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Some Metallica fans are complaining that the band’s ninth studio record, ‘Death Magnetic,’ is — to borrow from Huey Lewis’s ‘Back to the Future’ character — just too darn loud, the Wall Street Journal reports.
Since some folks might figure that the pioneering metal band’s recordings are supposed to be loud, this grievance warrants clarification. Metallica fans would never lament riffs’ being too brutal or vocals’ being too gravelly, but they are mourning the fact that the loud-soft dynamics and sonic richness found on the band’s seminal records are nowhere to be found on ‘Death Magnetic.’ The culprit? The increasingly common practice of extreme compression.
Compression, to oversimplify, is a studio process in which softly and loudly recorded sounds are brought to a more equitable level; sound waves that may resemble a stretched-out cotton ball are compressed to look more like a solid block. Intense compression jobs would result, for instance, in a song’s delicate bridge sounding just as loud as its bombastic chorus.
While engineers have long used compression to an extent (the reason that the yowls of Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant don’t come out distorted), the digital age of music has ushered in this more intense implementation.
Since many music listeners now use low-fidelity components (small computer speakers or headphones, for instance) to access low-fidelity files like MP3s, producers and mastering engineers have taken it upon themselves to ratchet up compression, making those measly sounds seem louder.
If you’ve noticed the distinction, for instance, between the warm nuances of George Jones’s voice on ’60s recordings and Toby Keith’s nearly robotic tone on more recent ones, you’ve found one of the problems with increased compression.
In any event, keep in mind that none of these grievances concern Metallica’s new songs, themselves. We’re just glad that — overly compressed or not — Metallica has learned its lesson from 2003’s ‘St. Anger’ and brought back the metal. [From: Wall Street Journal]
October 4th, 2008 at 10:57 am
Love the album, don’t love the distortion/compression issues. But then again, the GH version takes care of that. Still, in this day and age, when a band spends SO MUCH time and money recording an album, its ridiculous that the end result sounds more distorted than your average garage band using an ancient 4-track.
October 11th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
Bullshit and fuck off. I feel like Metallica is back. The sound is now yet then. Fuck some bastard with a cock in his audio ass double thinking the Sun. Fuck you. It makes me wanna stand beside James and slam heads. Fuck ya. Fuck the haters. Get a cock extension one inchers. The new Metal Licka Rules. Forgive me NOT!
October 27th, 2008 at 5:36 pm
there a saying if its too loud your too old and the new metallica album is great and it’s not too loud it’s just right so all i have to say is Metallica is back!!!!!!!!!!!!!
November 25th, 2008 at 12:59 am
C’mon guys. Difference between sounding loud and sounding bad. If you don’t know what the issues are with over-compression, don’t try to make a statement.
The songs are good, but it sounds way too compressed. You can hear it, mainly on the drums. Crap. People usually don’t know if it’s compressed or not, cause they don’t know what to listen to to be able to tell. Sound people and musicians can usually tell better. It’s their job!
Anyway, Just bought it, good album.