Metallica - Death Magnetic 2008 (Fan Remaster) (FLAC)


-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Technical Info
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

-Source material:
Stem Files, unknown compression method and level.

-New Encoding:
FLAC Lossless (In other words, full quality compressed to generally about 1/2 of an Audio CD size)

-Total Size:
590MB


-Total Play Time:
1:25:40


-Tracklist:
1. Metallica - That Was Just Your Life (7:14)
2. Metallica - The End Of The Line (8:04)
3. Metallica - Broken Beat & Scarred (6:30)
4. Metallica - The Day That Never Comes (7:58)
5. Metallica - All Nightmare Long (8:03)
6. Metallica - Cyanide (6:45)
7. Metallica - The Unforgiven III (7:58)
8. Metallica - The Judas Kiss (8:06)
9. Metallica - Suicide & Redemption (James Hetfield Solo) (9:59)
10. Metallica - Suicide & Redemption (Kirk Hammet Solo) (9:58)
11. Metallica - My Apocalypse (5:05)




-----------------------------------------------------------------------
General Info
-----------------------------------------------------------------------


I remixed and mastered this Metallica album. Thanks to some very high-quality, well-ripped stem files (most likely Guitar Hero or Rock Band) I was able to get a result I actually really enjoy. The stem files consists of 8 stereo tracks per song, with snare, kick, toms, and misc drums, aswell as vocal track, two guitar tracks (solo and rhythm), and a bass track.

Death Magnetic is never going to be a shining audiophile gem of subtleness, so rather than going for an uncolored transparent approach, I went with a more dense, dark sound. However I've taken care to make it sound as warm and non-fatiguing as possible, while still having a balanced, clear, high-fidelity sound. There's plenty of small tweaks, and the output has been through both tube and tape sweetening (and no conventional "attack-release" compressors).
The result is dense, but it's more about texture than volume in this case. Think of this not as a polished crown jewel, but more of a focused analog wall of round creamy goodness, adjusted to bring to mind old tape or vinyl recordings. The tape saturation is basically the final mastering stage, no brickwalling is applied after that so there is plenty of microdetail and microdynamics on the surface (more importantly, at no point does anything sound like a blown speaker like the retail version). It should hopefully sound good and unintrusive both on loud volumes and with more subdued listening levels. The tape algorithm I used sounds extremely thick and creamy, which I think suits the material well. And if you like bass guitars, I've made sure to fatten it up and mix it loud.


I hope this might be of benefit to someone, and do give me your comments and criticism if you want.