# Mix With The Masters: Hans Zimmer



## goalie composer (Nov 9, 2018)

Hi all,

Thought some people might be interested in this:

https://mixwiththemasters.com/HZ1



GC


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## John Busby (Nov 9, 2018)

Interested to see if and how this will vary from his "Masterclass"
if it's "Mix with" then dammit i wanna mix with him!!


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## DMDComposer (Nov 9, 2018)

johnbusbymusic said:


> Interested to see if and how this will vary from his "Masterclass"
> if it's "Mix with" then dammit i wanna mix with him!!


Maybe future videos, but the ones they released so far are just an extension of "Masterclass Series". He just talks about the certain subjects/questions. Not actual mixing/composing.

Still always great to hear HZ teach/talk. :D


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## Jdiggity1 (Nov 9, 2018)

The title is "Score Composition with Hans Zimmer", with chapters:
- The Process
- Working On Film
- Workflow
- Career Management

So I wouldn't expect much in the way of "mixing". Which I think is for the best, right?
I'd rather hear him talk about his strengths, what he's known for. We've got Alan to go to for the mix advice.


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## AdamAlake (Nov 9, 2018)

If it is like the masterclass, it will be a few hours long lecture on how to talk to a mixing engineer.


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## Gerhard Westphalen (Nov 10, 2018)

I watched and didn't think it was all that great. Nothing like their normal videos (which I think are fantastic). Basically just a 1 hour interview. Talks about the same things he normally talks about. I don't think there was anything new. IMO his Masterclass was a lot better.


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## JanR (Nov 11, 2018)

Alan Meyerson mixes Hans Music. So to learn about Hans mixes watch the Video’s with Alan Meyerson


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## Tanuj Tiku (Nov 11, 2018)

I thought it was quite good. He is on point and answered some questions which are not covered in Masterclass.

Anyway, I am watching Herbie Hancock at the moment and WOW! $180 for a whole year at Masterclass for every class at the moment and it features so many things I am interested in outside of music. 

$180 for learning new things and expanding your mind - better than any software sale!


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## robgb (Nov 11, 2018)

johnbusbymusic said:


> Interested to see if and how this will vary from his "Masterclass"
> if it's "Mix with" then dammit i wanna mix with him!!


He's not really a mixing engineer, is he?


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## HelixK (Nov 11, 2018)

It's called `Score Composition with Hans Zimmer´ why are you expecting a mixing class? 

I'm a subscriber and thought it was a nice surprise. I much preferred his appearance in HardTalk, very informative and free.


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## NoamL (Nov 11, 2018)

Here is some old advice from @Rctec about mixing, I have been following it religiously in a big track I'm finishing today!

(below is quoting HZ)

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_I always put the perc in last, but I write and orchestrate everything else knowing what perc I want to use and intimately knowing my sounds - and what I want the perc to do. Which means leaving lots of head-room in the rest of the piece. If I put perc in too early, I will not spend any time getting a subtle and wellcrafted track - perc at a "Zimmer" level marks all sorts of mistakes in the orchestration that you then don't hear until its played on a big screen with a huge, proper, theatre soundsystem, with you dying in front of your friends.
It takes me forever to program a good perc track. I remember spending a whole week on the "Jack Sparrow" suite in "Pirates", just trying to get it to sit well in the track and not get boring or overwhelming.
Since most of my perc is recorded at AIR, I have a whole load of baked-in reverb (Which drives Steve Lipson crazy, but Alan - who does my more "epic" scores, loves). I can control the mics in my sampler, but I love the sound of the room more than the close-mics. But obvious one trick that helps to preserve clarity is to move the far mics and out-riggers forward in time and line all the transients up. I know that's impossible in nature - that time is determined by the distance of one mic to the other - but it still gives me a huge sound without getting all that flammy transient shit. Plus, rather than compressing the drums, I use AHDSRs to basically make a transient designer, and tailor the releases. This works a lot better than compression or gating, since it's not amplitude dependent.
The other thing is, line your tracks up properly. All engineers I work with spend the majority of their time making sure all the note-starts are really together. That's where the power is.
I try not to double too many hits. just get the one great drum, and don't mess up it's frequency spectrum with another one blurring the tone.
I like copying patterns, but I make sure there is enough 'round-robin' stuff going on. Most good 'real' percussionists don't throw a bunch of variation into a take. They play the part - even if its a one-bar loop for the whole piece. But the subtle variation in tone from each hit makes it just interesting enough.
Watch out that your high end isn't too bright. It's cheesy (as are cymbal rolls, belltrees, etc.) and is the antithesis of big and epic.

I never cut the bottom end on my perc. If it really is a problem, I let the dubbing engineer deal with it - usually he wants more low end, since a good theatre system - like IMAX - will extend pretty low (I just had all my synth modified so that they go down to 10 hz. most of them rolled off at about 35...)

But orchestration is mixing...

-Hz-_

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