Human Mistakes SpedeMix

[Spede]

Do you use distortion as an insert effect or a parallel configuration? Sometimes when a song is sparse on parts and the mix goes loose as a goose, I'll use distortion as a subtle send effect to thicken it up, since spreading it all out usually makes it sound even thinner. Pads are good for that, too which is why you've used them in tandem. Cool beans, dude!

From time to time I've pondered about the idea of setting up an FX return with distortion and sending stuff there (like with reverb). I sometimes wonder if engineer's such as Spike Stent might have done something like that back in the 90s when the console was the main mix tool (and the idea of owning a rackful of distortions sounds pretty ridiculous). The idea of drum subgroup distortion sounds pretty fascinating to me.

But so far I've actually used all my distortion processing as inserts; almost all the dist plugins which I use feature a mix knob and quite often the blend could be something like 20/80 (80% dry). So not counting some of the more subtle processing (gentle tape sat and such) essentially it's parallel distortion all over the place.