Interpol - A Time to Be So Small (Second Demo) (Dynamic Edit)

This is what I like to call a ‘dynamic edit’ of “A Time to Be So Small (Second Demo)” by Interpol! While Turn On the Bright Lights doesn’t sound as distorted as the band’s most recent effort, *Marauder*, or even their second album *Antics*, it nevertheless is rather loud at points, with some quite audible distortion caused by dynamic range compression (not to be confused with data compression, which concerns MP3s and such) used in the album’s mastering. I attempt to undo much of that compression, making the album more dynamic, and remove as many of those distortion artifacts as I can!

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, 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) 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. I hear these artifacts at specific points in *Turn On the Bright Lights*, namely when the drums exit “Untitled”, near the end of “Obstacle 1”, and as Paul cries out for Stella on “Stella Was a Diver and She Was Always Down”. This crackle I heard on both the original release and 10th anniversary remaster of *Turn On the Bright Lights*. For the 10th anniversary release of the album, there also was some audible distortion on many of the demos, but some of this seems to be caused from the recording, while other times, it’s the mastering that’s the issue. Since these demos were just meant as a blueprint for the studio recordings, the fact that they happen to clip a bit is absolutely excusable.

I attempted to make the 10th anniversary master of Turn On the Bright Lights and its bonus tracks more dynamic with a program I have called “Perfect Declipper” (creating something I dub a “dynamic edit”). The editing process makes the album more dynamic and can also eliminate artifacts of crackle and hiss from an album’s compression. In the case of the demos specifically, there still is some crackle left caused during their recording that I wasn’t able to fix. I was able to turn the dynamic range of the album from 5 to 11, and hopefully make the album 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 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. 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.