Distortion and Stereo?

[Sven Johansson]

Hi Tony!

Thanks for making song like Survior sounding as good as it does, I love it.

I was wondering about distortion and stereo widening. It sometimes feels like both dist and stereo prossesors can fatten things up quite much. but it can also make things flatt.

How do you use distortion and stereo prossesing in your mixing?


Thanks again for your great work!
/Sven

[Tony Maserati]

Originally Posted by Sven Johansson

Hi Tony!

Thanks for making song like Survior sounding as good as it does, I love it.

I was wondering about distortion and stereo widening. It sometimes feels like both dist and stereo prossesors can fatten things up quite much. but it can also make things flatt.

How do you use distortion and stereo prossesing in your mixing?


Thanks again for your great work!
/Sven

Hey Sven,
Good questions. Distortion on one instrument/track can flatten the whole mix, if not used well. I pay very close attention to the overall phase relationships of the 'dry' program to 'effected'. Everytime you use a plug in on an insert it creates a different phase relationship for that instrument to the rest of the track. Pay close attention to how that's working. I will if the delay is too long, I'll print the effect and set it back in time. If the phase suggests it should be farther away from the dry(orig) sound, I'll delay it more. Point being; don't accept the phase relationship given to you by you're DAW, manipulate it till it sounds best to you, in the track.

To create stereo width, I will use lots of different effects. Chorusing, Delays, NonLin Verbs, and various combinations of those with filters. Again paying very close attention to the cummulative phase relationship to the track.

Listening in Mono is imperative when working with stereo width processing. The last thing you want is for your BGV's to get canceled out on TV. Listening in Mono will help you get a better sound overall, not just in headphones.

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