Arctic Monkeys - Fireside (Dynamic Edit)

Описание: This is what I like to call a ‘dynamic edit’ of “Fireside” by Arctic Monkeys! AM faced a significant amount of dynamic range compression (not to be confused with data compression, which concerns MP3s and such) from its mastering, making the music feel cramped at points, as well as distorting the kickdrum a little. Here, I attempt to undo that mastering compression and resulting distortion, making the music more dynamic, and hopefully, more listenable!

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 sounds better, and thus, should sell 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) 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. Additionally, clipping, poor compressors, or overuse of compressors can result in artifacts such as hiss or crackle being audible atop the signal. I didn’t notice any of that crackle atop the sound, but I did notice that the kickdrum thump felt especially odd and limited across a few of the tracks, notably “Arabella” and “Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?”. (It should be noted that there is some hiss over the solo of “I Want It All”, but I believe that isn’t actually resulting from the song’s mastering, as I can hear some of that hiss while the signal isn’t peaking.) I also felt some of the loudest sections of the album sounded a bit cramped from the dynamically-compressed mastering, such as the ends of “R U Mine?”, “No. 1 Party Anthem”, and “Fireside”.

I attempted to undo the mastering compression on these songs with a program called “Perfect Declipper”, which can not only affect clipping, but mastering compression as well! It can undo much of the distortion from that compression, such as during those sections of “Arabella” and “Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?” I noted. The program also makes the music more dynamic (such as in the sections of “R U Mine?”, “No. 1 Party Anthem”, and “Fireside” I brought up), and I was able to bring the dynamic range of the album from 6 to 11, which hopefully makes the music more listenable as a result!

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 also want to make clear 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. Additionally, mastering engineers are often underneath the implicit and explicit pressures of artists and record labels to master albums loudly, so the results of mastering may not necessarily reflect a mastering engineer’s intentions for how they wanted an album to sound.

I produce many more dynamic edits on this channel as well as further descriptions in posts over on Reddit! You can look at this for a full list of the albums I’ve done: https://docs.google.com/document/d/19...

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