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Was ARTPOP mastered poorly? (DJ's comment)


Benji

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I was just hunting for some interesting Gaga audio and stumbled across this thread on a forum. They're discussing the reversal of bad mastering and they use Applause as an example, it's a pretty interesting read!

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/mastering-forum/883134-repairing-damage-done-brick-wall-mastering.html

Read the whole thread (it took me like five minutes) to get the whole story but here's an extract -

"I’ve attached a screen shot of Lady Gaga’s Applause on Audacity. Heavy pumping can be heard on every beat (although this may be an artistic choice) and the whole track only has a DR of 5dB! Once the track gets going it becomes a mess of compressed sound. However there is no real clipping, and SeeDeClip Pro only manages to extend some peaks by around a dB.

The first stereo track in Audacity is Track 1 from the CD single, the original vocal mix, below it Track 2 from the CD single is the Instrumental. The third track is the Instrumental subtracted from the vocal mix, effectively giving a “Fake ACappella” where you can hear the instrumental backing pumping in and out with the vocal – clearly the extra compression that the orginal vocal mix has. – Could the instrumental be used to undo this in some way?

In the second attachment, I have used the Audacity Equalization (by Martyn Shaw & Mitch Golden) which appears to be zero phase, as an 80Hz LPF (as there should be very little vocal below 80Hz) on the original vocal mix and the instrumental. Subtracting the instrumental from the vocal (to give the bottom track) it can be seen that when my “Fake ACappella” is loud, the 80Hz LPF difference increases. Could I somehow use that track to automatically increase the gain on the original vocal mix, undoing the additional limiting that the original vocal mix has above the instrumental?

Also, I could possibly manually gain adjust a single beat to reduce the volume “pumping” that can be heard with each beat, but how could I automatically do that through the whole track (without spending hours doing each beat manually)?

I’m guessing that Audacity may not cut it for what I am attempting. What other (low cost) software would you suggest that would enable me to achieve what I am trying to do, with a level of automation?"

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/9581875-post5.html

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I've always said there's something off about the mastering so I guess it makes sense to me. I mean the Demo for Applause sounds better in places to me.

 

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Kermit

Most of the album, yes.

“For me, insanity is super sanity. The normal is psychotic. Normal means lack of imagination, lack of creativity.” ― Jean Dubuffet
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giskardsb

Mastering songs to remove dynamic range and make them as "loud" as possible for radio is a plague that effects every radio artist, unfortunately.

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DrewStevens

Was it poorly mastered? No.

Does the mastering in ARTPOP has some flaws? Definitely.

In my opinion the songs produced by DJWS are the ones with the most noticeable flaws, Sexxx Dreams and Jewels N Drugs are the ones were the flaws are more notorious. Zedd's production and mastering was better.

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Kermit
9 minutes ago, DrewStevens said:

Was it poorly mastered? No.

Does the mastering in ARTPOP has some flaws? Definitely.

In my opinion the songs produced by DJWS are the ones with the most noticeable flaws, Sexxx Dreams and Jewels N Drugs are the ones were the flaws are more notorious. Zedd's production and mastering was better.

I thought that Gaga had an engineering team and the producers' jobs were to just produce the instrumental, I think that DJWS' production has some sort of awkward chips and she should just send the unmastered acapellas and instrumentals to a professional mastering team because the bass in J&D was very awkward and to rambunctious.

“For me, insanity is super sanity. The normal is psychotic. Normal means lack of imagination, lack of creativity.” ― Jean Dubuffet
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Jewels n Drugs

Must yall complain about everything

oh look when you werent looking my motorcycle turned into a piano
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RainingOnMe
Just now, Jewels n Drugs said:

Must yall complain about everything

Why is sharing an opinion equivalent to complaining 'about everything'? we're allowed to have opinions lol

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DrewStevens
4 minutes ago, DominicB said:

I thought that Gaga had an engineering team and the producers' jobs were to just produce the instrumental, I think that DJWS' production has some sort of awkward chips and she should just send the unmastered acapellas and instrumentals to a professional mastering team because the bass in J&D was very awkward and to rambunctious.

The problem is that an engineering team can't do a lot with an instrumental after being compressed and the most noticeable flaws were in the production.

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RainingOnMe
2 minutes ago, etron said:

What even is mastering? :neyde:

The volume of each individual part to the song. Example vocals, backing vocals, drums, synths, etc

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Kermit
1 minute ago, etron said:

What even is mastering? :neyde:

A mastering engineer can unify your album with skillful use of EQ, gain, and compression to give it a consistent sound from track to track. This process also allows the mastering engineer to pump up the volume of your overall album so it's as hot as can be and make it sound unbelievable.

Basically making it not sound crappy, out of place, out of tune or anything for that matter.

“For me, insanity is super sanity. The normal is psychotic. Normal means lack of imagination, lack of creativity.” ― Jean Dubuffet
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TheFame Monster

I noticed this with Applause a few weeks ago and it bothers me now when I listen to it. In the verses I can you hear this wah sound in the background 

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