Deaf Twink Criticizes MAYHEM’s Mastering

[River 115,087]

10 minutes ago, Alvitr said:

Truth being said here  

 

Sometimes a great production and mixing is not what makes a great song… That’s why ARTPOP still is better than Mayhem

 

Even if Mayhem is a chefs kiss in terms of production and mixing, like you can’t deny it’s heavenly engineered… However, it also holds the most skip songs from her (pop) albums, sorry

Me when i move my little hair to the side and lie to myself that nobody sees my bald scalp 

[lastpopicon 29,080]

He got exactly the reaction he wanted, liddos are so predictable 

[HelloHangoverz 17,443]

3 minutes ago, lastpopicon said:

He got exactly the reaction he wanted, liddos are so predictable 

Oh dear, she said it 

[TheARTPOPball 366]

The only issue i have is garden of eden is so LOUD and heavy to listen to in the second half of the second chorus, like headache inducing loud. Still one of my favorites though

[PopMusicForever 626]

8 hours ago, rinasawachanta said:

The first time I heard GoE I thought it was a demo 

In my opinion I this GoE is the best produced song on Mayhem. 
It sounds like a heartbeat slowed down and taking you in and out every second of it.

[Cavadour 2,325]

Mayhem is insanely loud and brickwalled. But as others say, it's by choice. It's a feature. To get inside the nuances of the songs, I really appreciated listening to it on low volume. It's always easier to lower intensity of basses or highs, to tamper the compression and adjust it to your listening comfort, than trying to increase these missing elements when the general sound is flat, like on many 70's vinyl masters, for instance.

That said I also like to dive into the monster sound of Mayhem, on my various audio system home, car and industrial studio unit... Bose, JBL or Mackie PA. In a neighborhood friendly place, with the ability to crank up the volume, the bigger the audio system the better the album sounds.

Mayhem is a high octane album. At first, it just swept on me like a storm and induced ear fatigue before I found a way to handle it properly. It took me some days to realize how lound'n'heavy it was. Once I kinda tamed the songs, the choice of an appropriate listening volume became more evident.

 

[lilboyblue 5,022]

Oh, the boredom. It's all fine.

[monketsharona 79,731]

Let me guess, he's a Miley Cyrus stan ?they are trashing Andrew Watt since Miley trashed Plastic Hearts 

A joke know Miley has gone so downhill qualiwise since he and Mark left 

Edited 15 hours ago by monketsharona

[NewHairTeaJeans 143]

He just wanna sound like he knows something about music since I've read that he's also an artist. It's an ego boost more than a criticism imo

[chathonnete 711]

This post is almost bullying lmao people can have negative opinions about Gaga 

I agree with him about the mixing, Mayhem has some amazing songs but is one of her least conhisive album, it feels like she added soft songs just to include DWAS and named it Mayhem 

[princedeeblebleble 1,441]

Some of y'all twinks never listened to death metal and it shows 

The only song I'd say the mixing is a bit odd is perhaps in Kill for love and CSTH, but even that's probs because its ripped songs, cause they sound a bit better on cd. Now if we wanna discuss bad mixing, Joanne says hey where I feel like everything was washed the **** out.

[Lemon Blood 59]

No! MAYHEM is perfect as it is

piss off Malfoy

[Windowlicker 3,484]

He’s not totally wrong. But it has everything to do with where/how the music is being consumed and not some engineering failure. There is a different master used for digital and CD, whereas the vinyl master typically has a bigger soundstage and is more open and dynamic. This has been a controversial and prevalent issue in music for decades and got particularly bad during the late 2000s into the 2010s. Look up the loudness wars and you’ll see. It’s not some bold, artistic choice. It’s just because the way we consume music is constantly changing. Most music now is mastered for streaming/small speakers.

[Ziggy 11,631]

On 6/21/2025 at 10:44 AM, Ladle Ghoulash said:

I can’t help but wonder if that isn’t because the only versions we have are ripped from vinyl. But even at that, I still like the looser/live/garage-y disco kind of feel on tbh 

Yeah I’m feeling like…are people too used to digital tracks…even old ones are often remastered now but I feel like a lot of tracks here give me oooold school sound. Zombieboy being one such example but even in those cases the mastering is better than just a clean rip. Idk I think mayhem largely strikes a great balance between music feeling tangible and palatable to digitally cultured sensibilities .

[Ziggy 11,631]

4 hours ago, Windowlicker said:

He’s not totally wrong. But it has everything to do with where/how the music is being consumed and not some engineering failure. There is a different master used for digital and CD, whereas the vinyl master typically has a bigger soundstage and is more open and dynamic. This has been a controversial and prevalent issue in music for decades and got particularly bad during the late 2000s into the 2010s. Look up the loudness wars and you’ll see. It’s not some bold, artistic choice. It’s just because the way we consume music is constantly changing. Most music now is mastered for streaming/small speakers.

I think it’s a little of both, though. Bc yes everything you said but also Gaga has been very adamant about the intentionality she brings to the general sound quality of an album. Not just the “vibe” but the literal textural quality she wants her albums to have and that def comes down to mixing and mastering