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Metallica Guitar Hero Release Has Higher Quality Than CDs
Last week Metallica released a new album, Death Magnetic, on traditional CDs as well as downloadable content for Guitar Hero III. Fans quickly noticed that the sound quality on the CD version was noticeably below-par, thanks to the recording studio's decision to sacrifice range for loudness. However, the tracks released for Guitar Hero III made no such sacrifice, as proved by Mastering Engineer Ian Shepherd. NME found an audio clip comparing the two tracks. This comes alongside statements from Activision claiming that Aerosmith's recent venture into Guitar Hero is generating more success for the band than their actual albums.
I wouldn't exactly call any Metallica song made after 1995 "quality"
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
Come on, these jokes almost write themselves.
Dance Dance Revolution on PS2 has better sound quality also, using 24 bit samples instead of 16 bit. And that was back in 2000 (or whenever).
This comic is no longer true. :(
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i can control my own volume thank-you. and because of records like this, i'm forced to hit the volume every time these songs come up on a playlist. i realize there are volume normalizing pluout there, but i don't like the effect on the overall song.
you'll know what i mean if you jump from a cd made in the 80's to one made in the last 10 years.
hopefully this gets enough coverage to signal the end of this incredibly annoying trend.
FYI, the "loudness war" topic has been discussed on Slashdot lots of times, most recently here: http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/08/23/1219205
Are they still trying to market "high-definition compact discs"? We could be seeing this as deliberate downgrading in order to push more expensive and less rippable versions. I wonder what the iTunes version sounds like?
(And no, don't tell me to buy it and see. :-P )
Knowing Metallica, they probably cranked out a half-ass 10-minute session in the studi
high-fived each other over beers
solid gold Ferraris
Have you been watching Napster Bad again too?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Likely the two releases are for two different types of stereo: CD for the car (crappy speakers anyway) Download for the iPod -Frank
What ever happened to them? Did Lars go back to Denmark? I heard something about Hetfield going to Wall Street. The others I don't think anybody remembers or cares that much about.
I'd been blaming whoever ripped the copy I got off the Pirate Bay...
This is exactly why I stopped going to concerts.
They're all terribly loud, so much so that the music just turns into white noise. What the heck is the point of that?
In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is kinky.
I was chatting with a Harmonix rep at their booth at PAX. He mentioned that the Paramore song is really compressed/limited on the CD (in the sense of lack of dynamic range). No surprise there. I asked him whether that affected their game at all, and he said that since they got access to the master tracks and mixed it themselves, not really. I'd expect the same is true of almost any Rock Band or Guitar Hero track.
That was great to hear, because the loudness war sucks. There have been a number of albums that I would have liked listening to, but can't stand because of the loudness war. They sound the same all the way through, and the drummer sounds like he's playing in the other room while everyone else is standing too close to the mics. A drum hit, during the brief moment it happens, should be much louder than the rest of the band! Instruments shouldn't get quieter when other instruments start playing! Blech.
Interestingly, I was listening to the Rock Band 2 setlist to get to know the songs I'd never heard (downloaded mp3s), and one song in particular stood out as being very well mixed with great dynamic range. I don't really like the music of Modest Mouse, but it was definitely a pleasure to listen to Float On just for that. They earned a bit of respect from me that day :).
...why do they get the tracks that don't SUCK?
Future events such as these may affect you in the future!
I found a rip of the new album in .wma form in my usual hunting place. While they may never be as good as the first four albums (to me,) I do like the latest in a Batman Begins/Casino Royale kind of way--enough to want to buy it and vote with my dollars.
The tracks I've been listening to have some clipping that's annoying, but I thought it was the ripper's fault and was looking forward to ordering the real thing.
Now I read this, found an up-to-date mp3 rip (which I haven't grabbed) and also a "Guitar Hero III rip." *sigh*
Oh well, maybe I'll do what I've done with other "corrected" albums in the past: change the jewel case to a 2xCD case, and stick a GH3-rip disc in the first slot.
I may just use the compressed copy in the car anyway: while distorted, the quieter details don't get completely drowned out when I'm headbanging on the freeway with all the windows down. ~~:-}
i know this doesn't seem like it is possible, but i've been wondering why more modern artists don't mix for volume and clarity. out of all the albums i have, i think rush in rio, rush: different stages, motorhead: everything louder than everyone else, and slayer: diabolus in musica sound really good AND are really loud. slayer's album was the loudest one i'd ever purchased, but it still sounds great. the distortion on a few songs sounds like it is not from too much gain to max out volume, but planned to create a more gritty sound... (i think) it's done tastefully.
These asshats only get my pity...
1. Fire your main talent. (Dave Mustane)
2. Use the cheapest transport company, drive insane hours, and kill a popular bassist off.
3. Alienate your fans by being corporate suits instead of the hard-core guys you image portrays.
4. Put out a series of albums that confirm how much you've lost it, and can't write music anymore. These albums were only bought by fanboys, afaik.
Somewhere, there should be a 'Profit' step; I'm not seeing it from here...
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
When fans can just set the volume knob to 11 on the amp?
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
Dance Dance Revolution on PS2 has better sound quality also, using 24 bit samples instead of 16 bit.
Citation needed. I've analyzed the streaming music in We Love Katamari and one of the DDR games, and they use the so-called "VAG" codec, a variant of ADPCM that expands on the "BRR" codec used for Super NES samples. This averages roughly 4.5 bits per sample.
they aren't going to use the mixed CD versions of any song because they need to have the different instruments split up
Maybe record labels should put out two versions of the song. Loud version and good version. See which gets bought.
So how many people are now downloading the digitally ripped GH3 version? I've got to say it sounds a LOT better.
The clipping you hear on the CD really annoyed me. It felt like I was listening to a 96 kbit mp3.
The GH3 version is a breath of fresh air. I'm hearing a ton of details that just aren't on the CD. Like the echo in the quite part of "All Nightmare Long" around 6:55... compression sucks!
Because a lot of portable audio players are built with cheap op-amps that don't go to 11. I've had some that don't even rate a 7 compared to the 11 position (out of 40) on my Magnavox home stereo.
Got the retail and the GH version (flac) and compared them.
The songs themselves are a whole lot better than St. Anger. That one I listened to once and didn't bother even trying to again, that was dislike at first hearing.
The GH version sounds a lot better, in Audacious I can turn the volume up to maximum and enjoy it, the retail version I had to turn down not just because of the difference in loudness, but also because the sound made my ears hurt.
When looking at the visualisation plugins scope and voiceprint the scope on the retail was a lot more agressive and the voiceprint was almost a complete blue bar.
The flac files of the retail version were larger, so ripping them to ogg q10 also delivered larger files. The bitrate for "That was just your life" was on average 450Kb for the GH version, the retail version was 520. During playback I saw that one peak several times over 600Kb! Everything's so load across the whole frequency spectrum the encoder has a lot less to mask and reduce bitrate.
If the recording company won't re-release the album with decent sound I'll just see if I can get a copy of the Guitar Hero version (I'm not interested in the game itself). It doesn't matter if it's metal and supposed to sound distorted, if I have to turn down the volume to pop levels because otherwise my ears hurt it's crap quality.
home
Just got this reply from Loud Oldbitch, drummer from Matellica...
"I would like to apologies to all the fans who are complaining about our new album. First I take full blame for the final product. After hour of analysis and going over what went wrong with a fine tooth comb. We found the source of the problem burried in the sound of what we thought was the perfect Matellica CD. After the engineers and producers scoped every single track they found and annoying never heard before buzzsaw sound that was burried on each track, if not each track each bus or master track. Somehow after abstracting the sound through all of the compression and limiting they found my voice. I was talking soooo much BS during traking and mixing that somehow it found its way on to the CD. The funny thing to me was that I was never mic(ed) during any of the takes or during mix down. My voice burned right into the hard drive directly and created a unfixable environment and therefor saturating the final out takes to the CD. Some people have always commented on me never shutting the fck up, but I never knew the problem could go this far. Please don't blame any of those professional audio companies the have taken a beating on forums like this one. It is all my fault, and I have considered quitting the band."