Hi guys.
Recently I had a conversation with a man who is in charge of mix’n’master (let’s call him NJ) of our incoming album (10+ songs). It is like a soft rock/alternative music style (with lot of electric guitar & acousitc guitars, bass guitar here and there) mixed with electronic beats and synth sounds. And I am the one responsible for these synths. I was using the Digitone heavily because I just love its sound. Since it’s really versatile I could use it almost in every situation. For me, it was really perfect device for our music. That’s my intro.
Now, what’s an issue? When NJ heard these synths while working on our tracks he stopped for a while like something is not quite right. He said that “it sounds like these synth records are too narrow. Like the panning/stereo spectrum is not very wide. And I am talking almost about all of them, it is everywhere.” I did not hear much of an issue there myself but I am far from being professional in sound design and stuff. According to him this can be a problem, since typically things like lead vocals occupy the middle of stereo field and synthesis voices should be much wider. Should not be there just where the singing is. He thinks “I feel like this sound is something of a fake. Especially pad sounds should occupy much wider space.”
To be honest it hurt cause I really love the sound. I am really not an expert in this area at all, but there must be something wrong with
A) my recording process (I recorded almost everything with OB, but when I compared these recordings and some sound I captured through DN audio outs I could not hear much difference)
B) with DN sounds in general (I hope A or some other letter is true)
That’s why I turn to you, dear Elektronauts, people who are using the DN much more often and maybe can say something. Do you think DN sounds are of a high quality? Have you ever dealt with issues like this using DN?
Thank you for any advices and shared experiences.
Paul