The Prodigy - Climbatize (Dynamic Edit)

This is what I like to call a ‘dynamic edit’ of “Climbatize” by The Prodigy! The Fat of the Land was mastered by Mike Marsh alongside Dig Your Own Hole by The Chemical Brothers and Be Here Now by Oasis, and as such, it is mastered quite loudly with a sizable amount of compression. While it does not face nearly as much compression as those other two albums, that compression can make the music difficult to listen to over longer periods of time. In this post, I attempt to undo the mastering compression of The Fat of the Land and its singles, making them more dynamic, and hopefully more listenable as a result!

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 (not to be confused with data compression, which concerns MP3s and such; dynamic range compression 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 a bit of that on the beat of “Serial Thrilla”, especially when its mix was a bit sparser. I also noticed that the bass booms on “Breathe” b-side “The Trick” came across as pretty distorted. (“The Trick” is also arguably the loudest song in the group’s discography)

I attempted to undo the heavy compression on The Fat of the Land and its b-sides with a program called “Perfect Declipper”, which can not only affect clipping, but mastering compression as well. It can undo much of the distortion caused by heavy compression, like on “Serial Thrilla” and “The Trick”! The program also makes the music more dynamic, and I was able to bring the dynamic range of the album from 6 to 11, which hopefully makes it 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 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.

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...

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