Someone's worked out that the quality of the sound in the Guitar Hero version of Metallica's new album Death Magnetic is much higher quality than the actual released CD album due to the compression used.

The CD has had loudness compression added during the mixing stage which means the mastering company couldn't do anything about it to improve the sound. I've noticed that the drums especially sound way to loud and actually sound slightly distorted and dry. How they f***ed up that after 20 years of recording albums I don't know.

Wired
BlogSpot

Part of the "loudness war," this type of compression is designed to make music sound as loud as possible at the expense of dynamic range (the difference between loud and softer sounds)...

...However, according to Shepherd, the problem goes beyond compression. He says some parts are actually distorted from digital clipping. "As you can easily see," he writes, "the CD version on the bottom has been heavily compressed, limited and/or clipped, and sounds massively distorted as a result." Later analysis showed that the CD is 10 dB louder than the Guitar Hero version, which sounds about twice as loud to the ear, according to one description. That's some wicked compression.

How they f***ed up that after 20 years of recording albums I don't know

I thought its more of a new thing of upping the compression to insane amounts so it sounds louder than other songs played at the same volume. I think its pretty gay, I'd rather turn up a song myself than lose all the details.

Discovered this prior to release and thus bought the GH 3 version and won't be buying the retail CD.

The compression on the disc is the worst I've ever heard, you don't need to be a tightass audiophile to be put off by it. I mean, I can understand normalising to avoid quiet sections in songs (even though I think it sucks) but how an album that had so much money pumped into its production ended up with such blatantly buzzing clipping, I just cannot think of a reasonable explanation.

I thought its more of a new thing of upping the compression to insane amounts so it sounds louder than other songs played at the same volume. I think its pretty gay, I'd rather turn up a song myself than lose all the details.

TV ads do the same thing so they get the loudest sound for their dollar. Thats why they sound louder than the actual show. Its lame.

you don't need to be a tightass audiophile to be put off by it.

Yeah I noticed it as soon as those drums came in on Cyanide. The snare fills sound f***ing horrible. I don't understand how GH3 managed to get an uncompressed mix if the compression was there before even mastering it. Did they get some raw mix of the recordings or something? You'd think that a master would be the source of the GH's mp3s...

I hope they fix this at least on online stores like iTunes. Might be able to get a refund.

I don't understand how GH3 managed to get an uncompressed mix if the compression was there before even mastering it.

They would've been sent the separate raw tracks (vocals, left guitar, right guitar, drums etc.) and did their own in-house mix.

Oh right yeah. I'm not a GH player lol. Don't get the whole phenomenom.

TV ads do the same thing so they get the loudest sound for their dollar. Thats why they sound louder than the actual show. Its lame.

So that's what it is!!!
f*** that has always pissed me off so beyond belief.
haha it doesn't fix anything but at least the mystery is no more!

No wonder! When I listened to the album I thought this is s***! Now I know I'm not crazy and it's not just me :D

last edited by nF at 17:59:10 22/Sep/08

Since when did Metallica ever care about anything other than profit?

It's probably so they can come out with a 'remastered' version in 5 years where they unf*** it.

Record company bulls*** is pretty much what it is. I hate dealing with the s*** you get out of some studios these days, less than 2db of dynamic range isnt uncommon, and for some reason distortion is 'acceptable'?!!? since f***ing when. Its one of the big things i love about mixing live, i have 20+db of dynamic range to play with :D