Was ARTPOP mastered poorly? (DJ's comment)

[OBEY 57,109]

Only thing i don't like is applause's vocals. Idk, for every song on ARTPOP, the vocals are clear and they seem 'over' the instrumental, but with applause the vocals are like 'on the same level' as the instrumental. I really don,t know how to explain it  

[Spanish Eyes 2,279]

I have a bachelor's in Music Technology, and I'm going to clear some things up. First of all, DJWS is far too big of a producer to do his own mastering. I guarantee it was done by a separate person. Furthermore, overcompression is incredibly common in modern pop music. Look up "Loudness wars."

 

Anyway, in my opinion, it wasn't a perfect mastering job, but it was not mastered poorly. It fits the genre well. If you're referring to lack of clarity or an inability to hear all the parts correctly, then the mix is the problem, not the mastering.

[Bebe 17,093]

Just now, Benji said:

I've criticised practically the whole album for bad mastering, so to say I've only criticised one song is false? That's my point.

It's easy to show people that shoddy mastering because we have a demo where the mastering is different, making Applause an easy example of my point?

The only excuse people have for the bad mastering is "oh, it must be on purpose" but even if it was, is that even a good thing? I purposely made this song sound off because it was my vision? ... Sounds pretty crap to me!

You have criticised the entire album, but you only ever use on song as your example. Applause is a great example for you to use because it's basically the only track on the album that has been criticised for the way it was mixed.

Now you are also just misunderstanding my point anyway. Applause isn't my favourite song, I don't like how it was mixed, my only point is that it was deliberate. Not some mistake or a result of a bad sound engineer and mixer. Dave Russell mixed Applause, he has been involved in recording, mixing and mastering her songs since Just Dance.

I don't think the choices made in the mixing of Applause necessarily paid off, but the way it was mixed was intentional.

I just shared an article on it's mixing that I thought would be interesting, I didn't really expect you to sass me as if I was coming for your mother.

[Benji 20,113]

1 minute ago, Spanish Eyes said:

I have a bachelor's in Music Technology, and I'm going to clear some things up. First of all, DJWS is far too big of a producer to do his own mastering. I guarantee it was done by a separate person. Furthermore, overcompression is incredibly common in modern pop music. Look up "Loudness wars."

 

Anyway, in my opinion, it wasn't a perfect mastering job, but it was not mastered poorly. It fits the genre well. If you're referring to lack of clarity or an inability to hear all the parts correctly, then the mix is the problem, not the mastering.

Thanks for clarifying!

[Benji 20,113]

4 minutes ago, Bebe said:

You have criticised the entire album, but you only ever use on song as your example. Applause is a great example for you to use because it's basically the only track on the album that has been criticised for the way it was mixed.

Now you are also just misunderstanding my point anyway. Applause isn't my favourite song, I don't like how it was mixed, my only point is that it was deliberate. Not some mistake or a result of a bad sound engineer and mixer. Dave Russell mixed Applause, he has been involved in recording, mixing and mastering her songs since Just Dance.

I don't think the choices made in the mixing of Applause necessarily paid off, but the way it was mixed was intentional.

I just shared an article on it's mixing that I thought would be interesting, I didn't really expect you to sass me as if I was coming for your mother.

I didn't "sass" you at all? If you reread this thread, you actually started coming for me and what I've posted in the past over actually discussing the topic at hand or the material you posted here? If you think I'm being sassy, then sorry, I was only applying the same abrasive attitude as I was receiving.

[Katsuki Bakugo 9,788]

Overall I think BTW was mastered terribly incomparison to ARTPOP. ARTPOP is cleaner sounding comparitively to BTW but both albums were rushed so you know lets see what LG5 brings with how much time she has had!

[Alfonso 1,547]

2 hours 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.

 

1 hour ago, DominicB said:

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.

This 

[XoXoJoanneGaga 629]

ARTPOP mainly suffers from poor mixing, whereas BTW suffers from poor mastering. That's not to say that the mastering isn't faulty on AP too but it's not as glaring. It's mainly the DJWS and Madeon songs that are really egregious though. Zedd's songs along with Fashion and Dope are fine in this department (disregarding the vocals during the Donatella chorus lol)

[Koreku 2,387]

I don't have any knowledge in music engineering whatsoever, but I truly feel like something is off in Sexxx Dreams, particularly in the fast "du-du-du-du" that occurs right when Gaga says "last niiight.." then for the rest of the chorus, some parts of the instrumental sound very.. diluted? Like, it's just one clump of noise, that results in a "tsss" noise  I could be over-thinking this all.

@Spanish Eyes Does this kinda make sense? Would you say that Sexxx Dreams's chorus is mixed/mastered badly?

[XoXoJoanneGaga 629]

7 minutes ago, Koreku said:

I don't have any knowledge in music engineering whatsoever, but I truly feel like something is off in Sexxx Dreams, particularly in the fast "du-du-du-du" that occurs right when Gaga says "last niiight.." then for the rest of the chorus, some parts of the instrumental sound very.. diluted? Like, it's just one clump of noise, that results in a "tsss" noise  I could be over-thinking this all.

@Spanish Eyes Does this kinda make sense? Would you say that Sexxx Dreams's chorus is mixed/mastered badly?

Yea Sexxx Dreams has some of the most noticeable compression. That clumping you describe where the individual elements are muddled together and lacking in clarity is painfully obvious on this track because of how much better it sounded at the iTunes Festival. The synths really shone and sounded explosive there as opposed to flattened and vacuum-packed on the record, and the sparser tempo lended everything a bit more clarity.

[Noam Zioni 1,196]

I haven't notice it until now and I still don't 

ARTPOP is great just have a good listen without thinking about all of the **** around 

[Nino 12]

ARTPOP was.mastered well.

Born this way though was a lil  at times though

[Didymus 34,379]

BTW and ARTPOP are both terrible.

I mean, it's almost off-putting how The Fame is so superior in terms of mixing and mastering compared to her next records.

[Hecturr 1,924]

I mean, if you listen to fashion of his love , you can hear this terrible noise in the background. it kinda gets washed out in the album version ,but you can still hear it. Can't say i heard anything like that on ARTPOP 

[Yanko 9,860]

yes.