News »
Gigwise RSS Feeds Bookmark and Share

Metallica Defend 'Death Magnetic' Sound Quality

After fans question it...

  • by Jason Gregory
  • Thursday, September 25, 2008
  • Photo by: Carsten Windhorst

Metallica's co-manager Cliff Burnstein has defended the sound quality of the band's new album, 'Death Magnetic', after it was criticised by fans.

The album, which has sold over a million copies worldwide in less than two weeks, has been described as too loud on some Metallica forums.

Fans criticisms of the Rick Rubin produced effort have focussed mainly on the CD version, which they claim doesn't sound as clean as the edition that's available via the video game Guitar Hero.

Speaking to the Wall Street Journal, Burnstein tried to dampen the criticism, claiming that 98% of listeners have voiced a an "overwhelmingly positive” response.

"There's something exciting about the sound of this record that people are responding to,” he added.

But Ted Jensen, who mastered the 'Death Magnetic', has already distanced himself from the album.

In a message to fans, he wrote: “I'm not proud to be associated with this one.”

What do you think of the quality? Post your thoughts by filling out the comment form below.

Become a member of Gigwise and your comments will appear automatically.

Metallica live in London
Previous Next
(14)
  • Love the album...the songs are great, however, the sound quality is not. At first I thought that my headphones were just old and broken. Then I listened to the album through my studio headphones, and it was still there. The album sounds distorted at times, which is a bit disappointing but not enough to ruin the album for me. I just listen to it at a lower volume and rock out. Plus, I’m sure that these songs are going to sound great live.

    ~ by Funkywanderer 9/25/2008

    Reply to this comment

  • I bought the CD the day it came out, and I love every second of it. I cant even look at the Metallica message boards anymore. Its just a bunch of fanboys who claim they hear clipping on the album. I havent picked up on any defects in my copy, and I havent stopped listening to it since. Death Magnetic is a masterpiece. Go out and buy it!

    ~ by unholyttb 9/25/2008

    Reply to this comment

  • Metallica has drop the H-Bomb in the Loudness War, it’s a nice contribution to kill music.

    ~ by John Cadmen 9/25/2008

    Reply to this comment

  • My first experience with the strange sound quality was with the streams made available before the album release, which I assumed was a result of some sort of download deterrent to preserve record sales. After buying the CD, the quality is not improved. Track 8 @ 4:30 - perfect illustrated example of the garbled sound. Bass and low E palm mutes are distorted - horribly. The album is awesome, it just wasn’t recorded or mastered properly. Compression errors perhaps? Audio skips in places

    ~ by Matt the Metclub Member 9/25/2008

    Reply to this comment

  • FANBOY??? Only REAL metallica Fans Care on how it sounds,and it’s BAD,so your the Fanboy you fly by night EMO metallica fan

    ~ by FIXTHE CD 9/25/2008

    Reply to this comment

» View all 14 comments

 characters left [+]  


Register now and have your comments approved automatically!

  • RT @Gigwise: Lethal drug found at Michael Jackson's house: http://bit.ly/2mMQk
    minimaland on Fri Jul 03 20:57:13 via TweetDeck
  • @Gigwise It's because the only way they could get Dave Rowntree to play the drums was to hypnotise him. Too strenuous otherwise, poor chap.
    benyacobi on Fri Jul 03 19:36:07 via TweetDeck
  • @TheGrottoTweets @isyng4u @Gigwise @platinumcash @MrTimm @Beeyezzy @Sweetprangel @odloak Michael Jackson Had A Lover! http://bit.ly/hluqG
    HitDanBack on Fri Jul 03 15:13:46 via web
  • @Gigwise Yep, looking better already.
    davidhaskoll on Fri Jul 03 14:19:42 via web
  • RT @Gigwise Barack Obama: 'I Still Have Michael Jackson On My iPod': He speaks about the King of Pop... http://tiny... http://bit.ly/fo0iH
    yaxon on Fri Jul 03 13:47:33 via Tweetbots
Artist A-Z   # A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z