Details for this torrent 


Metallica - Death Magnetic (DECEiFER REMASTER) - FLAC
Type:
Audio > FLAC
Files:
12
Size:
586.35 MB

Tag(s):
metallica death magnetic master remaster guitar hero mix remix flac lossless
Quality:
+27 / -0 (+27)

Uploaded:
Oct 28, 2008
By:
DECEiFER



Metallica - Death Magnetic (DECEiFER REMASTER) - FLAC



It was a dull day for the Metallica timeline when they released Death Magnetic. Speculation into whether the digital releases prior to the album's retail CD release on September 12th, 2008, would be much worse in comparison were confirmed as being untrue. The fact is, the retail CD release of Death Magnetic may as-well be played on your kids' cheap stereo manufactured by Fisher Price. It is just that bad!

But all was not ruined, as on the same day, it became apparent from those who had grabbed a copy of Death Magnetic for their consoles, specifically for Guitar Hero III, that the tracks were not clipping due to heavy limiting. In-fact, they sounded like pre-masters. I had to find out more, so I downloaded the tracks on BitTorrent from an uploader called paulisme (not D34DL1N3R's). This version came with plenty of headroom, which for mastering is just what was needed.

It wasn't so long thereafter that I took on the task of mastering these tracks, at the exact same time Moderus was doing his own. We were both making samples available on a community forum, that we are mutual members of, a forum against the destruction of great music, music that has fallen victim to what is now known as, "The Loudness War."

I have Moderus' masters, and I do enjoy listening to them. However, while we were both doing our mastering work, I had taken a different direction to what he and his ideals for doing this task were (even though they were not apparent to me at the time). I just wanted the songs to sound good, to live up to the Metallica image!

Therefore, I mastered the tracks myself, in the hopes of gaining some low-end clarity, which I found to be lacking on both the retail CD and the Guitar Hero III stock tracks. Obviously, I wanted the songs to be amplified as much as possible, without the heavy clipping. Not everyone has a loud stereo, so that to me seemed like an important part of the process. The tracks needed to be livened up, and that is exactly what I did. Overall, you should expect a wholesome sound, much warmer than the retail CD, but also allowing the listener to experience the dynamics as should have been intended by the sound engineers working on the album for Metallica.

I'm sure some of you would like to know what the key differences are between Moderus' masters and my own. As admitted my Moderus, his do clip in places, more so than mine, but the amplification is *roughly* the same, so if you're comparing our two masters, don't bother tweaking your volume knob a great deal. In listening to another master done by eetfunk, and examining his waveforms, in my opinion his is Limited more so than it has to be, but they still sound better than the mixes that are on the retail CD.

My one has more emphasis on low-end clarity and heavier crunch, in good balance, not overkill. Moderus' masters seem to hit on the ideal of treble clarity and middle punch, also in good balance. Overall, it's my opinion that we both did evenly decent jobs, and it depends on what you're looking to hear from this album, at any given time. Do what I do, download and listen to both, depending on your mood.


To give you a visual insight into my analysis, check these images out...

eetfunk's Broken, Beaten & Scarred:
http://img362.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dmremastereetfunkrz8.jpg

Moderus' Broken, Beaten & Scarred:
http://img232.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dmremastermoderussz6.jpg

My (DECEiFER's) Broken, Beaten & Scarred:
http://img259.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dmremasterdeceiferfe6.jpg



Line: paulisme FLAC's -> FLAC Frontend transcode to Wav -> Mastering work in Adobe Audition 3.0 -> FLAC Frontend transcode back to FLAC



Track Listing:

1. That Was Just Your Life
2. The End of the Line
3. Broken, Beat & Scarred
4. The Day That Never Comes
5. All Nightmare Long
6. Cyanide
7. The Unforgiven III
8. The Judas Kiss
9. Suicide & Redemption	(Kirk Hammett)
10. My Apocalypse
11. Suicide & Redemption (James Hetfield)



I've also made a 320 Kbps MP3 sample looping 30 seconds of "Broken, Beat & Scarred" three times. The first loop is from the retail CD, stock, but only brought down in amplification (with no other processing whatsoever). The second is the stock sound from the Guitar Hero III track. You should pay particular attention to the third and final 30 second loop, which contains my master of the Guitar Hero III track. All waveform amplifications throughout the whole MP3 have been tuned to give the most even volume coming out of your speakers throughout all three loops. Compare and enjoy!


Download the Sample:
www dot megaupload dot com/?d=CEJIDAJW

Comments

In my opinion, Moderus' master lacks the dynamics of the guitar hero version and sounds very similar to the retail version, only less distorted (like he described it). This is not what I am looking for. Does yours sound this way as well? I know you state that it allows you to experience the dynamics, but yet you also state that it is about the same volume as Moderus'. You also stated that it does not have heavy clipping. How can it be the same volume as Moderus' but not clip or destroy the dynamics like his does? Making it too loud causes clipping and destroys dynamics. Please explain. I am looking for a version like eetfunk's, only better, if possible.
As I said in my description, I have a sample.

"I've also made a 320 Kbps MP3 sample looping 30 seconds of "Broken, Beat & Scarred" three times. The first loop is from the retail CD, stock, but only brought down in amplification (with no other processing whatsoever). The second is the stock sound from the Guitar Hero III track. You should pay particular attention to the third and final 30 second loop, which contains my master of the Guitar Hero III track. All waveform amplifications throughout the whole MP3 have been tuned to give the most even volume coming out of your speakers throughout all three loops. Compare and enjoy!"

www dot megaupload dot com/?d=CEJIDAJW

Sorry about the lack of a real URL. TPB censors URL's.

I'm not the best at explaining things in plain English, which is why I'll never be any sort of teacher. Let the sample tell you the story. :)
I have just listened to eetfunk's Broken, Beaten & Scarred remaster. I'm far from impressed. It has been Limited and sounds a lot closer to the retail version than mine or Moderus'.

To prove this, check out these images below...

eetfunk's Broken, Beaten & Scarred:
http://img362.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dmremastereetfunkrz8.jpg

Moderus' Broken, Beaten & Scarred:
http://img232.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dmremastermoderussz6.jpg

My (DECEiFER's) Broken, Beaten & Scarred:
http://img259.imageshack.us/my.php?image=dmremasterdeceiferfe6.jpg


I think the answer is obvious. Download my remaster. ;)
OK, I now have no less than seven "remastered" versions of this album. So far, this is a tie for my favorite along with Moderus'.

I think that Moderus has done the best job so far of "fixing" the album. When I listen to that version, I feel like I'm listening to what the album was supposed to sound like.

At the same time, I think that DECEiFER has done the best job so far of "remastering" the album. I'm definitely not a fan of the "loudness war" trend, so I appreciate the improved dynamics of this version.
Thanks man, it means a lot to see them appreciated. :)
I like the bass and crispness of the sound. I like this version better than Moderus', yet I still enjoy eetfunk's version. There are some aspects of this release that I like better, and some aspects of eetfunk's that I like better. I think that in the end, sound quality cannot always be determined by wave graphs alone because it is also a matter of personal preference and everyone has their own different tastes. To my ears, this version sounds cleaner in many ways, yet eetfunk's version sounds more breathable and dynamic. Despite the way the graphs look, I hear far more noticeable clipping in both this and Moderus' versions than eetfunk's. I do think this version is more dynamic and breathable than Moderus', however. I really do like this version, and think that I will listen to different versions for different moods like you say. Overall, good job.
You're right, it's about personal preference. And this will be going on for quite some time. There will be other remasters, and I know I will probably get my hands on them as they come out, just to see how other people can also better the quality of what is being sold on store shelves.

My ears were bleeding from the CD version, I just couldn't take it any longer. Now it's just laughable how the so called professionals involved in the mixing process of this album failed so badly. I believe it was during that stage of the album's making that things began to go wrong, and not during the mastering process at Sterling Sound, as Ted Jensen has stated that he was not proud of being a part of this project.

I just hope these remasters of mine help those that who download enjoy this album, as it is definitely the best Metallica album release in quite some time, in terms of its content. I also suspect and hope that a lot of the people who download these remasters have already purchased the CD. At least then it won't be so wrong to download this torrent. I just felt so strongly about the poor quality of the CD, that making my remaster available to the public was justifiable.

Thanks for your praise and honesty.
Determining the quality of sound by looking at the waveform is simply wrong. It's a mistake made by many amateur audio enthousiasts. If you zoom (horizontally) my wav, you'll notice that it's really not as bad as it seems in your screenshot. Look at any properly mastered rock record, you'll see that the waveform looks squashed as well.

Unfortunately, compression/limiting is necessary in audio. El cheepo sound systems don't handle wide dynamic ranges so well. And by el cheapo, I don't mean the 25$ stereo from K-Mart, I mean even my JL Audio speakers in the car.

My first remasters were barely compressed and they sounded like crap in the car. I had to tighten it up to make it sound good on a wide range of audio systems.

In the end, it's all about it sounds, not about how it looks on the screen.

Believe me when I tell you that I couldn't agree more. Now, I have not worked in the industry. I believe you have. But I'm also not naive enough to judge a sound by simply looking at a visual waveform. I'd hope nobody does. Remember that anyone who is downloading my torrent has probably a good ear for music, since they were able to tell that the CD version is completely out of order, and while in audio it is necessary to process it through compression, there's a line and the CD version has gone past point of no return. If you go on the Metallica forums, time and again you'll see people passing statements, such as, "You're a dumb audiophile. The CD version is perfect. You're not a real Metallica fan." It's been said to a lot of people, including myself.

So back from my tangent, I would like to point out that to analyze a piece of audio, you'd need to listen to it. Nothing can substitute a good ear where audio is concerned. However, a visual analysis should not be restricted to examining the waveform. There's a ton of different ways to take stock of the integrity of a sound, on paper. We could go on all day...

Thanks for your comment, it was probably necessary for people to hear from you, since Moderus has already given his 2 cents on my MP3 version of this torrent. It seems that you still have plenty of love for a good sounding record, detest for a bad one, and Metallica's latest has pushed you back into being an audio engineer once again, even if only temporarily.
I just listened to your version. It sounds really good. I prefer the bottom of yours quite frankly! I'm also not a big fan of my That Was Just Your Life. Yours sounds better.

I don't have proper audio equipment anymore so mastering the album has been quite challenging. I had to do it with Sony studio cans. It's nearly impossible to do a good job with headphones unfortunately. My 11 year break from the proaudio industry also didn't help ;-)

I haven't listened to your version in the car to see if it suffers the same problems as my uncompressed version.

The only thing I'm not a big fan of in your version is the loudness which is pretty low compared to other records I have. I think it could benefit from a little bit of multiband compression/limiting without exagerating too much.

But overall, great job!
I'll look into the loudness next time, maybe when I get to mixing the stems.

I have the same problem here regarding headphones. I'm using a Creative HS-600 headset and mic, which is designed for general usage and Skype. I'll be getting some Sennheisers soon, so that will be helpful. As for studio monitors, maybe when I'm richer. :)

Thanks for taking the time to listen. It's really good that we have all been able to make these masters from stems or mixes that better give the room for it. I'd have never continued to listen to the album otherwise, my ears were bleeding from the retail version.
pretty sad to think a band like Metallica, who's been around for almost 30 years can't get there shit together to engineer a good sounding album...thanks for your effort to get things right!
DECEIFER... just downloaded and listened to your version...I think it's great! I'm a serious audiophile guy with thousand's spent in my tube system...with out getting to much into the techs, top end a little tizzy but not over the top, the mid and bottom...nice!!! good headroom...I thought this is worth a good glass of wine and my favorite chair...just cranked it!!! thanks
Hey, nice to see that you can both rock out and chillax to this stuff.

I appreciate everyone's comments. Thanks for taking the time.
Great job on this btw.
Downloaded it a while back and it was the best version I had heard. Being the picky ass listener I am tho, I did a few minor EQ adjustments of my own and now have a damn fine version of this album.
Just thought I'd say thanks for providing the foundation for a "listenable" versoin of this killer album!
Any updates you have I'd love to hear!
~PeAcE~
Great Work Deceifer!!!!! im just wondering if there is anything you can do with "St ANGER" because i think that Lars "snare drum" sounds like he is banging on a trash can lid & it spoils the whole album for me. i wish it sounded more like it sounds on the AND JUSTICE FOR ALL.. album. anyway, it would be great if someone could do something with it. CHEERS
I stated in Moderus Remaster II that it's the best Remaster/Remix of DM, but i can now see (hear) the differences between Moderus II and Deceifers release. I listened to both releases on my DTS880S
Headphones and both versions are equally good.
It's a matter of taste in the end.

Moderus II: The Drums sound a bit too crystal-clear and the Voice of Hetfield is very much present in the middle. The sharpness of the guitars is good but therefore they sound "cut-out".

Deceifer: It's more "round-sounding" all-in-all.
The vocals are not so cut-out and are more combined with the hole mixing. The guitars are a bit more agressive-sounding, since all instruments stick to each other in a "production"-way of sound.

I'd say that deceifers release would be the one you would find on your CD if Metallica had released this album 20 Years ago.

Sorry for my bad english. I can't describe it any other way ;)
more seeds :) ill help when I dl it.
Thank god there are people like you in the world. I've been looking for a non-retail, non-quiet as hell version of this album that I could put side by side with other Metallica recordings and not have to be afraid for my eardrums. Other remastering jobs have left me saddened with how little they actually did. I know how to mix, not master, so this is AMAZING. Downloading now :D