Metallica's new album sounds better in Guitar Hero
Posted: Fri Sep 19, 2008 1:52 am
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Sad, but true.
Metallica's Death Magnetic might have debuted atop the Billboard charts, but to many disgruntled fans, it's something of a bottom feeder. Metalheads and audiophiles alike have expressed displeasure with the record's overall audio quality, claiming that it sounds overly distorted.
According to Mastering Engineer Ian Shepherd, they're hardly tone deaf. In response to fan outcry, he compared the audio of the retail CD and the version appearing in Activision's Guitar Hero III, finding that the latter indeed featured far superior sound quality.
"As you can see, the CD version on the bottom has been heavily compressed, limited and/or clipped, and sounds massively distorted as a result," he said, referencing a chart depicting waveforms of both versions.
The problem stems from extreme compression intended to boost the "loudness" of the music in the CD release. The music industry's use of the technique, which is commonly used to make television commercials annoyingly sound louder than television shows, has sparked an ongoing debate dubbed the "Loudness War."
In the case of Death Magnetic, the boost is both significant and troublesome. Shepherd's analysis shows that the CD release is a whopping 10 decibels louder than the Guitar Hero version, which translates to sounding about twice as loud to the human ear.
Metallica's label, Universal Music Group, has yet to respond to the matter. Or perhaps they're just not listening.
Spinal Tap where are you now?