There's Australian radio show called "Full Metal Racket" and last night they were talking about Death Magnetic's "Guitar Hero Mix" which, i have to say, almost totally changes my opinion of the album.
The drum sound is better, you can hear all the nuance of James' picking, and can even hear backing vocals.
My opinion is that they were trying to do old school riffs and failing, but after hearing the album, and hearing the other mix of it, they actually are still as good as they used to be. Seriously... they are. Period.
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My main thing with the album was that the songs were good but the album sounds like shit, and apparently Metallica weren't even present during the mixing, and the person who mixed it put ALL the levels ALL the way up, causing clipping of the high and low end, and putting everything into mid-range, which means that everything is pounding through the same frequency and battling for space, which can also damage your speakers, and the Guitar Hero mix has treble with the guitars and some drums, mid with vocals, some bass, some drums, and a little guitar, and low end with the most of the drums, the bass, and some more guitar.
All in all it sounds more like it should, you can hear the actual notes that rob is playing, lars' drums sound like they did on the black album, and james' guitar is MUCH clearer.