Metallica "Death Magnetic" - Remixed from stems by "name" mystery producer

Today the "Death Magnetic" saga took yet another strange twist, with the arrival of a "remix" of one of the tracks, allegedly by a "name" metal producer, according to the email which acompanied the file. This new mix of "Broken, Beat & Scarred" has been created by the mystery producer using "stems" extracted from the Playstation 3 game "Guitar Hero". The PS3 mixes in realtime to allow guitar parts to drop in and out as part of the gameplay, and this allowed the extraction of 3 stereo submixes - Guitars, Bass and Drums + Vox. Even with this limited palette, a new mix has been created, adding reverb, EQ and mix tweaks - even going so far as using a clever trick to add reverb to the snare.

Almost immediately I was offered the chance to listen to the track, and despite initial reservations my curiosity eventually got the better of me and I decided to take a listen. I didn't have high hopes - it seemed unlikely that only 3 stems would enable a major improvement. And, once again I'm at home so relying on my trusty MacBook Pro and some high-quality headphones, but even at this early stage I can say it's quite a transformation.

What follows are my early impressions of this "new mix" - bearing in mind that it has been created without the bands approval, the methods used to create it are questionable legally, and distributing it publicly is clearly out of the question. Please treat this as a "bit of fun".

So:

First impressions are strong - more bass, fuller guitars, more spacious drums and great weight and power - all the things that are missing from the GH version, and flattened or buried in distortion on the CD.

Listening in more detail, here are some initial observations:

• No distortion
• More bass - fuller & deeper.
• Richer guitars - reverb and EQ added. Maybe width enhancement ?
• Drums similar to GH but smoother and cleaner. The snare is lower level and has reverb - see below
• No stereo FX on the guitar solo - this will be a limitation of the stems
• Still too loud. This mix measures a long-term RMS of -7.7, whereas the CD has a punishing -5. However this mix is still mastered loud. Too loud ! It's clearly been limited hard, what was the point of shaving off those last few dBs ? Luckily:
• Comparatively speaking, it's clean as a whistle. (Bearing in mind I'm listening to an AAC file) Thankfully no trace of the huge distortion that masks the CD, bar remenants of the clipping already present in the GH version
• Overall impression is similar to the CD but cleaner, wider and fuller - more spacious. Maybe too polished.

One of the most noticeable differences is the selective addition of reverb to the snare, and it turns out this has been achieved by sampling the snare sound from another Metallica classic album - the Bob Rock produced "Black Album", triggering it in time with the track, and using it to add reverb. It's not clear if any of the snare sound itself was added to the mix - if so, it sounds as if it was minimal to me. Regardless, this is a very cunning trick.

So, in summary ? Personally I prefer this mix to both the CD and the GH version - it's much more the kind of sound I would have liked to have heard. And to achieve this result with only the three stems to work from, is truly impressive. In my opinion it is still unnecessarily loud though - an extra few dBs of breathing space would make a welcome relief.

HOWEVER

This mix certainly isn't the sound that Rick Rubin and the band wanted. Both GH and the CD mixes are dry as a bone, and there's no doubt that's exactly the way they were intended to be. The GH version proves that the hard, dry sound of the CD could be achieved without the distortion, and personally I find productions that dry tough to listen to, but the transformation wreaked here moves this mix firmly from the realm of "alternative version", where GH sits, to "fan edit" space.

Fan Edits & mash-ups are obviously a big buzz on the internet at the moment, and it doesn't take long watching the Metallica forums to realise that a host of these alternative mixes will certainly now follow in a short space of time, once the stem files are out "in the wild". However these versions are exactly what the name says they are - "fan edits". Not what the band wants, or what the producer wanted, in a any shape or form. Who knows - in light of the intense media scrutiny and 10,000+ signatures on the petition, maybe Metallica will speak out on this issue soon, and release a remixed version of Death Magnetic, more along the lines of the mix presented here. But maybe not. This reminds me of one of my favourite expressions -

A man with a watch may know what the time is, but a man with two is never sure

For example, legendary Beach Boys album "Smile" got the fan-mix treatment in the same way when copies of all the original 60's tapes escaped and were widely shared on the internet. Many versions existed and were endlessly discussed, but eventually the generally agreed "ultimate" version of these edits only materialised when Brian Wilson himself finally released a brand new recording of the record, and the fans were able to duplicate it as closely as possible using the original takes.

In the same way, until (if) Metallica ever make a clear statement about the sound of the Death Magnetic CD, we will never know if this is how the album should "really" have sounded. This mix I think moves too far from the existing versions to be able to claim that for itself.

Personally I think fans would be better advised to maintain pressure on the band and label to release a different, (non-distorted!) official new version of "Death Magnetic", rather than spending hours second-guessing what they "might have done".

But having said that, remixing your favourite band's stuff is really good fun - it's something that has long been talked about as the ultimate in audience participation, that my idol Brian Eno has long advocated, and here I am commenting on the damn thing already ! Time to listen to my own advice and so something else more useful instead...

UPDATE: Having listened in the studio this morning I stand by most of my comments above, with a few extra comments:

• For me, listening on speakers, (this stuff is hard to judge on cans) the snare is now too low in the mix, and doesn't have enough weight - it's too tasteful. A compromise between this and the GH version would be better. Interestingly, lots of fans have commented that there is too much reverb added to the snare, but the reverb itself is quite subtle IMO - the big difference is you can hear the drum's "ring" much more clearly now - there is a lot of extra high frequency EQ on the drums. This is audible in the GH3 version too, but not in the same way.
• Overall it's a little too bassy, in my opinion
• It is unnecessarily loud - I wish it were a few dBs quieter. This may not sound like much, but when you're pushing stuff this hard, every little helps.

Finally to return to one of my points above - apart from the issues I've raised, this would still be my choice of mixes to listen to so far. BUT I can't "commit" to enjoying it in the same way as I could to a proper remix from the band. It doesn't feel authentic, because the band aren't involved. I think we as listeners look for statements from artists, and this isn't it... an official remix is still needed.

How do we hear loudness ? Peak vs. Average Level

I have seen lots of confusion over the last few days about the differences between the CD and "Guitar Hero" versions which feature in the YouTube comparison video. Some think that the Guitar Version (GH) is louder, but in fact this is not the case. The two version are level-matched - the average level is equal - and this is how our ears judge loudness.

If the Guitar Hero version feels louder to you, it is because it is more dynamic. It has more variety in the average level, and more contrast between the loud and soft sounds, so it sounds more lively, more energetic and more exciting than the overly crushed CD version. (It doesn't sound as good, in some other ways, though - see "Point Four" in this post.)

How do I know the two are level-matched ? Partly because I've listened to them and can hear they match - balancing levels is a crucial skill for a mastering engineer. But also because measurements back this up, as can be seen in the graphics of the videos.

The two screengrabs here show the same point in the song from the video. look at the level display, highlighted by the red arrows. First look at the Guitar Hero version (GH). The pale blue bit shows the peak level of the music, and the darker blue shows the average level. So we can see that the peak level at this point is almost up to the maximum, whereas the average level is about 10 dB below that. (Click on the image to see a larger version)

Now look at the CD graphics from the same point in the song. The average level is the same - about 10 dB down. But the peak level is barely any higher - about -7 dB or so, instead of right up at the top.

This fact that the average level measurements are equal confirms that the clips are level-matched as I'm claiming. Our ears judge loudness by the average level, NOT the peak level, so they are matched in loudness at the same point in the song.

(Actually it's quite a bit more complicated than that, but this explanation is close enough for the point I want to make in this post. There's more about measuring loudness in this post.)

So why do some people feel the Guitar Hero version is actually louder ?

Try watching the video again, concentrating on the meters. Probably the first thing you'll notice is that both the pale and dark blue meters jump up lower and higher on the GH version, just as the overall graph goes higher and is more spiky. Doesn't this mean it's louder ? No. The dark blue meter is centred around the same point on both versions - roughly 10 dB down from the maximum - so the average level is the same, and over the course of the whole track or album, the ear judges it's level to be the same.

However it feels louder, because it has more highs and lows, more contrast - it's more dynamic. The contrast between the loudest and softest parts of the sound - in this case the drums - is much greater, so it sounds harder and punchier. And crucially because it's overall level hasn't been pushed so hard, it hasn't been over-compressed and crushed, so it doesn't have the ugly distortion of the CD version.

As I've said before, the Guitar Hero version isn't perfect - far from it. In actual fact, it's a bit too dynamic for this style of music - rock requires a "wall of sound" effect, to some degree, and the Guitar Hero version doesn't go far enough in the direction. But the CD is so crushed and so distorted, that out of the two it comes off by far the worst, for me.

As examples of what a great, dynamic rock recording can sound like, check out the Machine Head album "The Blackening" on iTunes or Amazon, or even this BBC live recording of Metallica themselves from last week:

Radio 1 presents Metallica Night: Metallica Live

(This one has a bit too much compressor-pumping in my opinion, but still beats the CD by a long shot.)

And if you find yourself persuaded by any of this and haven't already done so, please check out TurnMeUp.org, sign the petition, Favourite the YouTube video and tell your friends !