At www.livemetallica.com you can download official "bootlegs" of all the Metallica Shows. They are offering either MP3 or FLAC.
The only thing mentioned about the MP3's is that the bitrate is 128kps.
Does anybody know which encoder is used and if they use joint stereo?



Greetz, Frankie

Do a forum search for Mr.Questionman, "he" can probably help you (Thanks Gambit!)

Great news for Metallica fans with fat wallets & high speed internet access.
Life´s an irony. Lars Ulrich, the world´s anti-MP3 icon, wants people to pay $12.95 for one show (FLAC) and then asks "please do not to share my premium live collection".
I bet right now there´s someone out there crunching those FLACs with his favorite high quality lossy encoder, ready to share it all

I don't think it's going to matter if it's joint stereo or not, or even what encoder was used.

128 is not sufficient to encode metallica live or otherwise. Maybe mono.

Go with the flac even if it's extra.

Maybe enough for portable use, though.

It's not the 3 bucks more that bothers me, it's the huge download.
Also I´m absolutely inexperienced with FLAC. Does NERO support this format?



Greetz, Frankie

With a plugin, Nero supports FLAC.

I have a copy of a Metallica show that I, erm, acquired, and it's 128kbps MP3. I'll check it out as soon as I dig it up.

Update: I feel like an idiot since I can't find out exactly what encoded these files. However, it is 128kbps, joint stereo and was encoded by nugs.net.

Or just share the flac's

I recently downloaded one of the shows on FLAC. I can tell you right now that the sound is way superior to any 128 mp3, no matter which encoder they used. If you have a few extra bucks and a little time, go for the FLAC.

However, has anyone else heard the sound quality re: the way they mixed these shows? It's pretty bad. Granted, they basically have to get these shows mixed and ready for download within 5 days, and they have quite a grueling schedule, but Pearl Jam's 2003 shows were also given the "mixed in 5 days and delivered to the fans" treatment. Matter of fact, you were able to download low-quality mp3s of your show the day after if you ordered the CD. And every Pearl Jam live CD I've heard--be it from the 2000 or 2003 tour--sounded far better than these Metallica shows.

Actually, it might not be the mixing so much as the mastering. The high end is severely lacking and the mids don't have that old Metallica scoop. But also I don't like the way the drums were mixed. I'm actually in the process of remastering the show for myself. Just some EQ fiddling, really, but also adding some compression. Nothing too severe.

Anyway, I guess I'm just a little disappointed that even though you get high quality from the FLACs, the recordings themselves aren't that great.

My $.02

I'm interested in picking up one of these shows (in FLAC). Anyone have a recommednation on a very good one? One with the best sound quality and where James' voice was in good form. He's pretty hit and miss these days. The setlists are all pretty much the same except for the encores so I'm most interested in sound quality. Aside from the stuff from St. anger, I probably have a live copy of just about every song anyway pre-Load.

I downloaded two shows in FLAC format. I was curious. The download was extremely fast considering the file size. As for the sound quality. It's a typical soundboard, with no processing or equilization. Very dry sounding, but not unlike many other soundboards I have aquired.

I think it's a step in the right direction.

Second step would be to make multichannel recordings available for those who wish to do custom mixing/mastering

Even Dyer's Eve? - they played it for the first time on this tour, not sure which show but shouldn't be too hard to find (it's definitely available).

Dyer's Eve was the first Los Angeles show of the tour. Really pissed me off, since I went the next day to see em...

As for a recommended download, I'd seriously look at the June 6th Download Festival, once it's posted. Lars was sick, so they got 3 different drummers to play. I'm actually considering paying for that one... a little piece of Metallica history.

Soundboard recordings will never sound "the best" when you listen by themselves. What you hear is exactly what's coming out of the speakers in the venue, no more no less. On stage, everything is close-miced, so there won't be any ambience, and since the arenas are so echoey they won't be adding any reverb to anything either. The acoustics of an arena will also determine how they equalize things, which will also make it sound weird on your speakers. All of it adds up to just sounding weird.

If you play that recording in that arena with the same number of people and environmental conditions and audio setup, you'll hear the show as it was meant to be heard. Actually, that's not a bad idea, set up a PA in that arena and play it back some time, possibly after big M croaks or something.

I just hope Lars' snare sounds better live than in the studio.

JUST about every song. Correct, this was the 1st performance of Dyers Eve. I'm not a huge fan of that song though so that would not sway my decision. Right now I'm looking at the LV show becuase it has 3 songs from St. Anger plus I Disappear. No Remorse is a nice close as well.

I downloaded the March 28th show. The setlist just looked killer on this show, so I figured I'd go for it. James' voice was ok; nothing to write home about. It was just too bad that he forgot most of the words to Holier Than Thou, as that's one of my favorites.




Amen to that.



Analogy, do you know if the Pearl Jam shows got the same treatment? Or was there some equalization/mastering done?

To be honest, I don't know the particular details of every live recording, I just know that if a soundboard recording sounds overly "dry," or weird in other ways, it's because they are relying on arena acoustics to fill out the mix and are using more close micing than the "room micing" you see in studio recordings. There's a particular problem with the smaller venues, because the sound onstage (drums, amps, monitor wedges) will be reaching back to the sound guy, so he will adjust the house mix to make it sound good with the bleed from the stage.

I have a few recordings of the church band I play in that sound just strange. The drums and instruments with their own amplifiers (guitar, bass) will be mixed very far back, since they carry so well (especially the snare drum, which tends to be high pitched and can carry by itself), but instruments that are only in the PA such as electric piano, acoustic piano and guitar, and especially vocals will be very far forward. And, for some reason, the kick drum will be absolutely huge, since they're trying to take advantage of the subwoofer.

As for releasing original multichannel mix tapes of a show, good luck. Unless it's something they're planning on actually doing something with, chances are it's going down to tape in stereo or even mono if they can't spare the outputs on the sound board (finally, a use for the center channel on those LCR boards =D)

Some live recordings will use the typical bootleg two-mics-on-a-pole method to get some arena acoustics to mix in with the soundboard mix to make it sound less weird, but a lot of them don't really have to time to mess around with it, since the main concern is the live sound, not the bootleg.

Thanx Folks!
So I guess I give the FLAC's a try. (If the show I want ever goes online of course )



Greetz, Frankie