# Mixing Modern Orchestral Music | Ebook for sample library composers



## Joël Dollié (Jun 15, 2018)

Hello everyone,

My name is Joël and i'm a mixing and mastering engineer who specializes in mixing modern orchestral film/trailer music (as well as classical).

I want to tell you about my E-book, which was just released yesterday.

The reason i decided to write an E-book about mixing modern orchestral music is that when i started out as an orchestral composer, i remember how much i struggled to find any information about that topic. Pretty much all the mixing tutorials were for pop and rock and the tutorials on mixing orchestral music and sample libraries mostly teached the very basics and weren't that helpful.

This book skips most of the very basics and goes straight to the point. It tackles new modern ways of processing orchestral music and goes deep into the why and how of things. If you are a trailer/film/game/media composer who wants to learn how to mix orchestral instruments, or even someone who is already advanced but wants to learn new things, this book is for you.

For the most part, the information in this book is particularly targeted towards orchestral music that is composed with virtual instruments and libraries, however, most of the concepts can also be applied to live recordings.


Amazon link : 

```
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07DQPLDYT/
```

If you would rather buy the book as pdf, you can PM me and send 10$ (or euros) to me on paypal at [email protected] and i'll send you the file asap.

Here are a couple links if you want to listen to some of my recent work:







Thank you for reading!


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## vmishka (Jun 15, 2018)

Joël,

You left off the Amazon link. It is possible to find your book on Amazon based on the information, but you might have more luck if you pointed people to the site.


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## Jdiggity1 (Jun 15, 2018)

vmishka said:


> Joël,
> 
> You left off the Amazon link. It is possible to find your book on Amazon based on the information, but you might have more luck if you pointed people to the site.


You must have ad blocker enabled.
Link works fine for me, but it's a little widget thing.

Great book btw Joel!
I hesitated in commenting on this because I almost don't want the others to know all the secrets, but you deserve more praise than i can give you. Seriously, thank you, and well done. You need somebody like Ed Buller to spruke the book for you.


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## YaniDee (Jun 15, 2018)

Pretty awesome..So how about the link in plain Html?


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## davidgary73 (Jun 16, 2018)

Can’t purchase thru the link and i got this message: This title is not currently available for purchase.

Anyway other way to buy your ebook? Pdf is fine too


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## Karma (Jun 16, 2018)

This was fantastic. I binge-read the whole book yesterday and have already changed my approach on a few things. I just wish there was more!
I'll definitely be keeping an eye out on anything else you do in the future.


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## Joël Dollié (Jun 16, 2018)

vmishka said:


> Joël,
> 
> You left off the Amazon link. It is possible to find your book on Amazon based on the information, but you might have more luck if you pointed people to the site.


Ahh I've been trying to disable media formatting but idk how. I'll point people out to the title directly , thanks!! The problem is that it gets ad blocked.


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## Joël Dollié (Jun 16, 2018)

davidgary73 said:


> Can’t purchase thru the link and i got this message: This title is not currently available for purchase.
> 
> Anyway other way to buy your ebook? Pdf is fine too



Yes! I've been sending out pdf's as well. I'll PM you 




YaniDee said:


> Pretty awesome..So how about the link in plain Html?



How do you disable the media thing? :(




Jdiggity1 said:


> You must have ad blocker enabled.
> Link works fine for me, but it's a little widget thing.
> 
> Great book btw Joel!
> I hesitated in commenting on this because I almost don't want the others to know all the secrets, but you deserve more praise than i can give you. Seriously, thank you, and well done. You need somebody like Ed Buller to spruke the book for you.



Thanks so much, that's so good to hear 



Karma said:


> This was fantastic. I binge-read the whole book yesterday and have already changed my approach on a few things. I just wish there was more!
> I'll definitely be keeping an eye out on anything else you do in the future.



It's awesome that it changed your approach! Cheers!


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## AllanH (Jun 16, 2018)

I purchased the Kindle version this morning, and it went through and downloaded without issues.

Observation: many of the figures are difficult to read in black & white, i.e. on your typical kindle book reader.


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## Joël Dollié (Jun 16, 2018)

AllanH said:


> I purchased the Kindle version this morning, and it went through and downloaded without issues.
> 
> Observation: many of the figures are difficult to read in black & white, i.e. on your typical kindle book reader.



Thank you. What is the resolution of your reader ? i tried to maximize the quality of the pictures (they require jpeg but i tried to max the quality) but i think Kindle applies some extra compression.


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## AllanH (Jun 16, 2018)

I have a a kindle voyage.

I think it's the 16 levels of gray scale that's problematic: _Amazon’s 6" display technology with E Ink Carta™ and adaptive front light that adjusts automatically, 300 ppi, optimized font technology, 16-level gray scale_

I'll just read the book on a tablet. Just thought you'd like to know.

EDIT: The Voyage amazon product link came up blank for me. Not sure why, so I removed it.


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## Joël Dollié (Jun 16, 2018)

AllanH said:


> I have a a kindle voyage.
> 
> I think it's the 16 levels of gray scale that's problematic: _Amazon’s 6" display technology with E Ink Carta™ and adaptive front light that adjusts automatically, 300 ppi, optimized font technology, 16-level gray scale_
> 
> ...



Ok, thanks for letting me know. A few people have problems purchasing it on Amazon, actually. Its a bit of a bummer, but at least there's the PDF option.


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## AllanH (Jun 16, 2018)

At least the purchase at Amazon went fine. I do think that either my adblocker or the forum software prevents amazon product links from embedding. 

Looks like an excellent book - I'm starting later today.


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## Joël Dollié (Jun 16, 2018)

AllanH said:


> At least the purchase at Amazon went fine. I do think that either my adblocker or the forum software prevents amazon product links from embedding.
> 
> Looks like an excellent book - I'm starting later today.


Fantastic, i hope you enjoy it and learn new stuff


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## Divico (Jun 16, 2018)

Read this book today. Really informative and imo also good for people that are quite new to mixing but already made their first steps. Only bad thing is that its a bit short


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## Joël Dollié (Jun 16, 2018)

Divico said:


> Read this book today. Really informative and imo also good for people that are quite new to mixing but already made their first steps. Only bad thing is that its a bit short



Awesome! Thanks. Yeah i tried to skip a lot of basic stuff and include content that would be useful for experienced composers as well. It's not for experts only but definitely people with a bit of experience, as you said. ( I'm using lots of mixing lingo in it as you probably saw). It was also really important to me to include content and techniques that even expert composers might have never tried before so that they also have something new to try out.

I understand about the length (about 87 small Kindle pages) but I tried to stick to information that is relevant to this particular genre without adding too much information that could distract from the core lesson of each chapter.

In the end, I feel like orchestral music isn't about learning all kinds of crazy creative effects (as most wouldn't even work for this genre) but about being able to really understand these few concepts i talk about in my book really well as I feel like knowing them will allow you to face any kind of orchestral mix, no matter what library is being used. That is why I really tried to center the chapters around specific important ideas.

I'm glad you liked it though and thanks a lot for reading!


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## MartinH. (Jun 16, 2018)

LionsHeartProd said:


> Ok, thanks for letting me know. A few people have problems purchasing it on Amazon, actually. Its a bit of a bummer, but at least there's the PDF option.



Try using:

```
[code]
```
[/code]tags around the links and see if that prevents the embedding issue.

I've skimmed over the sample on amazon and think I'll buy it soon. Looks good!


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## Joël Dollié (Jun 16, 2018)

MartinH. said:


> Try using:
> 
> ```
> [code]
> ...


Thanks, you saved me for the link, much better!

Thank you for your interest, I hope you get a lot from it!


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## AllanH (Jun 16, 2018)

That was really an interesting and quick read. I much appreciate you skipping the basics. Where else would find a book talking about fat strings and other equally interesting things - LOL. 

I do think that more detail on the subjects of EQ and multi band compression would be helpful, at least to me. A key challenge for me is to help define and highlight the melody as it passes from instrument to instrument. 

The Choir idea is interesting, and I'm going to try that next.


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## Divico (Jun 16, 2018)

LionsHeartProd said:


> I tried to stick to information that is relevant to this particular genre without adding too much information that could distract from the core lesson of each chapter.


Yeah. Thats good. Imo this kind of reading should be on point and straight forward. I was just missing a few topics about reverb for example. Predelay times. Glue verbs etc.
Overall a good read. I knew most techniques but it was good to get everything sorted and pointed out in an orchestral context. 
Some things were new to me like the choir reverb. And your aproach to MB motivated me to finally dig this after a long time of running away from this beast :D


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## Joël Dollié (Jun 16, 2018)

Divico said:


> Yeah. Thats good. Imo this kind of reading should be on point and straight forward. I was just missing a few topics about reverb for example. Predelay times. Glue verbs etc.
> Overall a good read !


Thank you  Yes , to be honest, I don't really rely that much on pre delay for separation, but I can elaborate a bit on that right here.

Technically , when it comes to predelays , you will be looking at around 25 - 30ms on the long side to get that big Hall feel. The closer the instrument is to the listener the more predelay you will hear. The reason for that is that if someone is close to you, the dry sound will reach you first extremely quickly and reverberations will come later. If an instrument is far away , you will get less separation between the dry and wet sound as they will reach you more at the same time, which makes sense since you're also further away from the dry source.

So it might sound counter intuitive but actually, closer = more predelay.

The issue with that is that having a pretty long pre delay can muddy up your mix, especially if you're working with short strings. As usual, there are inconvenients with everything. That is why I don't like when predelays are too long as the reverb will tend to be all over the place and kind of discociate with the actual note if that makes sense.

Another thing longer predelays do is that they make the sound feel more dry as you hear more dry sound first.

Anyway, my personal preference is to keep the predelay to a reasonable setting (depending on the tempo of your track you could play around with that) which will make the envelope of the reverb more "tied" to my dry signal and actually get my separation between the instrument groups through the dry and wet knob and the various reverb techniques I talk about in my book.

But that's just how I do it.


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## Joël Dollié (Jun 16, 2018)

AllanH said:


> That was really an interesting and quick read. I much appreciate you skipping the basics. Where else would find a book talking about fat strings and other equally interesting things - LOL.
> 
> I do think that more detail on the subjects of EQ and multi band compression would be helpful, at least to me. A key challenge for me is to help define and highlight the melody as it passes from instrument to instrument.
> 
> The Choir idea is interesting, and I'm going to try that next.



Thanks for the feedback.

That's the thing with EQ you know, I've seen people read charts and then overscoop instruments like crazy without realizing it and just being all over the place. It's extremely hard to give EQ tips considering that all libraries are mixed differently. That's why I preferred to not elaborate on EQ too much and not be too specific about it (even though I included a small EQ chart with relatively broad frequency ranges). Often people don't do EQ correctly and actually end up making the track sound worse than if they didn't do any EQ whatsoever.

That is why I think it's more important, especially for orchestral music, to undestand the concept of balance and to train your ear to recognize a good frequency spectrum. That way, your EQ choices will be influenced by what you hear as a whole and you don't do an EQ move as a habit, but you will be able to spot bad resonances and unpleasant mushy frequencies more accurately in all situations.

EQing blind is the worst thing in the world. 

If you have any specific question about MB compression I'd be happy to elaborate on it right here , I like talking about this stuff


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## Joël Dollié (Jun 16, 2018)

Divico said:


> And your aproach to MB motivated me to finally dig this after a long time of running away from this beast :D



Trust me you'll never stop using it. It is your EQ's best friend and companion, forever!


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## lucor (Jun 17, 2018)

Bought the book on Amazon, and I'm really enjoying it!  However, since I don't own a kindle, having this as a PDF would make things easier for me. Is there a PDF option that I'm missing on Amazon or do I have to contact you directly with order number and proof of payment to get it? Thanks!


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## Joël Dollié (Jun 17, 2018)

lucor said:


> Bought the book on Amazon, and I'm really enjoying it!  However, since I don't own a kindle, having this as a PDF would make things easier for me. Is there a PDF option that I'm missing on Amazon or do I have to contact you directly with order number and proof of payment to get it? Thanks!


Thanks for buying ! Yes if you can send me a screenshot with proof of payment i'll get you the PDF asap. (Seems to be more convenient for many people)


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## Karma (Jun 17, 2018)

LionsHeartProd said:


> Thanks for buying ! Yes if you can send me a screenshot with proof of payment i'll get you the PDF asap. (Seems to be more convenient for many people)


I too would love a PDF if possible. Will PM you!


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## Henu (Jun 17, 2018)

I am also interested about the PDF. How much are you asking for it?


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## Divico (Jun 17, 2018)

Bought the pdf. Its 10 bucks via paypal. Got it within less than an hour


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## Joël Dollié (Jun 17, 2018)

Henu said:


> I am also interested about the PDF. How much are you asking for it?


As Divico said, it's 10 bucks at [email protected] via paypal. If you're interested, as soon as i get your payment i'll send you the file 

Cheers


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## Henu (Jun 17, 2018)

10 bucks, as in USD? Definitely interested, will get back to this tomorrow! 

EDIT: Just saw that 10 € as well!


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## Joël Dollié (Jun 17, 2018)

Henu said:


> 10 bucks, as in USD? Definitely interested, will get back to this tomorrow!
> 
> EDIT: Just saw that 10 € as well!



Cool, glad to you know you're interested !

Euros or US dollars , i don't care, whatever is more convenient for you to send depending on where you live  (apparently some people weren't able to send dollars from paypal).

Thanks,

J


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## MartinH. (Jun 20, 2018)

LionsHeartProd said:


> Cool, glad to you know you're interested !



I've read half of the book so far and really like it! Got me motivated to redo the mastering on my latest track and order better headphones online. With my new knowledge I was able to hear frequency problems in the brass-section and flutes, that I hadn't noticed before and was able to solve them with what I had learned in the book.
It assumes just the right amount of pre-existing knowledge to be useful for someone like me. 

I have a question: neither in Komplete Ultimate 10 nor the default plugins of Reaper have I seen anything called "dynamic EQ" (have I overlooked something?), but there is one thing that does seem to do pretty much what I needed to selectively cut out a frequency band above a certain volume. Please take a look here and scroll down to "ReaFIR":
https://www.reaper.fm/reaplugs/
When I set that to this mode: "Compressor - can compress at a fixed ratio with a per-band threshold" it can be used to limit the signal to a frequency curve and use the compression ratio to affect how harsh it's being cut.
What's this kind of thing commonly called? Or is it really just "FFT based dynamics processor".
I'm also mentioning these plugins because they are free to download and use, even for non-Reaper users, and I thought a link to these could maybe be useful for a future update of the ebook?


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## Giscard Rasquin (Jun 20, 2018)

Bought it, read it and can recommend it! Good stuff


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## Joël Dollié (Jun 20, 2018)

MartinH. said:


> I've read half of the book so far and really like it! Got me motivated to redo the mastering on my latest track and order better headphones online. With my new knowledge I was able to hear frequency problems in the brass-section and flutes, that I hadn't noticed before and was able to solve them with what I had learned in the book.
> It assumes just the right amount of pre-existing knowledge to be useful for someone like me.
> 
> I have a question: neither in Komplete Ultimate 10 nor the default plugins of Reaper have I seen anything called "dynamic EQ" (have I overlooked something?), but there is one thing that does seem to do pretty much what I needed to selectively cut out a frequency band above a certain volume. Please take a look here and scroll down to "ReaFIR":
> ...



Hey! both the Reaxcomp and reafir would work, from what i can see (and what people say) the reafir isn't the best dynamic eq ever.. If i were you i would just use this free one instead. https://www.tokyodawn.net/tdr-nova/

Thanks for the links though! Reaper makes good plugins. I am planning to update my book to add a few things i've missed as well, but when i do, i will publically post the new additions here, as lots of people bought it as PDF, and it just wouldn't be convenient to send a whole bunch of new pdf's.


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## Joël Dollié (Jun 20, 2018)

GuitarG said:


> Bought it, read it and can recommend it! Good stuff


Thanks a lot!


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## MartinH. (Jun 21, 2018)

LionsHeartProd said:


> If i were you i would just use this free one instead. https://www.tokyodawn.net/tdr-nova/


This is looking really good, I'll give it a try. Thanks!




LionsHeartProd said:


> when i do, i will publically post the new additions here,


Thanks!


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## AllanH (Jun 21, 2018)

LionsHeartProd said:


> ... I am planning to update my book to add a few things i've missed as well, but when i do, i will publically post the new additions here, as lots of people bought it as PDF, and it just wouldn't be convenient to send a whole bunch of new pdf's.



Re Kindle: When you update the book, it's worth noting that if you update a Kindle book you can push an update automatically to everyone who purchased. For me, that would be far more valuable than a separate PDF.

EDIT: auto-correct error.


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## Joël Dollié (Jun 21, 2018)

AllanH said:


> Re Kindle: When you update the book, it's worth noting that if you update a Kindle book you can push an update automatically to everyone who purchased. For me, that would be far more valuable than a separate PDF.
> 
> EDIT: auto-correct error.


Yes for sure, but the thing is, some people purchased the book as PDF only. People who bought the kindle don't have to worry about this. I just want people to have access to the same information no matter how they bought the book so i'm going to post a file with the new additions, when they're released. (Everyone will be automatically emailed as well even if they don't actually follow this thread. I am not going to update the book again and again and again as i don't want this to be a 300 page bible, and i want to focus on what is think is the most essential and valuable information for this book, but there are definitely a few details i wanna add and a few things i want to go more in depth about. 

People's feedback and extra questions really helped a lot with that so thank you all!


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## Joël Dollié (Jun 23, 2018)

Hey all,

This is just a quick announcement to tell you that i added a few new paragraphs in my book. The updates will be live on kindle in a few days but everybody who bought the book via PDF was emailed, made aware of the changes and sent a new version of the whole book.

For kindle only buyers, give it maybe two days and you will see the new content at the end of the "balance in the spectrum" chapter, the "depth and reverb" chapter and the "common EQ moves chapter". (just added the piano to the list for this one).

More updates might come in the future but probably not in the near future as i want to keep this book straight to the point so that people can focus on the stuff that really matters.

Thank you for reading,

J


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## Joël Dollié (Sep 19, 2018)

Hi, i discovered something recently about panning and updated the book. If you have the kindle version you can update it. Just so that the information is available to everyone, i'll copy paste the paragraph about this as it might interest a few people (some of you might already know this, though).

"When it comes to panning libraries, what I would recommend is to first listen to the natural “out of the box” panning of the library. Most libraries that include different instruments of the same family (strings libraries or brass libraries for example) were recorded by putting the players on a stage, in different spots. They were also recorded with different mic positions, stereo mics, etc. What that means is that a French Horn that naturally sounds slightly on the left out of the box in your library will also have more room ambiance that comes from the left, and the sound waves will reach the left stereo mic before the right mic which also participates in the perception of the panning. That timing difference is also called the haas effect. The difference of volume between the L/R channels isn’t the only factor that determines panning strength, accuracy and feel. Keep that in mind when panning things around. First try to stick to the natural panned side of the library but if the arrangement calls for it, it’s also fine to swap an instrument to the opposite side. If you do that however, you absolutely need to swap the stereo channels first. By swapping the stereo channels, you will also be inverting the “haas effect” within the stereo recording. Compared to just forcing it with the pan knob until it sounds like it’s coming from the other side, first swapping the channels and then adjusting the panning knob will sound a lot more accurate and easier to pinpoint as there won’t be any conflicting information for your brain. It will be exactly as if the recording setup was perfectly inverted."


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## DMDComposer (Sep 19, 2018)

LionsHeartProd said:


> Hi, i discovered something recently about panning and updated the book. If you have the kindle version you can update it. Just so that the information is available to everyone, i'll copy paste a post i made on facebook about this as it might interest a few people (some of you might already know this, though).



What about for those of us who just purchased the pdf version? :D


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## Joël Dollié (Sep 19, 2018)

DMDComposer said:


> What about for those of us who just purchased the pdf version? :D



i'll send an email with the updated PDF to everybody who bought the book via paypal


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## Iskra (Dec 18, 2018)

Hi Joël,

Purchased and read the book a couple of weeks back via amazon. Just dropped by to tell you the book is great, really straight to the point and with several very good pieces of advice. Also very nice you don't start the book by explaining what a reverb or a compressor is, really appreciated that 
I would have liked the book to be a bit more specific on the EQ chapter (as sometimes is difficult to hear conflicting frecuencies and get the balance of low-mids and mids right - you say it's 80% of the job and I fully agree). Plus, what is your use of Mid/Side plugins while mixing if any?
All in all, great book and totally recommended to everyone!

Many thanks!


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## Joël Dollié (Dec 19, 2018)

Iskra said:


> Hi Joël,
> 
> Purchased and read the book a couple of weeks back via amazon. Just dropped by to tell you the book is great, really straight to the point and with several very good pieces of advice. Also very nice you don't start the book by explaining what a reverb or a compressor is, really appreciated that
> I would have liked the book to be a bit more specific on the EQ chapter (as sometimes is difficult to hear conflicting frecuencies and get the balance of low-mids and mids right - you say it's 80% of the job and I fully agree). Plus, what is your use of Mid/Side plugins while mixing if any?
> ...



Hey! Thanks so much for your feedback ! Yes i agree, EQ is so important. The issue is that it's extremely difficult to be specific about it since recordings can sound so different from each other, and they are all pre EQ'd when it comes to libraries. For example, Century brass has crazy treble already which actually needs a little cutting, while other brass libraries like Trailer Brass might sound a little too dull in the treble region. For that reason, almost any specific EQ advice is irrelevant. I really didn't feel like it would be helpful to include anything more than this "common problem areas" EQ chart which is in the book. 
Looking at the overall frequency response of the track can help. The spectral balance of the track needs to be "flat enough" for the track to sound good (as mentionned in the book). Of course, different tracks will sound different, have more or less of different frequency areas, but if there's an area peaking too much and it becomes ugly, that could mean you have arrangement problems, or EQ problems. 
So i would advise you to keep a good spectrum analyer such as Ozone Tonal Balance Control on the master, keep the problematic frequency areas in mind, a few reference tracks you like, and if your arrangement is fine, These tools should assist your ears in finding the problems (remember to use your ears first).
And honestly, the rest will just come with experience. EQ is one of these things you need to practice over and over again, and then your ears will instantly hear EQ problems.

I almost don't use any mid side EQ and if i do it's to fix a problematic sample, such as an overly wide sub tail (i might cut some side signal to make the sub decay more mono). But yeah, almost never.


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