Apparently amidst all the raves Sugar is getting one pedantic fellow posted to castrecl that he is angry about the way we placed the instruments in the stereo soundfield because it doesn't exactly match how a symphony orchestra (or maybe any orchestra) would be - to which I say - this is a RECORDING and we do what's best for clarity sake and it's not far off what it would be anyway. When Bacharach put the strings on the right in his mix of Promises he did so because he felt like it - tough. I moved them back to the left on our remix only because we moved other stuff around for clarity sake - the idea is to have CLARITY - so that the wonderful orchestrations can shine forth and still not get in the way of the vocals. Heaven save me from pedants and people who only go by some ancient "rule." There used to be the ancient "rules" about how cast albums were recorded. That was how you did it. Period. Vinnie and I came along and broke every rule you could and people looked at us askance for the first two years. After that, they began to copy us, and now cast albums are done the way we do them. So, we changed the rules, I guess and they were good changes. But pedants can't deal with anything but what's set in stone. For me, nothing is set in stone and recordings must work for the ear. Nor is there anything wrong with how the instruments are placed in the soundfield, and since everyone BUT him is raving about how it sounds like it was recorded yesterday and how clear everything is, well, pedants go home.
