The Mars Volta - El Ciervo Vulnerado (Dynamic Edit)

Описание: This is what I like to call a ‘dynamic edit’ of “El Ciervo Vulnerado” by The Mars Volta! Amputechture faced quite a bit of dynamic range compression in its final release, but more importantly, seems to have been clipped by its mastering engineer, resulting in artifacts of hiss and crackle over the louder parts of the mix. There may have also been a few clipped sections caused during the mixing of “Tetragrammaton” and “El Ciervo Vulnerado”. My edits here are meant to rectify both of those, presenting the album as close as I can to what it sounded like before clipping!

For those not in the know, the Loudness War is a phenomenon beginning in the mid-90s onward, in which music was mastered louder and louder, with the underlying reasoning being that louder music sells better. As with any medium, however, there is a peak loudness a signal can reach, so dynamic range compression (which makes the louder parts of the signal quieter while keeping the quiet parts the same loudness; not to confused with data compression, which concerns MP3s and such) and sometimes even clipping (attempting to make a signal louder than maximum loudness) were used to make music as loud as possible.

The issue with this is that overuse of dynamic range compression and clipping can make music fatiguing to listen to, and sometimes even audibly distorted. Clipping or poor compressors specifically can introduce audible artifacts such hiss or crackle into the mix. Vlado Meller, the mastering engineer for this album, is rather infamous for clipping the recordings he works with. While his previous work on mastering De-Loused in the Comatorium was indeed incredibly loud (resulting in the least dynamic Mars Volta master until *Noctourniquet*), he was generally able to avoid his habit of clipping. In Amputechture, however, the clipping is in full force, most apparent on “Vicarious Atonement”, “Tetragrammaton”, and “Meccamputechture”, but present throughout most of the album.

However, there is some odd clipping-esque distortion on the album that I do not believe is caused by mastering. “El Ciervo Vulnerado” has this low voice with an enormous amount of distortion on just a single sibilant (at 7:57), despite the section not appearing to have been brickwall-limited through mastering. What may have occurred was the section may have become clipped during recording or mixing of the album.

“Tetragrammaton” as well has suspicious sections, the most minor of them being a guitar between passages that sounds like it was clipped during recording (at 8:14; listen to the left side). Sections I suspect were compressed badly/clipped during mixing include the guitar solo right after the backwards instrumental section (4:48-5:03), the horn-and-keyboard-filled slower passage (11:43-14:12), and the final instrumental breakdown (14:56-16:41).

I insist that these three sections having this distortion are not the result of Vlado Meller’s mastering because Meller tends to master either by clipping or using a brickwall limiter, rendering the loudest parts of a signal a flat horizontal line. Those three sections of “Tetragrammaton” however, do not have completely flat peaks.

I suspect then, that the band may have clipped or badly-compressed these sections during mixing, resulting in the hiss. There may be an argument over whether those sections of distortion were intentional choices by the band (the compression/clipping at the end may actually compliment the instrumental breakdown, for instance), but honestly, I can’t say either way. If I am correct about this being the result of mixing, then these bits of distortion should be present on the vinyl copies of the album.

I have attempted to fix up the mastering compression, as well as the other compressed/clipped sections I noted, of the album with a program I have called “Perfect Declipper” (creating something I dub a “dynamic edit”). This editing process makes the album more dynamic and can also eliminate artifacts of crackle and hiss! In this case, I was able to turn the dynamic range of the album from 6 into 11!

It’s important to note that the dynamics are not being restored with the “Perfect Declipper” program that I use, but rather, they are being approximated. While one may not be able to “declip” an album as one would be unable to “unbake a cake”, I find the results here to be a convincible attempt at doing so. Only in the most extreme examples have I heard the program produce odd artifacts that would appear unintended in the album’s mix. I think it’s also important to note that dynamic range compression is not an inherently bad thing. It can tighten up performances, add grit, and help remove dynamic outliers that would take you out of the mix.