new Metallic album article-oh the loudness

[dietrich10]

Metallica's new album sounds better in Guitar Hero

Sad, but true.
By Ben Silverman
ADVERTISEMENT
Metallica's Death Magnetic might have debuted atop the Billboard
charts, but to many disgruntled fans, it's something of a bottom
feeder. Metalheads and audiophiles alike have expressed displeasure
with the record's overall audio quality, claiming that it sounds overly

distorted.
According to Mastering Engineer Ian Shepherd, they're hardly tone deaf.

In response to fan outcry, he compared the audio of the retail CD and
the version appearing in Activision's Guitar Hero III, finding that the

latter indeed featured far superior sound quality.
"As you can see, the CD version on the bottom has been heavily
compressed, limited and/or clipped, and sounds massively distorted as a

result," he said, referencing a chart depicting waveforms of both
versions.
The problem stems from extreme compression intended to boost the
"loudness" of the music in the CD release. The music industry's use of
the technique, which is commonly used to make television commercials
annoyingly sound louder than television shows, has sparked an ongoing
debate dubbed the "Loudness War."
In the case of Death Magnetic, the boost is both significant and
troublesome. Shepherd's analysis shows that the CD release is a
whopping 10 decibels louder than the Guitar Hero version, which
translates to sounding about twice as loud to the human ear.
Metallica's label, Universal Music Group, has yet to respond to the
matter. Or perhaps they're just not listening.

[MrBeasty]

Originally Posted by dietrich10

Metallica's label, Universal Music Group, has yet to respond to the matter. Or perhaps they're just not listening.

They're obviously deaf.

I can understand why they would want the radio singles to be stupid loud ... but why the record? I take the record to my home and how does it matter if it is "loud"? Even on iPods you can adjust tracks's individual volume up or down.
W/ the record all "louded-out" I can't even undo the distortion.

If somebody has a bootlegged version of the audio from GH, send me a PM!!

BTW - I think St.Anger would be more bearable if it had any dynamics left i it.

[Bob Olhsson]

I've been saying this for years now:

People need to return distorted CDs as being the defective products they are and demand their money back. If a store won't take it back, send it to the group's management company and demand a refund from them.

Conventional wisdom about this issue is that "nobody's complaining but a few audiophile nut-jobs."

Money talks while everything else walks.

[TheArchitect]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

I've been saying this for years now:

People need to return distorted CDs as being the defective products they are and demand their money back. If a store won't take it back, send it to the group's management company and demand a refund from them.

Conventional wisdom about this issue is that "nobody's complaining but a few audiophile nut-jobs."

Money talks while everything else walks.

Entirely true but we have never seen this kind of backlash before. This is wholly uncharted territory. Metallica may have the muscle to ignore it (and I'm sure they will) but I'm curious to see what happens for albums of lesser bands that follow. Metallica could fart onto ADAT through an L2 and sell 2 million to the sheep who buy anything that says metallica on it. Most bands don't have that luxury

[Bob Olhsson]

Believe me, NOBODY in the music industry ignores returns. What they ignore is ranting.

[DP40oz]

I always find these loudness outrages to be pretty funny. I showed the Metallica album to a bunch of my friends, all musicians, and explained to them the distortion and what not and none of them could tell what the hell i was talking about. Unless you're in the world of audio recording nobody cares. The consumer doesnt notice any of this. All they notice is when one of the songs from the new Metallica comes on after something else on their ipod it sounds louder and more "kick ass" so to speak.

Next time you get outraged by "loudness" and you think its such a big deal, talk to someone who works on video in movies or TV and have them tell you the outrages they have that you've never noticed because movies just look so good.

[Bob Olhsson]

Musicians are generally the least concerned and the average "Joe" has no idea why they don't like something enough to buy it.

As I said, conventional wisdom is that nobody's complaining.

I have to always pay close attention to my client's competition because that's part of my job but I can't believe today's distorted CDs are helping slow the massive decline in sales per title we have been watching over the past ten years.

[TheArchitect]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

Musicians are generally the least concerned and the average "Joe" has no idea why they don't like something enough to buy it.

As I said, conventional wisdom is that nobody's complaining.

I have to always pay close attention to my client's competition because that's part of my job but I can't believe today's distorted CDs are helping slow the massive decline in sales per title we have been watching over the past ten years.

Yes, but new bands can't really afford backlash and negative press. I think maybe they will be a little more aware of what they are doing before they put the hammer down on the ol' L2.

These complaints are making major music publications like Rolling Stone. I have never seen that happen. It was even the lead for awhile on Yahoo.com You may very well be right and nothing well happen but its still a bit unprecedented the press this has gotten. Hell every other post on the metallica forum was a complaint about the sound. Granted there were tone deaf yahoos claiming there was no clipping and it sounded great which is very disheartening to think people are that oblivious to the obvious but does support your point

[666666]

What I found interesting...

A friend of mine, a college student that has zero pro audio experience, just an average music fan and "metal head", heard the new Metallica cd and offered me the following input, based on his own listening:

"It doesn't sound good when I play it on my car stereo.... I hear static"...

Interesting... he is hearing the digital clipping / distortion. He doesn't know what it is, but he can hear it.

Then he went on to say, "I read that James Hetfield took singing lesson for this album, I don't like the vocals, they sound too proper, there's something about it that bothers me"...

Even more interesting, he is hearing the noticeable use of "auto-tune".

Why oh why would they use autotune on Metallica vocals??? This ain't Cher ya know. The moment I heard that I was sick to my stomach. It could be worse, but it's still there, some tunes worse than others.

Anyway, this experience showed me that at least SOME "average-Joe' listeners are hearing the inexcuseable audio crimes that are being done to modern productions.

Ok, I could go on with a 10 page rant about all this but... we have enough of those in the forum archives already.

I think the album COULD have been really good if it did not have any of that terrible "autotune" sound on the vocals, and if it wasn't smashed into a flat pancake, raging distortion, etc. It's a mess... gee, just one click of the "bypass" button on that limiter, it could have been great... what a shame. It still completely baffles me how audio can go into mass production in such a state... it's just unbelievable.

Ok... I'll stop now, I feel a huge rant coming... oh boy... I better get out of here and run over to my punching bag...

[not_so_new]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

Musicians are generally the least concerned and the average "Joe" has no idea why they don't like something enough to buy it.

As I said, conventional wisdom is that nobody's complaining.

I have to always pay close attention to my client's competition because that's part of my job but I can't believe today's distorted CDs are helping slow the massive decline in sales per title we have been watching over the past ten years.

I agree 100%, the "nobody is complaining argument" is their response and that is just shockingly short sighted.

The record industry (at the major labels anyway) have their collective heads up their collective a-holes. If major banking CEO's can't run a bank but instead run their industry into the ground what makes us think the CEOs at the labels are that much better with their industry.

People ARE complaining, look at record sales. I agree with Bob, if the thing is distorted and sounds like open a$$ send it back and send a message. The problem is people ARE complaining, they are just not complaining by sending CD back or sending letters, their complaint is in their lack of album purchases.

The absolutely astonishing thing to me is that in reaction to declining album sales the labels decide that louder releases are the solution to sell more?!?!?

WFT?

Loud, distorted releases are not the only thing driving down record sales but they certainly are not helping by any stretch.

[James Meeker]

At least this gives us engineers ammunition in the studio--"Are you sure you want your record this loud? Remember what happened with Metallica!"

Maybe dynamics can become the new loud? Maybe I'm just wishful thinking.

[mcsnare]

The only thing more tiresome than the absurd destruction of sonics for volume is reading that most of you guys blame the label. You should blame Metallica and Rick Rubin for this one. I know for a fact that the band and management must have been aware of the sound of the record because they did shootouts with several mastering engineers. In my experience the label almost never is the one asking for it louder, it's the band. Not only that but for all their evil ways, most people at labels are pretty insistent on the band having their say/way on things like picking the producer and mixing and mastering. The volume thing is directly related to most artists' fear and insecurities about their music 'making it' or competing in the market place.
I recently had the president of a major label ask me to repeatedly turn down various songs on a record until he was satisfied it was clean and dynamic. At the end of the mastering, I was asked to explain to the band why the record wasn't as loud as some others. Everyone ended up satisfied. I've had label people complain to me that the band wanted it too loud, so if you want to blame someone, blame the artists.

Dave

[Bob Olhsson]

Dave is repeating what almost everybody else in mastering has been saying to me. I had a VP of one of the majors tell of requisitioning a street copy of a new release he liked. When he got it home, he found it totally unlistenable and an immense disappointment. Imagine if he'd had to pay for it!

[Geoff Firebaugh]

I tried to return mine to best buy, and was told 'we have recieved several complaints about Death Magnetic, but these are not defective CDs, therefore no refund is available.'

g

[666666]

Originally Posted by mcsnare

...so if you want to blame someone, blame the artists.

Ok.

But I just heard a mastering job today that was done to a project that I had worked on briefly not long ago. Only the artist met with the mastering engineer (which was a mistake). But supposedly the artist handed the engineer a major label release that I know is NOT over-limited and has zero distortion, etc, and asked for his mastering characteristics to be similar. The mastering engineer by the way is a big name guy working out of a big name place that has worked on big name albums. Well, the end result is a crackling mess, smashed to bits, total pancake. Don't know what to make of this. I wasn't there so I do not know exactly what went on, but I don't believe the artist said, "please crush my music to the point of utter distortion". The mixes that were presented to the mastering engineer were far from over-limited, they were in fact not compressed or limited at all, and had no distortion... I had heard them myself. What I suspect happened here, the artist said, "please master this, make it sound like this production cd I am handing you", and the mastering engineer must have just crushed it feeling that this is likely what the artist would like (loud), even though it's a distorted mess. Again, the cd that the artist wanted his thing to sound like was NOT crushed... I have this cd and it sounds good, surely limited, but not crushed into a distorted mess. I know the artist and I severely doubt he was yelling, "make it louder, make it louder!!!!!!". I am disappointed that the artist accepted this horrible master... he apparently just can't hear the atrocities. I will be talking with some of the people involved soon and will follow this, I hope and pray that this thing can be remastered. It just BAFFLES me that a top name guy in a top name place charging pretty big bucks hands someone a piece of garbage like this. Of course, since I wasn't there, I do not know truly what went on, did the artist perhaps put a gun to the engineer's head and say, "crank that limiter until blood starts dripping out of our ears!"... maybe he did!!!... but I REALLY doubt it. By the way, the engineer involved here is no one that regularly visits this forum so guys, please do not get too defensive... it's not YOU! ... it's possible that this particular guy is just really bad... but he DOES have a name, one you'll see on some big albums. This whole loudness thing will never cease to amaze and confuse me. Hopefully the artist goes back and has him FIX it. We'll see. I'm thinking that someone with ears needs to go down there with him to straighten things out. Ehhh... this shite never ends. Yes, I've made similar posts before... this nearly identical scenario keeps happening over and over... I have yet to hear a mastering job from a name place come back not squashed and distorted... that's my personal experience anyway. I can't wait to attend one of these sessions eventually... it might lead to fisticuffs.

[DP40oz]

The argument that people arent buying albums because they're too loud and dont sound good is a little extreme. People arent buying albums because they download the music for free. People are enjoying music the same way they always did. Theyre just getting it free now. Just look at iPod sales. The love for music is as healthy as ever, its the business of selling it thats messed up these days.

[raga2000]

Hi all,
in these days i hear more distortion in cd's, Bionce,Timberlake,Metalica and much more,the only music that i enjoy to listen it was the Enrique,the mix and mastering was good (in my taste) only i like to bring down the level of kick in track 2.

i live in Iran and musician's in Iran looking for loudness and they think mastering is only bring up the loudness!i don't think so but really can u tell me what loudness is enough for mastering?anyway we touch the compressor in mastering then we loose some dynamic's but what we can do?
to runaway from distortion do u only trust your ears?
in protools when i finished working in my loudness in mastering i check the meter for no cliping and when i have no clip in my master meter i check it with another meter like TL master meter and i find some clip that was not showed in pt meter,what are u doing to find clip in your music?
do u leave this little clip alone and doesn't look at it?what is your border?

regards
Iman

[mcsnare]

666666,
I'm not going to defend the mastering engineer in your story. Instead I want to comment on what I think may be related to your story and the loudness problem in general.
A lot of experienced M.E.'s will tell you that communication is key to a have happy clients and a trouble free mastering experience. In my opinion part of that communication should involve a discussion of how loud the client wants it. This is the tricky part. In a typical mastering job for a label scenario the chain of communication can be very involved: The guy or girl at the label calls the producer or maybe the engineer and the producer decide who they want to use and inform the label. Did anybody mention volume? Maybe the producer wants it kinda hot but ASSUMES the label wants it searing, wants it to sound good but in his mind would like to make the label happy so he is seen as a team player and maybe gets another gig from them. The A&R person at the label doesn't really care how loud it is and ASSUMES the mastering guy will take care of that end of it. An assistant to the A&R person calls the M.E. or maybe only talks to a booking person at the mastering studio. No one has a conversation that includes volume in it, because each party ASSUMES a few things. Maybe the M.E. asks the contact at the label about level. He or she doesn't know but ASSUMES their boss wants it HOT. Loud must be better right? Maybe the assistant says I'm not sure but I'll get back to you. The M.E. gets the sources and starts to work. He knows that label or A&R guy X is known for doing shootouts AND this smells like a pretty high priority project so he ASSUMES his work will be judged partly for loudness if they DO end up doing a shootout, so the M.E. sheds a silent tear for St. Tinnitus (the patron Saint of music engineers) and proceeds to set his phazer to kill, muttering something under his breath about 'I'll show those bastards at Full Scale Mastering!'
The label, producer and band get the refs. The engineer gets his too late to comment cause he is now in South America recording a new project. The producer thinks it's a little overcooked, but this M.E. just did the new Barking Pumpkins smash hit and he ASSUMES that the label wants it like this because they handled the communication. He calls the label but the A&R guy is out of town. Whatever. The label gets the ref and the assistant converts it to an mp3 to send to the A&R guy. The A&R guy listens in a rent car and on his laptop at the hotel. He can't really tell but thinks it sounds OK. After all, this M.E. did that Barking Pumpkins single that everyone is raving about right? He ASSUMES the M.E. knows what he is doing. The band gets theirs and listens on various auto, iPods, LoFi jamboxes and/or broken systems. They think it kicks ass, especially since it's as loud as the Barking Pumpkins. Everyone finally compares notes a few days later and pats each other on the back. The producer says something to the A&R guy like "Yeah Jimmy it sounds great. Damn that thing is loud!" as he laughs nervously. The A&R guy says "It sure is! That Larry Limiter is a real MoFo isn't he?" So they ask for a slight sequence change, and the next ref is approve cause they are on a very tight release schedule and besides no one wants to harsh the buzz over something like VOLUME right?
I'll tell you another story. I recently was sent a track to master. The label went to a big name M.E. that they had used for many projects. The label was happy with it. The producer was not. The producer asked the label to let me take a crack at it. I had the first M.E.'s version to compare to. It was BLAZING. No blatantly obvious distortion, but what was left of the snare was a little burst of white noise on the back beats. I said a prayer to St. Tinitus and then got down to bizness. I'm not really sure how, but after crazy amounts of experimentation I was able to cut something just as hot, maybe even a tad louder that was a little cleaner and had a significant amount more drum punch. I got the gig. I was sent the whole album and B sides. It was mixed by a famous A list mixer. It sounded awesome. I couldn't bring myself to butcher it, so I cut the album, including recutting the original test mix about 6 db quieter. I should have said something, but I figured 'let them tell me to make it louder.' I waited. Everyone heard it and NO ONE said anything about it being quieter. Not a word. The only thing I heard was 'sounds great we have a sequence change to make' If someone on the client end had said "We need it louder" fine. No problem, it's YOUR project. I'll do anything you like, but I won't make an assumption about volume.
Communicate in no uncertain terms to the M.E. about volume. No one in the project chain should assume anything about volume unless a conversation has taken place.

[666666]

Good stories there mcsnare... Entertaining stuff. It make sense.

Side note, just forgetting about "loudness" for a moment...

I once again listened back to the master I was talking about earlier... there is very obvious crackling distortion everywhere, even occasional loud digital "clicks" that were definitely not there previously.

So... ok, fine, due to lack of communication or whatever an ME may make something "too loud", all dynamics are erased... ok, that's bad enough... but doesn't anyone hear the DISTORTION and CLICKS????

Many of us have spent tens of years learning about, obtaining and using some of the best audio gear on the planet that yields near distortion-free ultra pristine audio quality. We strive to yield ultra clean, clear, detailed super high fidelity. There was a time when if I had heard even one microscopic "click" anywhere on a recording, I would have considered it totally unacceptable and would have done anything to get rid of that one teeny tiny little click (I'm still like this). NOW we are hearing major albums where there is clicking, crackling, crunching etc almost THE WHOLE TIME! Tons of it!!! So, ok, make it "loud" if you really need to, but at the very least do not hand something over that is a distorted mess, crunching and crackling across all the music. I just cannot understand how the ME or anyone else considers this acceptable.

Yeah, I dig it, if you smash music into a "brickwall" hard enough, you will get distortion.... well, if one is not able to obtain the level of "loudness" they desire WITHOUT raging distortion, then they should simply NOT do it! Or perhaps get bette tools that can do what is "required" without the distortion. I don't know the exact answer, but I do know that ANY clicking, crackling and crunching AT ALL, even just one time for 2 seconds on a 50 minute album, to me is totally unacceptable. When I hear a master where this distortion is occuring CONTINUOUSLY throughout ALL 50 MINUTES...?????????

Communication or no communication, how can this be? If you go to a steakhouse and ask for a steak "well done", then you receive a steak that has been completely burned up into a little charred chunk of black crud... now, you may have not communicated to the chef to NOT nuke your steak into an unedible piece of solid black ash... but does it make ANY sense for him to do this anyway? "Sorry sir, you did not tell us NOT to ruin your master with raging distortion, so we did... will that be cash or check?

Ehhhhh.... anyway, mcsnare, thanks for the input... I dig what you're saying... apparently all this other bureaucracy, assorted tomfoolery and miscommunication comes way before actual audio quality... it's a shame.

[jumbo]

I'd just like to know 'why has clicks, pops, crackling and digital distortion become an integral part of a band or artists sound on a cd.... would they dare reproduce such ugly artifacts live at their concerts???

No

Then why allow it to be heard and present on a cd....

who knows, maybe in the future when digital distortion will be a thing of the past, there might be a plug-in emulation delivering digital distortion, pops and clipping sounds found on past classic albums such as 'Death Magnetic'.
.... maybe we'll all miss these artefacts when its gone or a new technology takes over thats supremely clean and distortion free. Kinda like our love affair reigniting with vinyl crackling once it was gone.

[TheArchitect]

Originally Posted by mcsnare

666666,
I'm not going to defend the mastering engineer in your story. Instead I want to comment on what I think may be related to your story and the loudness problem in general.
A lot of experienced M.E.'s will tell you that communication is key to a have happy clients and a trouble free mastering experience. In my opinion part of that communication should involve a discussion of how loud the client wants it. This is the tricky part. In a typical mastering job for a label scenario the chain of communication can be very involved: The guy or girl at the label calls the producer or maybe the engineer and the producer decide who they want to use and inform the label. Did anybody mention volume? Maybe the producer wants it kinda hot but ASSUMES the label wants it searing, wants it to sound good but in his mind would like to make the label happy so he is seen as a team player and maybe gets another gig from them. The A&R person at the label doesn't really care how loud it is and ASSUMES the mastering guy will take care of that end of it. An assistant to the A&R person calls the M.E. or maybe only talks to a booking person at the mastering studio. No one has a conversation that includes volume in it, because each party ASSUMES a few things. Maybe the M.E. asks the contact at the label about level. He or she doesn't know but ASSUMES their boss wants it HOT. Loud must be better right? Maybe the assistant says I'm not sure but I'll get back to you. The M.E. gets the sources and starts to work. He knows that label or A&R guy X is known for doing shootouts AND this smells like a pretty high priority project so he ASSUMES his work will be judged partly for loudness if they DO end up doing a shootout, so the M.E. sheds a silent tear for St. Tinnitus (the patron Saint of music engineers) and proceeds to set his phazer to kill, muttering something under his breath about 'I'll show those bastards at Full Scale Mastering!'
The label, producer and band get the refs. The engineer gets his too late to comment cause he is now in South America recording a new project. The producer thinks it's a little overcooked, but this M.E. just did the new Barking Pumpkins smash hit and he ASSUMES that the label wants it like this because they handled the communication. He calls the label but the A&R guy is out of town. Whatever. The label gets the ref and the assistant converts it to an mp3 to send to the A&R guy. The A&R guy listens in a rent car and on his laptop at the hotel. He can't really tell but thinks it sounds OK. After all, this M.E. did that Barking Pumpkins single that everyone is raving about right? He ASSUMES the M.E. knows what he is doing. The band gets theirs and listens on various auto, iPods, LoFi jamboxes and/or broken systems. They think it kicks ass, especially since it's as loud as the Barking Pumpkins. Everyone finally compares notes a few days later and pats each other on the back. The producer says something to the A&R guy like "Yeah Jimmy it sounds great. Damn that thing is loud!" as he laughs nervously. The A&R guy says "It sure is! That Larry Limiter is a real MoFo isn't he?" So they ask for a slight sequence change, and the next ref is approve cause they are on a very tight release schedule and besides no one wants to harsh the buzz over something like VOLUME right?
I'll tell you another story. I recently was sent a track to master. The label went to a big name M.E. that they had used for many projects. The label was happy with it. The producer was not. The producer asked the label to let me take a crack at it. I had the first M.E.'s version to compare to. It was BLAZING. No blatantly obvious distortion, but what was left of the snare was a little burst of white noise on the back beats. I said a prayer to St. Tinitus and then got down to bizness. I'm not really sure how, but after crazy amounts of experimentation I was able to cut something just as hot, maybe even a tad louder that was a little cleaner and had a significant amount more drum punch. I got the gig. I was sent the whole album and B sides. It was mixed by a famous A list mixer. It sounded awesome. I couldn't bring myself to butcher it, so I cut the album, including recutting the original test mix about 6 db quieter. I should have said something, but I figured 'let them tell me to make it louder.' I waited. Everyone heard it and NO ONE said anything about it being quieter. Not a word. The only thing I heard was 'sounds great we have a sequence change to make' If someone on the client end had said "We need it louder" fine. No problem, it's YOUR project. I'll do anything you like, but I won't make an assumption about volume.
Communicate in no uncertain terms to the M.E. about volume. No one in the project chain should assume anything about volume unless a conversation has taken place.

This is the text equivalent of brick wall limiting. Having trouble reading all of that? Your brain getting slammed with a barrage of text with no breaks is no different than your brain getting slammed with a stream of dynamic-less white noise audio from a brick walled track. Eventually your mind just tunes it out.

[JPeters86]

Good article. I hope more things will be written about this piece of sonic crap. And people should return their copy, it's really unacceptable in my opinion.

Somewhere deep inside I hope this will be a turning point in the loudness war.

[loadbang]

Some useful links:

Analysis: Metallica's Death Magnetic Sounds Better in Guitar Hero | Listening Post from Wired.com

Metallica "Death Magnetic" sounds better in Guitar Hero - Mastering Media Blog

It is mastered by Ted Jensen, I have a good collection of albums mastered by him, and boy does he like his compression. Here is a reply from Ted, hey says it was not his fault: I GOT A RESPONSE FROM TED - Metallicabb.com .


Well, the story has made Slashdot | Metallica Guitar Hero Release Has Higher Quality Than CDs

[Bob Olhsson]

Originally Posted by DP40oz

The argument that people arent buying albums because they're too loud and dont sound good is a little extreme...

Probably not nearly as extreme as lots of folks want to believe. Most of us buy albums based on a gut reaction to what we hear. If somebody takes the time to think, "gee, I'll check this out more before I take out my wallet," the chances are very good that there's not likely to be a sale.

[DSD_Mastering]

Originally Posted by jumbo

I'd just like to know 'why has clicks, pops, crackling and digital distortion become an integral part of a band or artists sound on a cd....

Didn't you know vinyl is making a comeback??


Regards,

[Watersound]

Originally Posted by mcsnare

The only thing more tiresome than the absurd destruction of sonics for volume is reading that most of you guys blame the label. You should blame Metallica and Rick Rubin for this one. I know for a fact that the band and management must have been aware of the sound of the record because they did shootouts with several mastering engineers. In my experience the label almost never is the one asking for it louder, it's the band. Not only that but for all their evil ways, most people at labels are pretty insistent on the band having their say/way on things like picking the producer and mixing and mastering. The volume thing is directly related to most artists' fear and insecurities about their music 'making it' or competing in the market place.
I recently had the president of a major label ask me to repeatedly turn down various songs on a record until he was satisfied it was clean and dynamic. At the end of the mastering, I was asked to explain to the band why the record wasn't as loud as some others. Everyone ended up satisfied. I've had label people complain to me that the band wanted it too loud, so if you want to blame someone, blame the artists.

Dave

This is true but the flip side of the coin is that it is the label's responsibility to maintain quality control. The label should be saying "we are paying for this- it is our business we run here, we will make the final decision what product gets released when and how it gets released."

But guess what? Labels are more and more clueless with each passing day because the people running them are as inept as 99% of the "talent" today. What we are witnessing here is a complete meltdown of music and commerce on the grand scale. Now I know that many here are cool with the fact that big music companies are dead (I've never been a huge fan of the major labels either) but they did serve an important purpose which they do not anymore (speaking strictly from a commercial standpoint)

[ianshepherd]

Originally Posted by DP40oz

Unless you're in the world of audio recording nobody cares.

Many of the reviews on Amazon give the album 1 or 2 stars and complain about the audio quality.

The YouTube (!) demo of the difference between the CD and the game version has had over 100,000 views in 3 days, is five-star rated, is the #8 most popular music video in the UK, and #1 most discussed. Check out the comments section.

The sources for over 50,000 extra hits on my blog and the comments there show that many many people care about this issue, and that while a few are audio engineers, most are not.

Ian

[Bob Olhsson]

Originally Posted by Watersound

This is true but the flip side of the coin is that it is the label's responsibility to maintain quality control. The label should be saying "we are paying for this- it is our business we run here, we will make the final decision what product gets released when and how it gets released."

Most contemporary recording contracts give the final decision to the artist with the label only having the power to can the project and eat their entire investment.

[Watersound]

Originally Posted by Bob Olhsson

Most contemporary recording contracts give the final decision to the artist with the label only having the power to can the project and eat their entire investment.

I know, don't you think that's a bit nuts? I'm an artist myself, but if I was putting tons of cash as a label into a record, such a contract is asking for trouble. Did record contracts always read like this?

[adpz]

Originally Posted by DP40oz

I always find these loudness outrages to be pretty funny. I showed the Metallica album to a bunch of my friends, all musicians, and explained to them the distortion and what not and none of them could tell what the hell i was talking about. Unless you're in the world of audio recording nobody cares. The consumer doesnt notice any of this. All they notice is when one of the songs from the new Metallica comes on after something else on their ipod it sounds louder and more "kick ass" so to speak.

Next time you get outraged by "loudness" and you think its such a big deal, talk to someone who works on video in movies or TV and have them tell you the outrages they have that you've never noticed because movies just look so good.

I just listened to one of the tracks - it sounds crappy with no oompth. Sounds like a Fostex recording . . .

So don't try to tell us that this is such a subtle/meaningless issue that only engineers care about it. Music done like this falls off the map. ABBA is running on Broadway; tell me, who from the last 10 years is going to be doing that in 30 years from now???

There are Luddites on this board, and you can criticize them to an extent, but its no different from being Pollyana-ish about things by acceding that, well, if it's new, and that's the way it's done these days then it has to be better. There is a difference between saying that we have to go back to the old way and saying that we have to find a better way.

Apparently you don't like the old way, nor a better way, you like things just the way they are - which is great because that'll be the old way eventually and then we can lump your thin arguement in with the other Luddites and get on with making things the best they can be.