Perhaps the below story will give you some insight, or perhaps you don't agree and would like to share your view.
- As a note, what came to mind when thinking of distortion - is the classic distorted electrical guitar, or hardstyle kick. In general, using distortion to get that distortion sound.
- On another note, working in SOLO if find if I like a synth sound and then add distortion to it, what I originally like about it completely falls away (usually the lower frequencies and its character) and I am left with something that does not resemeble what I enjoyed in the first place.
- So basically, distortion isnt something I tend to go towards.
Soon enough I put a little amount of distortion on everything. And when finally looking for a synth part, I just had some distortion on that too - suddenly i had TOO many options for a synth part.
Funny thing is, if you solo the track you can probably here some distortion in each of the channel, but all together its not that noticable (i hope!) - and the whole mix seems to open up more / get more life. It no longer sounds weak or far away.
I wonder if others have considered the above, already do this. Perhaps there's a better way to go about it? Would love to hear your input.
- TL;DR - Didn't quite like distortion. Now I think I may use distortion on everything, with the idea that it opens the mix up/gives it life and helps sounds sit with each other while at the same you can barely notice any distortion has actually been applied. Atleast not that classic 'hard distortion' sound.