My Chemical Romance - This is what I like to call a ‘dynamic edit’ of “Famous Last Words” by My Chemical Romance! Released near the height of the Loudness War in 2006, *The Black Parade* is perhaps the most dynamically-compressed (not to confused with data compressed, which concerns MP3s and such) of My Chemical Romance’s catalog. My “dynamic edits” here are meant to make the album more dynamic, and perhaps less fatiguing to listen to over time!

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 quiet) and sometimes even clipping (attempting to push a signal beyond its peak) were used to make music as loud as possible. Clipping can cause unwanted distortion in a recording, often in the form of hiss or crackle, and is often discouraged in mastering because of it. Unlike in *Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge*, I don’t hear any clipping across the runtime of *The Black Parade*, thankfully. While this record is the most compressed of the band’s releases, it seems like it was compressed pretty competently, avoiding audible distortion in the final product.

However, music that has faced a high degree of dynamic range compression or clipping in general can also be fatiguing to the ear. I attempted to fix up the clipping and compression on this release with a program called “Perfect Declipper”, can not only help alleviate clipping, but also much of the dynamic range compression that occurs during mastering! With the program, I was able to make the result much more dynamic! I was able to turn the dynamic range from 5 to 11, in this instance!

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 technically 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 present this all with the caveat that dynamic range compression is not inherently a bad thing. Compression can be used to tighten up performances, provide color to mixes, and to achieve hard, punchy sounds.

I produce many more dynamic edits on this channel as well as further descriptions in posts over on Reddit! https://www.reddit.com/user/TopConcern/posts/