Lana songs with poor mastering/engineering?

[Evergreen 8,664]

Some of you be saying anything I'll just post a quote from Dean Reid (one of her collaborators) about how Lana hears music, and many of the things you mentioned are intentional.

Dean Reid: “We do a lot of low-pass filtering and lo-fying to take the edge off the high end. We use plug-ins all the time to darken stuff. With vocals and acoustic instruments I’m always notching out harsh frequencies. Any high squeal or ring will be sucked out. Lana likes to listen to things on her iPod on the beach, and she wants them to sound murky and mysterious. We’re very conscious of that. If we do something that doesn’t fit and that sticks out, we immediately get reactions from Lana or Rick. There is this thing about Lana that if we know she’ll be showing up in half an hour, we have an instinct about what she’s going to like and what not, and so it’s like: ‘Hurry up and make it sound good, so when she walks in the door she’ll be smiling.’ And if she’s not smiling we know how to pull it together really quickly. But she’s in the room for much of the process, and incredibly meticulous about vocal levels, for example. A lot of the vocal rides are dictated by her. She hears 0.2dB differences in volume, and when we got the first mastered songs back, she was really dismayed by how they sounded, and it turned out to be the dithering down from 24- to 16-bit that was bothering her! She has great ears and an impeccable sense of aesthetic.”

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/inside-track-lana-del-rey-lust-life

[EstelsDream 742]

Notice how most of this is Jacks handmark... and yet he gets glazed he is not the best producer neither a mixer

[Honeytrails 2,667]

33 minutes ago, Evergreen said:

Some of you be saying anything I'll just post a quote from Dean Reid (one of her collaborators) about how Lana hears music, and many of the things you mentioned are intentional.

Dean Reid: “We do a lot of low-pass filtering and lo-fying to take the edge off the high end. We use plug-ins all the time to darken stuff. With vocals and acoustic instruments I’m always notching out harsh frequencies. Any high squeal or ring will be sucked out. Lana likes to listen to things on her iPod on the beach, and she wants them to sound murky and mysterious. We’re very conscious of that. If we do something that doesn’t fit and that sticks out, we immediately get reactions from Lana or Rick. There is this thing about Lana that if we know she’ll be showing up in half an hour, we have an instinct about what she’s going to like and what not, and so it’s like: ‘Hurry up and make it sound good, so when she walks in the door she’ll be smiling.’ And if she’s not smiling we know how to pull it together really quickly. But she’s in the room for much of the process, and incredibly meticulous about vocal levels, for example. A lot of the vocal rides are dictated by her. She hears 0.2dB differences in volume, and when we got the first mastered songs back, she was really dismayed by how they sounded, and it turned out to be the dithering down from 24- to 16-bit that was bothering her! She has great ears and an impeccable sense of aesthetic.”

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/inside-track-lana-del-rey-lust-life

just because its intentional doesn’t mean its a good thing

[White Hot 4Ever 324]

anyway leak HDB mastered to rate its mastering 

[Dark Angel 203,395]

8 hours ago, 111 said:

95% of this thread:

is confusing mixing with mastering

confusing her intentional production and recording choices with "bad mixing"

 

 

well, in that case, her intention production and recording choices are bad

[DeadSeaOfMercury 23,206]

[taco truck 33,415]

The only songs where the mixing genuinely bothers me are-

1. Kinstugi (sure maybe it’s intentional but it makes an otherwise great song just really grating to my ear)

2. Fingertips (HATEEEEE the voice memo stuff)

3. Fishtail 

4. Arcadia 

A lot of the mixing on Blue Banisters bothers me in general but isn’t my main issue with the songs so I’m not counting those lol. I think aside from Fishtail and Kinstugi I enjoy how Jack and Laura mix/master her work I’ve always felt her voice sounds very clear. She does much more “muffling” on Honeymoon and LFL. 

[Charlottexseax 8,011]

6 hours ago, Honeytrails said:

just because its intentional doesn’t mean its a good thing

but it means that you are not complaining about a FLAW but rather you are complaining about Lana’s creative vision itself 

[Thunder Revenant 20,966]

I get that it's an artistic choice in some cases and I think it works in some instances (like Peppers) but in others (Fishtails, Grandfather, Kintsugi) it's just annoying as hell. Also, I feel like in sone cases it's not even an artistic choice but Laura Siska doing a terrible job (Let The Light In is so quiet for no apparent reason).

 

Then there is that remaster of Thunder that feels like a downgrade from the demo on many levels, including the mastering

[Let the Light In 18,858]

8 minutes ago, Charlottexseax said:

but it means that you are not complaining about a FLAW but rather you are complaining about Lana’s creative vision itself 

so Lana's creative vision itself is a flaw 

[baddisease 17,946]

7 hours ago, Evergreen said:

Some of you be saying anything I'll just post a quote from Dean Reid (one of her collaborators) about how Lana hears music, and many of the things you mentioned are intentional.

Dean Reid: “We do a lot of low-pass filtering and lo-fying to take the edge off the high end. We use plug-ins all the time to darken stuff. With vocals and acoustic instruments I’m always notching out harsh frequencies. Any high squeal or ring will be sucked out. Lana likes to listen to things on her iPod on the beach, and she wants them to sound murky and mysterious. We’re very conscious of that. If we do something that doesn’t fit and that sticks out, we immediately get reactions from Lana or Rick. There is this thing about Lana that if we know she’ll be showing up in half an hour, we have an instinct about what she’s going to like and what not, and so it’s like: ‘Hurry up and make it sound good, so when she walks in the door she’ll be smiling.’ And if she’s not smiling we know how to pull it together really quickly. But she’s in the room for much of the process, and incredibly meticulous about vocal levels, for example. A lot of the vocal rides are dictated by her. She hears 0.2dB differences in volume, and when we got the first mastered songs back, she was really dismayed by how they sounded, and it turned out to be the dithering down from 24- to 16-bit that was bothering her! She has great ears and an impeccable sense of aesthetic.”

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/inside-track-lana-del-rey-lust-life

 

Then how she intends it to be sounds flawed.

 

16 minutes ago, Charlottexseax said:

but it means that you are not complaining about a FLAW but rather you are complaining about Lana’s creative vision itself 

 

A creative vision can be flawed. And Lana does better musically when people are there to help her rein it in,

[lemonade motorcycle heaven 324]

Any songs when you can hear loud background noise when vocals play

bartender, arcadia, heroin, etc

[ivory almond 16,325]

what are yall on?

the drums in wildflower wildfire are beautiful, i love the crackling because it provokes the imagery of an actual fire

 

i also think fishtail's mixing is fine because of its aesthetic/vibe; on the other hand, the muffled quality of kintsugi is unlistenable, especially since it's a quiet piano ballad

Margaret's mixing is another one that bothered me because of the muffled quality, honestly might be her worst mixing imo

 

i agree with the takes on arcadia's vocals and their clipping/distortion, but any critique of bbs, living legend, or thunder is confusing to me and i literally don't hear the demo that you guys keep saying is underneath the final mix

 

the only songs i have problems with because of their mixing/mastering is:

 

1. Wild At Heart

2. Dark But Just A Game

3. Arcadia

4. Kintsugi

5. Fingertips

6. Margaret

 

personally, I think Ocean Blvd has the worst mixing and Chemtrails/Blue Banisters has the worst mastering while Honeymoon has the best mixing and mastering

[Crimson and Clover 22,547]

Arcadia’s chorus hurts my ears   May be the only time I truly had an issue with a song’s production or whatever, it sounds like tinnitus at times

[terrenceszyou 1,342]

Of all of them, the one that catches my attention the most is Arcadia and You'll Never Walk Alone. They're songs that are too good for the little attention given to their mixing.

Lana likes them, and I know that she wants some of her high notes in certain tracks to be really shrill. In most of them, it works, like, for example, in the final verse of the bridge of Kintsugi.

 

However, in Arcadia and You'll Never Walk Alone, it seems like a mistake to me. I hate tracks that I have to listen to and adjust the volume because some parts are louder than others. I understand when elements appear in a song and it becomes more full-bodied, and it's okay to have a small difference in volume for the musical experience, but in these, in particular, the difference is too big and makes me think that they would be two extremely great songs if they had taken care to avoid that.

 

Imagine Young and Beautiful with only the loud chorus and the initial verses extremely whispered and with minimal instrumental. Tiresome to listen to. Annoying.

 

I will always understand Lana's creative choices. Some of her songs are not meant to be listened to recreationally; some are simply there to be part of your listening experience on the album. Fingertips, for example, is one of her best creations; but it is by no means a song you would listen to while washing the dishes. And it is only powerful because it was conceived the way it was. A spontaneous audio and a random piano underneath. I like that.

 

But I don't forgive these two songs. They seem like poorly utilized proposals. She could have made a great soundtrack if she had conceived a good production for You'll Never Walk Alone. And it would have been a classic track if she had done the same with Arcadia. In fact, the lack of success of both tracks is, unconsciously for the fans, due to this.

[heroindealer 11,254]

the greatest flop of them all  how can u muffle all the audio tracks and silence the guitar thinking it’d sound better omg and rely on the piano this is literally a crime i never come back to this song just cause how ruined it is by miss cyst and jackoff

[heroindealer 11,254]

also how can ppl think ocean is badly mixed????  i’ll never get the fingertips slander they literally made a song out of voice memos and if they hadn’t said they did y’all would’ve never complained

 

jack and cysteine chemtrails and nfr exist so saying ocean is their worst mixed record is just wrong 

[Poor Stacy 12,095]

I genuinely have zero issues aside from Arcadia before it was fixed. I hate it when the vocals clip and that was an issue there but I believe it was resolved. Otherwise everything just feels very intentional and done on purpose.