Kings of Leon - Closer (Dynamic Edit)

This is what I like to call a ‘dynamic edit’ of “Closer” by Kings of Leon! Only by the Night faces a bit of distortion from its loud mastering, which I tried to undo here! 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 noticed quite a bit of that on the guitars throughout parts of “Crawl” as well as on the word “time” on “17”. Overall, this album’s mastering isn’t too bad, certainly better than their previous outing Because of the Times and their two most recent albums, which are all louder and face heavier amounts of mastering compression. 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 “Crawl” and “17” I noted! It also makes the music more dynamic, and I was able to bring the dynamic range of the album from 7 to 13, which hopefully that 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/1975IIQ... If you like my work, consider donating to me on Ko-fi! I prioritize suggestions for $15, but any amount donated is appreciated! https://ko-fi.com/dynamiceditor