Death (to your ears) Magnetic

So, Metallica put out a new album. And this time they weren’t gonna do a complete sellout. They were gonna go back to the sound of “…And justice for All” and the with that: the sounds of the good ol’ days. Happiness was supposed to ensue, but of course, something went wrong. No, they didn’t put out another Load/Reload, the songs are all great and I’m sure the songs will sound awesome on tour. No, they didn’t use a shit producer this time around, they used the legendary Rick Rubin.
The problem this time, is that the audio on the CD is so LOUD that the audio keeps clipping and thus makes the songs completly unlistenable in some areas. Here’s an example (from the retail cd): Click to listen. If you think that compression might have caused these distortions and you wish you could hear an uncompressed sample, then click here.

If you can’t hear it.. then you might wanna go check your hearing. There’s an obvious buzzing noise when there’s supposed to be a slight increase in volume. This is what they in the industry call “clipping”

Clipping is a form of waveform distortion that occurs when an amplifier is overdriven, which happens through attempts to increase the voltage or current beyond its maximum power capability.

This is the waveform for the 'The Day That Never Comes' sample that you just listened to.

So, five years after the complete letdown that St. Anger was (to most of the fans anyway) due to the horrible production and lack of awesome Kirk-solos. Metallicas attempts to put out an awesome album was yet again foiled due to shoddy sound engineering. How could this have happened?

Didn’t they listen to the tracks before putting them on the cd? Or were there just too many steps of production, mastering, remastering, etc, with this problem showing up too late in the process for anyone to notice it before printing? Don’t worry, we’ll find out in due time. But in the meantime you can check out lots of other morons discussing it here.

But wait, there’s more (and this is the best part). The album recently became available for Guitar Hero 3 on Xbox360/PS3 and that version does NOT have any of these clipping problems. Don’t believe me? Listen to this.
Shocking isn’t it? One wonders how they managed to send a proper version to Neversoft but couldn’t manage to print a good sounding version on CD! I guess you got to buy your albums for video games nowadays if you don’t want them ridden with sound distortion problems!

The waveform for the Guitar Hero 3 version of the sample.

If you don’t have an Xbox360 or a PS3, you might just find the Guitar Hero 3 version on the internet somewhere…

Some further reading on this topic:

• Metallica “Death Magnetic” sounds better in Guitar Hero by Ian Shepherd
• Low Volume in GH3? Read this! by Hancoque
• YouTube: Metallica Death Magnetic - CD vs. Guitar Hero comparison by florixg