Death Magnetic - Wave Form Analysis

[damigu]

i forget where i read the article, but it was about rush's "vapor trails" and the terrible compression and all the rest... and the music was awesome.

probably rip rowan's article on the loudness wars from a few years ago. he used various rush albums as examples of both good (the earlier albums) and bad (vapor trails) production.

his own album "rhythm/pleasure" (chill/downtempo electronic) is very well engineered, not surprisingly. for the most part it's good music, too, except in a few places it borders a little close to easy listening for my taste.
but it's exactly what record companies wouldn't like, because it's "too quiet"--the levels are comparable to albums from the 80's. probably the only album of primarily electronic instruments i have with levels like that!

 

[oompa]

I asked him about it, and he said with whatever he was using, it was the reverse. Closer to 0 was less compressed, and futher away from 0, more compressed.

yep this is right. it doesnt actually show you the dB level of the song, but here's how it works:

a sorta "mutually agreed" level of volume was set years back (dont remember when.. maybe the 80s or so) by a very proffessional bunch of selected musicians and producers etc. gathered to decide what volume sounded best. they agreed on 89dB i think, and after that everyone recorded their album around that level.

after a while pop albums started pushing the limit because for a good while radiostations didnt bother to change the volume much, so in order to be louder than the previous dude they slowly started to increase the volume. now various features like the gain addition you mentioned checks the dB of the track and then adds/removes volume to make every song sound at equal volume.

what your program does is to show you how much it needs to add/subtract. i assume the winamp level is set to 89dB, so if the track shows as -13dB, it means it is recorded at 102dB and the program will subtract 13dB when playing it most albums today (i'd say 99%) is recorded, on average, above 89dB.

Meshuggah's Destroy Erase Improve has a good example of the opposite tho, if analyzed per-track. most of the tracks shows an even need for about -8dB adjustment, (Future Breed Machine lies 8,37dB above 89dB). all but the slow track, #6 - Acrid Placidity, wich is much lower than the rest of the album, would actuallly need +1,37dB. (meaning its recorded with 87,63dB).

 

[oompa]

Every waveform I see is Cyanide. On the album the 3 pre released tracks sound the worst and have the most clipping IMO. Has anyone seen waveforms for any other songs?

i just checked all of them for you, and sad to say every single track looks more or less exactly like cyanide except for "The Unforgiven III", wich, by any standard is a true clipping overcompressed laughable disaster, but on this album qualifies as having "dynamics" (it has curves here and there, while ~40% of the song in two blocks are fully overcompressed).

i even found a song that was worse by a slight (the only possible) margin:

i present to you:

the Judas Kiss

 

[playstopause]

So... Any of you guys signed the online petitions for the re-mastering of DM?

 

[Groff]

So... Any of you guys signed the online petitions for the re-mastering of DM?

I would, because it would certainly make the album much better.

...But want to know how many people actually care about online pettitions? Noone... So I doubt it'll work.

 

[Mattayus]

So... Any of you guys signed the online petitions for the re-mastering of DM?

No, and I think the petition is a fuckin ridiculous idea. It's like releasing something, and then getting everyone petitioning saying "no, i don't like that riff, RE-WRITE THAT FUCKIN SONG, JUST FOR ME!". It's the sound of the album, it's not like they did it by accident, they obviously WANTED it to sound like this for whatever reason. Therefore, leave it, they won't change it no matter how many petitions are thrown at their Gucci clad feet.

 

[Ror3h]

No, and I think the petition is a fuckin ridiculous idea. It's like releasing something, and then getting everyone petitioning saying "no, i don't like that riff, RE-WRITE THAT FUCKIN SONG, JUST FOR ME!". It's the sound of the album, it's not like they did it by accident, they obviously WANTED it to sound like this for whatever reason. Therefore, leave it, they won't change it no matter how many petitions are thrown at their Gucci clad feet.

Plus, as an aside, re-mastering it would make no difference, as someone posted above, it was brickwalled like this in the mixing stage, so if anything it needs to be remixed completely. Personally I'd go all the way and re-record it though, as it sounds like it's been done by a 15 year old in their bedroom with a cracked copy of cubase or something.

 

[Scootman1911]

So I listened to Death Magnetic and the songs are pretty good but the compression just sounds terrible! It clips so much and makes it annoying to listen to.

 

[Daemoniac]

the only band ive ever heard who is excused from that brick wall of clipped, compressed badness is Terrorfakt... Because they make noise... distorted noise.. and thats why i love them0.

Metallica on teh other hand, do not make noise. They make music. At least they did...

I wish i could kick them for that.

i just checked all of them for you, and sad to say every single track looks more or less exactly like cyanide except for "The Unforgiven III", wich, by any standard is a true clipping overcompressed laughable disaster, but on this album qualifies as having "dynamics" (it has curves here and there, while ~40% of the song in two blocks are fully overcompressed).

i even found a song that was worse by a slight (the only possible) margin:

i present to you:

the Judas Kiss

 

[damigu]

So... Any of you guys signed the online petitions for the re-mastering of DM?

if the music were good, i might care to do that.
unfortunately, it just sounds like a collection of riffs and not cohesive songs.
so the fact that it's poorly engineered only makes it worse still to my ears.

and what is up with the overuse of pitch correction on james' voice? every sustained note of his sounds like it should be part of a cher dance hit.

 

[Vision]

I was working out this morning and listening to DM again, then I got tired of it and cranked up some AJFA... wouldnt you know it... same distorted clipping sound. Production is WAY worse on AJFA too... drums are horrible, no bass, sudden solo jolting in, and max volume on James' guitar. Doesn't change the fact that its still a great album, even after all these years.

Wonder where we will be in 20 years with DM...

 

[Scootman1911]

I actually realized that too. I noticed it a while ago but didn't know what the clipping was from. It's so hard to play along to One because first of all, it's slightly out of tune and near the end it clips so much I just have to turn it off. But it's still an amazing song.

 

[Shawn]

My drummer picked this up a few days ago and we listened to it a couple times. I didn't like it at first but after listening to it the second time, some of it is actually not all that bad.

 

[Jeff]

Kinda OT, but I've listened to DM 3 times straight through now, and I love it. Really, it's an awesome CD, and a return to form for the guys, IMO. To me it's like a mix of AJFA-era with the Load era. Very cool.

 

[Pauly]

Cos it was mentioned:

Modern Music is Losing Something by Darren Monson

also



I'm going to order the CD on Amazon later, along with some other bits and bobs.

 

[Vairocarnal]

Rick Rubin is actually notoriously hands off, it's probably the people he surrounds himself with. I do think that he should have stepped in and said "Yo, wtf you guys doin?"

From what I heard (from the Chili peps vocalist) he spends more time on the couch "absorbing" the music than tweaking/perfecting it...in other words sleeping.

 

[stux]

Don't be so quick to point the finger. I used to be a full time engineer, and most times the producers/engineers are pressured from labels (or the artist, depending how much creative control they have) to make records that are louder than the competition. The guys making the recordings know better, but it's the execs that think louder means better.

Going to second this. But even then, if the mix engineer DOES fuck it up, its still the producers fault at the end if he hasn't made him fix it. The producer is in charge of the whole product and is the guy who should be stopping exactly this kind of thing from happening.

 

[7thwave]

Thought you guys might like to know that there is an alternate version of the album that is ripped from the new guitar hero, its a different mix and isn't harshly compressed sounds much much better.

It can be found in a bay where pirates hang out.

 

[thadood]

Yup.

 

[MerlinTKD]

Yup.

WHOA!