100 gecs - Doritos & Fritos (Dynamic Edit)

This is what I like to call a ‘dynamic edit’ of “Doritos & Fritos” by 100 gecs! Like the group’s debut, 10,000 Gecs faced a heavy amount of dynamic range compression (not to be confused with data compression, which concerns MP3s and such) in its mastering, which can make the music difficult to listen to. In this, I attempt to undo that mastering compression, 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. With much of 100 gecs’ aesthetic being based on heavy amounts of distortion and compression, it can be hard to divorce the loud mastering of the album from their aesthetic, and if there’s a bit more or bit less distortion to an already distorted sound, why does it matter?
As with any aesthetic, I find there’s an unclear line to draw regarding if an aesthetic goes too far, or overwhelms the music. Parts of “Hollywood Baby”, “One Million Dollars”, and “mememe” for one, were particularly hard to listen to because of how dynamically-compressed the songs were. While “Billy Knows Jamie” was extremely compressed at the end of the song, it appears to be definitely part of its mix, rather than distortion from mastering.
I attempted to undo the heavy dynamic range compression from the mastering of the album with a program called “Perfect Declipper”, which can not only affect clipping, but other types of compression found in mastering as well! As such, I was able to make those sections of “Hollywood Baby”, “One Million Dollars”, and “mememe” notably more dynamic, was able to bring the dynamic range of the album overall from 4 to 10, which hopefully makes it more listenable! I wasn’t able to make the end of “Billy Knows Jamie” sound too differently, and I also noticed that the kick of “747” was a lot more dynamic in my edits. Whether that’s a good or bad thing, that’s up to the listener.
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. Also, whether my edits sound better than the original release is up to what the listener thinks!
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: docs.google.com/document/d/19...
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