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Chvrches - (2020a) The Bones of What You Believe (Unofficial Remaster v1.1 FLAC)
Don't download this if you haven't purchased Chvrches "The Bones of What You Believe".
I believe albums should be released with version numbers. Over time and based on feedback from fans, mixes may need to be tweaked, just like with software. After a few more listens to the v1.0 remaster, I realized some of the DTS tracks had slightly too much bass, and I have applied a slight bass roll off of varying amounts with a high quality parametric EQ. Thus v1.1 was born.
Like Chvrches albums "Every Open Eye" and "Love is Dead", Chvrches 2013 album "The Bones of What You Believe" is lacking in dynamic range due to the abuse of a brickwall limiter with the gain set too high. After loading into my audio editor, I confirmed Chvrches is yet another victim in the loudness war.
If you are not familiar with the loudness war, I suggest doing an internet search. In a nut shell, around 1995 a sound engineer made a loud master of a popular band and the music label or band thought it might sell more copies than an album mastered properly. This has been proven false- search Death Magnetic Loudness War. You'll find most fans sought out the good sounding MP3 version that was hacked out of a videogame that contained the whole album mastered properly. Unfortunately, some labels and bands still believe the music sells better when songs are crushed to death (crushed = LOUD = ruined). Some even think crushed sounds better. Present a crushed song and a then a proper mix to anyone on a typical stereo, and most of time they'll prefer the proper mix. Crushed audio leads to ear fatigue- you quickly tire of an album you like and then play something else.
This album is loud, but not to an extreme. Love is Dead is far worse. I remastered EOE and LID too; look for them.
This remaster may sound a little quiet compared to other recent bricked releases. That's normal when dynamics are restored- just turn up the volume and enjoy it as it was meant to be heard.
I bought various editions of the album on CD, vinyl, and the 2448 download. All suffer from abuse of a brickwall limiter.
I discovered a velocity based technique (not using EQ) for restoring bass to music that has been damaged by a brickwall limiter. The technique can also be used to create additional bass from existing bass cues (it fixed Strong Hand).
I downloaded a DTS 5.1 mix of the album because I thought maybe it was mastered properly. I used eac3to to convert the multichannel mix to stereo. I tried with and without the LF channel- with LF was overkill on the bass. Most of the tracks were excellent and not brickwalled, having 3 to 6dB headroom!
For unknown reasons Lies and Science-Visions had about 4db more synth (not vocals) in the left channel making them unusable. By The Throat had way too much dynamic range and sounded weird for unknown reasons. For those tracks, I used the CD versions. The technique works on limiter bricked CD audio too (not clipped- though there's probably a way to fix those...a future project).
Just so you know, DTS is a lossy format, however the bitrate is so high (1411KBps) that it is typically transparent to even those with golden ears.
Below are the tracks with the sources. I used the multichannel feature in Audition and each song had its own effects rack so I could tweak each song as needed using my ears and meters. The DTS mix for most songs is good to go, only needing minor level adjustments. Their "mastering engineer" is likely the one who bricked the CD mix as the DTS version is fine. Bricking makes the work really quick and LOUD, but ruins the album. Doing it properly takes more time.
I added a few tracks that should have been on TBOWYB. Strong Hand was left off the main album probably because the mix wasn't right. Clearly it needed work on the levels and dynamics, but I can't believe they could not figure it out. The version presented here sounds awesome and fits right in. You won't have to turn up the volume to hear it, and there's proper bass now. It's my favorite Chvrches song and the main reason why I remastered the albums (I did EOE and LID too, look for them).
All processing done at 32/44.1. 16bit output file made with 1 bit triangular dither, no noise shaping. Tracks made with CD Wave Editor. Traders Little Helper to fix last song's SBE. FLACs made with Flac Frontend. MP3Tag to add tags.
DTS tracks: 1411KBps DTS 5.1 down to 2 channels via EAC3To and Arcsoft decoder, no LFE for proper bass
CD tracks: 16bits 44.1Ks/sec
songs:
DTS 01 - The Mother We Share (Unofficial Remaster v1.1).flac
DTS 02 - We Sink (Unofficial Remaster v1.1).flac
DTS 03 - Gun (Unofficial Remaster v1.1).flac
DTS 04 - Tether (Unofficial Remaster v1.1).flac
CD 05 - Lies (Unofficial Remaster v1.1).flac
DTS 06 - Under the Tide (Unofficial Remaster v1.1).flac
DTS 07 - Recover (Unofficial Remaster v1.1).flac
DTS 08 - Night Sky (Unofficial Remaster v1.1).flac
CD 09 - Science-Visions (Unofficial Remaster v1.1).flac
DTS 10 - Lungs (Unofficial Remaster v1.1).flac
CD 11 - By the Throat (Unofficial Remaster v1.1).flac
DTS 12 - Strong Hand (Unofficial Remaster v1.1).flac
CD 13 - ZVVL (Unofficial Remaster v1.1).flac
CD 14 - Bela Lugosi's Dead (Unofficial Remaster v1.1).flac
DTS 15 - You Caught the Light (Unofficial Remaster v1.1).flac
Total time = 58:32
For those that want to burn a CDR, a WAV-CUE is available at (open with 7zip or WinRAR):
https://mega.nz/file/59UCCCKL#YySkniwHYxJZAix7hdPdns5mCHDlUcs42kymfDSG18w
password (all caps):
ILOVECHVRCHES
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