On a serious note, I strive to utilize everything I can to the best of my ability, making use of every knob, and making sure nothing gets unnoticed. Getting weird combinations, to get really cool sounds, to then sometimes resample.
Nowadays, amongst everyone else, it's a dick measuring contest. For me, it's my way of going about experimentality.
You could argue that certain devices weren't needed; I know it's merely a taste for vault boy and I. Some people like over-saturated noise, others like mass amounts of filtering with strange devices. We like modulation. A whole lot of it. I’m sorry you hate our workflow, we’ll do better next time! 😃
Phasing issues aren't that bad. Hans Zimmer does it a lot - It adds tension. But knowing how to turn it off is an important thing to know, if it ever came down to it.
Since I've left AT, I've seen and made true clean mixes. This track could be a lot better. It doesn't help that the EQs here have such shitty phasing issues, with the combination of phase offset by just not knowing what we were fucking doing in general. It's just muddy is all, though. It's not a terrible mix, but it's also not as clean as you think.
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It's better to re-check your resources, than to assume someone is wrong for commenting such a bold statement on such a large track.