Whenever we discuss the so-called ‘loudness war’ here at MusicRadar, a key citation is often Metallica’s 2008 album Death Magnetic. The extreme volume of this Rick Rubin-produced record was the result of deliberate mixing and mastering choices, designed to make the tracks as in-your-face as possible when heard on radio - albeit to the detriment of dynamic range…
Mixing the record back then was Andrew Scheps - now universally regarded as one of the industry’s most accomplished mixing engineers. Scheps has overseen records from Adele, Green Day, Lana Del Rey, Lady Gaga and Justin Timberlake to name just a few. Back in 2008, when the loudness war was in full force, Scheps unfairly swallowed some of the criticism for the record’s ultra-extreme peaks.
