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