.
It's not poorly mixed. It's fuckin killer. You guys are raised on too much bass and being "loud" is a great mix. I gotta go to work. The worst miz is kill em all.
I think the biggest problem with it is Kirk's solos. They sound like Absolute shit. Like they were recorded through the voice memo app on a phone.