Maybe the mix is to blame as to why everything has sounded like crap since the Black Album!

The sound issues were very noticeable on the first single, “The Day That Never Comes.” However, a representative from the “Death Magnetic” pre-sale site, “Mission: Metallica,” assured fans that those issues would be rectified for the CD release. Unfortunately, the CD very clearly reflects the same problems. So, rightfully, Metallica’s fans are a little upset.

All we really want is a re-mix, i would gladly buy the CD again…guitar hero sounds great, the CD however does not

I don’t thin so. The Loads has far far better dynamics than Death Magnetic. St. Anger is heavy compressed aswell but not nearly as much.
It’s outrageous that you have to rip the new album off a video game to get decent sound quality.

And for those who say they can’t hear the clipping and digital distortion, just listen to the cd version of “The Day That Newer Comes”. The heavy riff about 4 mins into the song just sound awfull and the snare drum distorts like anything i have ever heard before.

We deserve a remix of all these awesome songs! They deserve better.

Nope. The Black album is their worst one.

I agree with Lasse. With all the hype this CD got you would think that the production quality would be superb, especially with Rick Rubin at the helm and their prior CD’s sucking so bad. So Metallica better re-mix this CD or I say we all jump the bandwagon and become fans of the Jonas Brothers.

Everything has sounded crap since The Black Album? You need first to get your ears and then your brain checked. DM has issues but non of the albums before it had audio issues at all. Fking banwagon bashers.

Through any sound system, Death Magnetic’s sound problems are instantly evident. I hope the band gets to work on a remix/master soon.

Terrible mix – I can’t believe this one even made it to the mastering stage, let alone national release.

The blame probably lies with Warners. I bought another cd on their label and it’s the same thing – compressed so badly that it actually distorts. It sounds like my speakers are blown at some points. It was the most poorly mastered cd I’d ever heard, bar none.

Memo to Warners: we know how to work our volume knob, thank you vary much! It’s just unbelievably stupid.

I stuck with the band through the Loads, and even St. Anger. Those were artistic decisions. As awesome as the songs on Death Magnetic are, there is no f*cking excuse for them to release the album on CD sounding as bad as it does, in fact, sound. It is impossible to listen to this album through headphones without getting a headache after just a few minutes. When I listen to the GHIII version, I can listen to that all day long without abusing my ears. Please fix this, Metallica. We know you love your fans. Just admit you fucked up by not being there during the mixing, and fix this for us. If this was a car, or a bag of spinach, it would be recalled!

Please get in touch with Metallica themselves and let them comment on this.

This shit sounds awful

I also agree with Lasse. This CD is just another victim in loudness war that’s been going on for a long time. On Death Magnetic the sound quality is so sub-par, that even the non-audiophiles can hear it. It just sounds like yout speakers are broken with all that distortion going on.

The difference between the GH3 rips and the retail CD is phenomenal.

The CD sounds dire. Massive distortion all the way through and it’s flat as a pancake. No power, no dynamics. Just pain.

The GH3 boys saved our bacon since I suppose metallica will never admit how horrible it sounds or fix the problems. Dynamically loud isn’t the same as brick-wall loud.

The GH3 rips allow us to blast the (awesome) music without distorion and with its dymanics restored.

Shame on Metallica for following the Loudness trend.

Thanks for reporting on this. We in the blogosphere have been working hard this past week to spread the news about D-Mag’s two mixes, the terrible CD and the superb Guitar Hero mix.

I think this is a new turning point in the loudness wars, and we’re encouraging everyone to do what they can to spread the news. Share the YouTube videos with friends, point them to our blogs (Videogames of the Damned), share the Guitar Hero mix of D-Mag, and let’s see if we can’t get Metallica to speak with us.

I’d like to see an official re-mix, if that’s possible. If nothing else, let’s fight the rebellion against the loudness wars and stop this inanity. No wonder the music industry is going bankrupt.

Thanks again to RS for your help!

This is a real issue.

The cd distorts, it physically hurts in my ears when turning the volume up using headphones.

Listening to the GHIII version I hear the guitar tone, bass, drum tone, background vocals and effects I couldn’t pick up on the cd version due to the horrid mixing.

I feel sorry for the band if they don’t rectify this, a great record will go down in history as a horrid sounding one if they don’t.

I was lucky to be able to return my copy to the retailer on the grounds of “manufacturing/engineering defects”. I basically conveyed to the (naive?) clerk that something must have gone wrong at the CD manufacturing facility which is why the entire lot sounds bad. Though, I had the GH3 version sitting in my car at the time.

The GH3 version is amazing in comparison to the retail CD release. Death Magnetic (creatively speaking) is nothing less than phenomenal in my opinion. I LOVE IT! Unfortunately, I will probably be one of the fans Lars hates because I had to get my version via “questionable means”.

unbelievable. The guitar hero version(s) sounds so much better and I can actually enjoy the music. The cd version didn’t impress me at all but it seems that it was just all smashed up in there and had no dynamics or feel. I was just about to buy the cd today and listened to one song and investigated the problems. This was a few hours before I found out this was a major issue with many listeners.

hopefully metallica will issue a statment and offer a trade-in Disc program of some sort.

It needs to be said loud and clear that Metallica left it to GREG FIDELMAN to mix this. Look up the previous Rubin records he has been involved with, they suffer from much of the same problems. In fact, I love several of them but the loudness and tendencies of distortion has anyone me. Didn’t understand it was ONE GUY until now.

I feel sorry for Metallica leaving it up to a complete unprofessional to mix this album.

A friend of mine (who is in the music biz) commented to me about this. It’s getting worse because of the iPod – if you master your CD at a reasonable listening level, it falls quieter than the “norm”, which is to squash the hell out of the sound until it brickwalls. You don’t want to be the one whose song is 6dbs quieter than everything else.

It’s a ridiculous trend that sucks for anyone who cares about what the music they enjoy SOUNDS LIKE.

The i Tunes album version sounds perfectly fine just so everyone knows

Metallica better re-mix this album and quickly. Their new album which I downloaded for free from a file sharing program sounds like crap. I want to download good quality music for free, not this shoddy production crap.

Metallica rules.
To bad that a great album such as DM gets ruined by the awfull production.

I think a lot of it has to do with length — Death Magnetic is an hour and seventeen minutes long, and the compact disc has a time limit of about an hour-twenty. Rather than split the thing into two discs (and make it more expensive), they compressed it as much as possible to fit it into the available data space. Squeeze the orange, filter the pulp, keep the juice.

I actually don’t mind it. It reminds me of Metallica’s 80s works — rough, raw, heavy on guitars, although more a function of studio equipment than producer mismanagement. Interestingly, this is exactly the kind of sound the band was going for (and ended up exaggerating) on St Anger.

I really don’t notice it… shut up and enjoy the greatest band in the world back to their awesome best!

It seems like all Metallica albums have crappy sound quality… one way to solve the issue would be to re-release the album on blu-ray.

Maybe Metallica could do a NIN and release DM in a version where we the fans could remix the sound. I want to turn it up loud but it sounds so distorted and messy

Please Re-Mix/Re-Master the album i love the songs but cannot listen to them because of the quiality
i would gladly buy another copy

…FOR THE FANS

I Have The CD, I Have Guitar Hero…Guitar Hero SOunds Better, More Dynamic. Please Re-Mix The Album…

Metallica,

I went out on my lunch hour Friday to buy the cd like a good boy. I was positive the mp3 samples I heard were tampered with and I couldnt wait to hear the crisp clean cd. Man, was I dissapointed. Please re master the album, Ill pay for another.

I still buy CDs purely for the sound quality, so this is disappointing.

St. Anger’s sound sucks, but the DVD that came with, taped live in the studio, is fantastic.

The iTunes version sounds just fine

I’ve been listening to the album non-stop since getting it…but I did just “find” the GH3 rip online and got it to see if this claim was true…and HOLY CRAP!!!! The GH3 rip sounds infinitely better!!! There really are dynamics on this album!!

I love the album, but I noticed that the distortion distracts you from enjoying the GREAT music that is on the album. Why would they let this happen??? I would love to exchange the album, but I highly doubt that I would buy it again when the mix was shitty the first time around..why buy the same product twice when it was the labels,mixers, and mastering engineers screw up? GREAT ALBUM, bad mix.

The bad reporting that I’ve been seeing regarding this whole issue nauseates me. First, who the hell is Ian Shepherd and why should anyone care what this small-time blogger says about wave file comparisons? I think all it shows is that it is louder. So What???? This is METAL and my take on it was that it was supposed to blow your friggin head off! It ROCKS. Period. This is just a way for some nobody to make a case to boost their own PR.
Second, who has bothered to source this supposed quote from Jensen? I saw this on the message boards days ago, posted by another fan, and it has been flying around like it is fact. All around it seems like bad reporting on a totally subjective issue.

To all of those who say they would gladly buy the CD again if it is remixed…

Maybe that’s Metallica’$ plan all along — to get you to buy two CDs instead of one?

Hmmm….

Perfect Album
Imperfect Sound

Stop the loudness war!!!

To Steve Franz…

The Compression they are referring to has nothing to do with file size, etc… It’s part of music production… Totally different thing… FYI

Sad But True…..the GH3 version is available on “the pirate” and “the demon” bittorrent sites, so if you bought this album, you have every god given right to download the superior version.

I own the digipack. I ‘ve heard the Guitar Hero’s version. I want to you to remaster the album. I would buy it again and again and again. It’s great album with bad audio…

no one is blaming matellica for this, all people want is the correction…if this is jsut about making money i dont see why WB records would not remix the album, people would buy a second copy

I’m tired of Metallica’s blunders. St. Anger, Napster, now this? I’m going back to Richard Marx albums. SCREW YOU METALLICA!

Dear Metallica,
I went out and bought Death Magnetic last Friday and was very disappointed with the sound quality. I now want my money back. The CD was $12.99 plus 8.375% in NYC sales tax = $14.08 due back to me plus an extra $5 as a service fee for the time I’ve spent to walk over to the electronics store, plus an extra $10 for my emotional distress caused from hearing such a shitty production, plus another $5 for the time I’m wasting typing this right now when I should be working at my job. That’s a total of $34.08 that you owe me Metallica! Pay up! Leave a comment here where I can contact your rep for my money.
Thanks, Goober

I have both versions (cd and I tunes) and is true that the sound quality is diferent… I think they should post the cd free on their website

What a bunch of bullshit!!! This album rocks, and so what if it’s loud, it’s SUPPOSED to be loud, it’s Metallica!!! Hello????? Best album they have done in twenty years, buy it NOW!!!!

More sound-quality controversy concerning a major CD release? Sheesh!

I wish I knew about the Metallica CD before I bought it; I would have downloaded it from the internet if it is available.

GO FUCKYRSELFASSHOLE!

Love,Met allica

If I wanted a crappy version I’d get it on iTunes.

I want the music to be real and without dynamics it just doesn’t cut it.

So until I can get the real music, I’m not buying it.

Yes, there is a difference in sound between the CD and GH versions, but seriously, people need to get over themselves. When is there a CD that is mixed perfectly? I have heard about mixing problems all the time with records before and after, I don’t see anyone complaining about other releases that sound “like ass.”

The people that I hear complaining either despise Metallica with such an ardent passion that they’ll critique how James Hetfield takes a piss or have absolute nothing better to do.

To those that are complaining about the new record, if you hate it so much, why did you buy it? The biggest payback you can give is stop listening to the music, stop paying attention, and completely isolate yourself from ever associating with anything Metallica again. It almost sounds like you’re pissed a girl wouldn’t put out for you, and you’re taking it out on this record.

The whole Napster argument is old like a 90-year old’s vagina, GET OVER YOURSELVES.

If you don’t like it and have been bitching about Metallica for the last 20 years, just stop paying attention to their existence and get over yourselves… and go listen to the Jonas Brothers since most of you complaining sound like whinney little pussys anyway.

You won’t hear a Jonas Brothers fan complaining about bad sound quality. Maybe their crew needs to give Metallica’s production crew some pointers.

Metallica are the best band in the world with some of the worst fans. I have never seen such a bunch of whining bitches in my life. Even the gig at the O2 at only £5 a ticket came in for criticism. STFU!

Jonas Brothers fans don’t complain about sound quality because they don’t really know anything about music or sound quality to begin with. Hell, I didn’t yet either when I was 13.

Really, mixing is a subjective art anyway… One man’s poor mix is another man’s masterpiece. I have no quarrels with Death Magnetic. It is leaps and bounds better than St. Anger in every conceivable way

Really, mixing is a subjective art anyway… One man’s poor mix is another man’s masterpiece. I have no quarrels with Death Magnetic. It is leaps and bounds better than St. Anger in every conceivable way

yeah yeah yeah, okay Metallica we know the album just sucks. don’t blame it on the sound quality.

It really is the Loudness Wars. I wish companies and bands would stop mastering CDs too loud. The Killers’ CDs suffer from this too. The songs are good, but way too much midrange and shrill tones dart from the speakers as a result of the industry’s love affair with hyper-compression. Enough. Give me a smooth-sounding Pink Floyd album anyday …

Great music though

Great music though. Ok Kiddos I was 13 when “….and Justice for all.” came out. This is the best they have sounded since then!!! Bah on the mix just turn it up loud. God you people suck!

OBEY YOUR MASTER….AND RE-MASTER THE ALBUM PLEASE

Hey Big Ass Joe – drop the Joe. You must be one of the fans that came on board at the time of the “Black” album. DM is the best record since Master/Justice days. Although I appreciate and have supported what they have been doing the 17/18yrs, I was a fan from Kill’em and have been waiting for an album like DM for some time. Way to go guys, DM kicks LARGE!!!

I’ve been a fan of this band for over 20 years and believe this is some of the best material they’ve written in quite sometime.With that being said,this is the worst sounding professionally recorded album I’ve ever listened to.This has to be a mistake or some kind of cruel joke.The album sounds like one big dry fart.If everyone would stop buying this album maybe that would get Metallica’s record label and management’s attention and they would do something about it.I love this band and hate to see horrible production/mixing ruin an otherwise great album.

Fuck all of you haters! Metallica still rules!

i’m definitely no audiofile, but last night i d’loaded the gh3-sourced FLAC files and the difference is like night and day: gh3 death magnetic is hands down the superior source. the cd i purchased on release day will now become a coaster.

How can I rip a copy of the GH version??

For those of you that don’t fully understand dynamic compression and the damage it does to the music, go to youtube and search for “the loudness war”

I am also an engineer.

Death Magnetic is a great Metallica record. I’ve been listening to the CD version and wishing it wasn’t clipping.

Now, I’ve got the Guitar Hero one, and it sounds like it might be the best Metallica album ever…or close to it at least.

I’m sure the record company is to blame for the mastering issue, but who cares, we have a good copy now!

Go get the GH3 version…it sounds much better.

I got the guitar hero III version and I remastered that myself. It sounds amazing now. For all you people who know what you are talking about, get the GHIII rip and then master it yourself. I only had to do a remaster because the files I got were really quiet, so i just brought up the levels till it was peaking around -3db

I got the GHIII rips and then remastered them myself. Got the levels peaking around -3db, has plenty of dynamic range and packs a huge punch. If you know what you are talking about and doing, i suggest doing this to the GH tracks.

All I know is i’ve listened to both versions and the Guitar Hero version sounds so much better — you can hear much more of what’s going on musically, and I like the album a lot more as a result. We can turn it up if need be, but if its clipped, you are literally losing the music.

Is the band going to respond to this debacle?

to the ones who said: “so what it’s loud, metal is supposed to be loud!!”, let me tell you something! If I want it LOUD, then i will make it loud MYSELF! I don’t want the recordcompanies to make records louder, because i will turn the volume DOWN! Is that what metal is supposed to be today?? to turn it DOWN because of hyper-compression??
I don’t want to turn good metal down, i want to turn it UP!
wake up & open your ears! if you can’t hear the problem, go check your ears!

The album version rocks hard on a good system that has good bass.

“When is there a CD that is mixed perfectly? I have heard about mixing problems all the time with records before and after, I don’t see anyone complaining about other releases that sound “like ass.”

The point is that this one DOES sound like ass. It’s a fact.

Members of the metalicabb have recived a remixed version of broken beated scarred buy a well known metall producer…i was one of them and it sounds AWSOME!

Members of the metalicabb have recived a remixed version of broken beated scarred buy a well known metall producer…i was one of them and it sounds AWSOME!

This has been going on for years…every “new” cut we get at work is HOT AS SHIT, and any older song is not. The waveform for the new Metallica is almost without definition, like a solid 0 dB bar.

I put oodles of stuff on my g/f’s iPod, and the voulme is all over the place. When my g/f has her iPod on shuffle, its so irritating, say when it goes from some old cut to some newer one.

Why can’t they build some kind of limiter or gain control into these MP3 players? Its SO annoying!!!!

i’ve download the album(not from GH)sounds fine to me except i can’t hear any bass guitars in the album

It’s not a BIG deal to me, but it still sucks. I noticed the sound quality when the stream was first made available online. I figured, “Well, they are doing that so no one will copy the stream and not buy the album.” Reasonable assumption I suppose. Then I buy the CD with the same results. It sounds even worse if you listen to it on the iPod. There’s no doubt in my mind that they’ll remedy the situation. We just have to be patient.

I downloaded the Guitar Hero version and it still sucks. I don’t hear a difference in the sound or see a difference in the waveforms. It still sounds as if it’s playing through a very loud 1960s Japanese transistor radio.

you idiots who are saying were a bunch of complaining fans either havent heard the album have shitty speakers or are just ignorant and dont know anything about sound quality

Those people who say “metal is supposed to be loud” seem not to grasp the concept of a volume knob. The listener always control how loud it can get in the end; so, in the end, a “loud” CD is not really louder.

If not louder, what is it? Less dynamic. That is, there is little contrast between the softer and louder elements.

Try this: put on any recent rock album, get two pencils, and try to play “air drums”. Then ask yourself… just where are the drums? Drowned in the sea of noise, that’s where! That’s what the loudness war gives you: music without a beat!

buy it on vinyl.

buy it on vinyl.

buy it on vinyl.

for those that say “buy it on vinyl”, keep in mind that the sound isn’t going to be better than the original source.

AC/DC apparently recorded their new album in analog. Now that is something worth buying on vinyl! Not just because of the band, but that is the way to get maximum sound range and quality.

It does sound better on Guitar Hero.

i recently compared the black album to death magnetic and the differences are very noticeable. im not sure if the black album was that good production wise, but it definitely sounds richer. i hope they compensate the fans for this. i cant hear any bass and hardly any of lars’ bass pedal in this current mix

St Anger is an interesting album. Metallica themselves hailed it as a return to their rootes. A heaver than heavier album by the u2 of metal. Which it was, but so many things where wrong with it. Thanks to the fly on the wall docufilm Some Kind of Monster it apears that it was pieced together by Bob Rock using software and the ability to shout the crap at Hetfield and Lars. It really isnt my fav album of theirs. Infact I like Reload far more. Death Magnetic is a rathher interesting one. Call it rejeuvenated, or whatever but it really is an amazing piece or work. I can’t get over the structure of the songs. The riffing is so complex, far more complex than anything else they’ve done and its done with soo muc presicion. If you have $10 go and buy it, it really is an amazing piece of work.

I was so excited when little bits and pieces of music from Death Magnetic started to surface in the videos Metallica posted on their website. I really like Load and passively enjoy ReLoad, but I LOVE …And Justice for All and Death Magnetic reminds me of that album. My roommate’s criticism was that it sounds like it is trying too hard to sound like Metallica. I see his point, but I think it is OK for Metallica to sound like Metallica. At first, I told myself I really liked the album, but very quickly I grew very tired of it. I mean it was actually making me tired. It was unpleasant. Even at its heaviest moments (Damage Inc., Battery, Blackened, Dyers Eve, Shortest Straw, etc…) Metallica always had a beautiful quality. The music just sounded right and pleasant and melodic and tuneful. Anyway, there was something wrong with Death Magnetic. It turns out to be what this whole thread is about. the iTunes purchases m4a files sound awful. I do not own the CD version, but I figure it is the same (read: awful). I have since obtained the Guitar Hero rip in lossless FLAC format and it is light years ahead. It makes the album much much more enjoyable and I am listening to it more and more and it is growing on me exponentially. The sound is richer, more dynamic; there is much more room between the highs and the lows for the buzzing guitars to twist around in. Nothing clips or distorts. Metallica are really talented musicians, but when their recordings sound like crap, it’s hard to notice. Anyway, I paid for the album, it sounded like shit, so I downloaded an alternate version via “questionable means” as some poster way below mentioned. I would love a proper re-mix / re-mastering of the album, but I certainly would not pay again, having bought the inferior version as soon as it was out. I am only 25 years old and became a fan of Metallica in the mid-90’s, but their music means a lot, and representing it with inferior audio is a shame and a tragedy. I hope they themselves address this. The loudness war is the worst thing to happen to music since Creed or maybe any rock band fronted by a bald guy with a goatee.

By the way, you may have noticed that I have not mentioned St. Anger once before now. I think St. Anger was a massive excretion that they needed to shit out, to end all the constipation, get on the same page (Jason was fine, but he did not mesh with the band any longer. I think he needed to leave for his benefit and the band’s. Robert Trujillo is great – a youthful heavy metal crustacean with unlimited energy!), and move on and that is what they did. St. Anger is so strange and forced and unpleasant to me. The only time I liked it was when the Scratch Perverts mixed “Frantic” deep into their Essential Mix on BBC Radio 1 amidst house and hip hop.

That is my 2 cents. Thank you.

alexvoz@gmail.com

The Guitar Hero version is definitively better sounding.

I downloaded the Guitar Hero version and compared it to the CD using Audacity Softare. Additionally I listened to the same songs on my Ipod comparing both versions… the CD version is too loud (not good loud) and you can’t hear the bass. In the Guitar Hero version you can hear Trujillo play, and it sounds like Cliff on Master of Puppets (badabum, badabum)…

If you bought the CD, then download the Guitar Hero version!… it’s abso-mother f..kin-lutely better

Everything they have done since Justice is horrible ear piercing sound quality.

No remix. Art stands as is, faults and all. I suppose you people are the ones who like the redone special effects on E.T. and Star Wars….

Maybe the black album sucks with that boring i-VII-VI chord progression on Nothing Else Matters, the bad singing on Unforgiven and the pop music production!

no, but its absolutely true that the GH3 is much better than the retail, let alone the songs are a bit different!

KYRadioGuy, iPods have a feature called “Sound Check” to keep volumes at an even level. I don’t use it because I don’t trust it, but the concept you describe is there. Keep in mind when you’re listening to your iPod… those quieter songs that you have to turn up – are probably the better mixed songs. Turn them up and enjoy. The loud songs you have to turn down are the crappy mixes. This CD will be the later.

To Jazz and Metal and That Guy…
A CD has a much ‘wider’ dynamic range than a record. It’s a sad myth that records sound better than CDs – just like when people drew on the bottom of CDs with markers to make them sound better. Either way, the mixing problems will be present on both the record or CD.

On the CD vs. Vinyl. True, CD has a broader possible dynamic range, but Vinyl is often compressed less than its CD counterpart so it sounds better (unless you like highly compressed stuff). As a side note, there is more to music than dynamic range – you can’t point to the broader range and say definitively that CDs are better than records.

Sadly, this is not the case on this record, as it appears the vinyl suffers the same problems.

The first time I noticed the “clipping” was in the pre release video of “the day that never comes”. I assumed that is was poor video quality and didn’t think anything else of it. I was disappointed to find that when I purchased and downloaded the album from iTunes that the distortion was still there. It is a distraction but the quality of music on this album far out ways the mastering mistakes. I hope that a re-mastered version is already in the works, this album deserves it.

i’m glad that this issue is getting addressed. The mastering/mixing of XDs in recent years has suffered becasue people think the more compression the better. We should demand better sound from these artists and their studios.

Strictly talking it’s not correct to say that compression is what destroys the sound. Extreme’s “three sides…” CD is very heavily compressed but it’s not CLIPPED and so it still sounds great – actually one of the best sounding heavy CD’s ever. The clipping of the digital signals that so many enginners (both mix and mastering) think is a “good tool” should be absolutely forbidden – and in the beginning of CD’s it actually was – no CD printing plant would accept anything with signals that touched 0dBFS. The problems with 0dBFS and +0dBFS is explained in a series of articles on http://www.tcelectronic.com/TechLibra ry.asp. It is these 0dBFS and above that is impossible to get onto an LP that in some cases can result in an LP that sounds better.
On top of this, nearly no engineer is aware of the issues described on the TC Electronics site so they digitally clip and limit every track in their recording, then they do the same thing with the original master and then they expect the mastering engineer to do the same thing one more time. This means that the original, maybe 100 tracks, get digital artifacts and distortion that a digital audio system (and the sampling theorem) is not designed to deal with and this is repeated many times over – and they still claim they can’t hear it? Maybe a change of job would be the best.
My greif to the mastering engineers is that they have traditionally been the last QC engineer of a product – they no longer take this role seriously as it is now about beeing able to invoice someone that being proud of their work. Ted Jensen should of course have told someone (the producer or the record label)that he would not put his name on this product unless it was remixed to something that sounded halfway decent. All mastering engineers should do this! Don’t they have any professional integrity?

“jonah | 9/19/2008, 3:23 pm EST
Really, mixing is a subjective art anyway…”
Well – let’s look at that – These engineers really are trying to do the equivalent of climbing higher than the tallest step on a ladder… it really doesn’t work – it’s not subjective…
Many things about mixing are subjective – this isn’t. This is plain _ignorance_ of the natural laws that rule in the digital audio world. When you top that of with the obvious lack of ability to hear (or did they actually hear this and said “ahhh yeah!”) we get products like this CD.

Its hard to ask for better sounding audio when everyone wants to buy MP3’s over CD’s. Right now we should be moving away from CD’s and getting DVD audio, instead we are going backwards and getting compressed MP3’s that aren’t even as good as CD. This is what happens when you let stupid customers decide for everyone!

For a f****d up mix it doesn’t matter what media it is on. And yes, i have the GH tracks and I made a mixdown in my DAW. A little EQing/leveling and it sounded amazingly great, I only had to use a little of compression on those bad ass agressive bass lines to keep them where they belong. ~ 5 db dynamic range (unlike those ~ 1 db on CD mix) resulting in a deep big sound, audible hi hats, fat rumbling bass, creamy guitar tone and woody snare.

Just listned to this, unbeliavable. I have never heard any of Rick Rubens work, but be assurred that I never will again.

What about the slight crackling sound on the left channel at between 51 seconds and 53 seconds into the track? That sounds more like electrical interference during the initial recording than any mastering problem. It’s the best part, too, which is what’s really driving me crazy.