You have nothing to get defensive about here, just PLEASE listen to what we are saying to try to help you! You asked "what am I doing wrong", and all I can say is that we are trying to tell you - but you don't seem to be listening. IMO, it would be a shame if you left with these errors in your tutorials , but that's up to you
avensa wrote:
I am listening, and I appreciate you helping me, but what I'm saying is that I learned these tricks from other people (DDL-1 from Lucky Date & Mattias, splitting & panning from Dennis Pedersen etc..). The way you're saying it is making it sound like I came up with all of this stuff. I'll ask again, How do you make your synths stereo? What exactly am I doing wrong? Everything you see in my tutorials is what I've learned from professionals over the years, so give me a reason to why you wouldn't think I'd use them?
I'll happily answer these questions... I do wish that you would answer mine. I'm trying to be constructive and give you the benefit of the doubt, and again, I honestly would like to see you continue to make videos. Like Selig, I believe that tutorials with incorrect or bad information can do more harm than good.
Stereo perception requires that our ears hear
different things. At the most basic level, this means either different sounds, or the same sound with a
level (volume) difference or
time difference between L and R channels.
Splitting then immediately hard-panning a signal doesn't give you a
difference between L and R channels. Turning the pan knob gives you a level difference, and inserting a delay (less than 20 milliseconds) in ONE channel (but not both) will give you a time difference. The listener will perceive a time-difference signal as coming from the direction of the channel without the delay. (This is known as the Haas, or precedence effect.)
There is
no difference between spitting a signal and hard-panning each split component and routing the same signal directly. You will achieve a doubling of volume (+6db), but you could easily do that simply by turning a knob clockwise.
(As an aside, mixing and signal level concepts are universal, regardless of the genre of music you are making... Final mix decisions may vary, but "hot" signals aren't any better suited for country western than EDM.)
If you spit your signal, you could apply some sort of processing, like a distortion unit, to one channel before hard-panning, and this would result in a difference between L and R channels, creating a stereo effect of sorts. In Mattias' video, he used TWO Maelstroms, detuning each in different directions, then hard-panned each synth, creating a subtle but effective stereo effect. (Or, again, a DDL-1 inserted into ONE but not both channels to create a Haas effect.)
Those are the basic principles that can be used to create stereo space. Selig and I asked you what you are trying to do, and you responded with appeals to the authority of other producers. To me, this suggests that you are still trying to learn and understand these concepts. Wonderful! My area of research includes acoustic perception, and I'm still getting things wrong (and learning) every day.
We're really not "slamming" you. Just trying to help. The errors you are making in your videos are relatively simple and get in the way of allowing you to express your creative sound design ideas.