# EQing orchestral instruments?



## vegetadbz (Jan 6, 2019)

Which frequencies do you usually manipulate with to get more cripsy, or more lush sound?

I noticed right now that if I take out some of the 2k on violins which are playing melody, I am getting more pleasant sound for ears, same for horns and trumpets.

IS there any reference on internet, tutorial or anything which explains what freqs and when to cut them, if not anyone has a time to explain it a bit in here?


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## Saxer (Jan 6, 2019)

When working with samples it mainly depends on the library. Everything sampled is pre-mixed in some way. Even if nothing is pre-eq-ed the sound depends on the miking, room, players, instruments...
In the 2k range our ears are very sensitive. It often sounds more pleasing if this area is less prominent on sustained sounds. Libraries like CSS are already darker. OT sounds more 'fresh' up there and I like to dampen the high mids a bit. LASS needs a massive cut (-5dB) at 2k for my taste. And often when the dynamic (CC1) is driven too far up (+60%) the sound becomes harsh on most libraries.


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Jan 6, 2019)

vegetadbz said:


> Which frequencies do you usually manipulate with to get more cripsy, or more lush sound?
> 
> I noticed right now that if I take out some of the 2k on violins which are playing melody, I am getting more pleasant sound for ears, same for horns and trumpets.
> 
> IS there any reference on internet, tutorial or anything which explains what freqs and when to cut them, if not anyone has a time to explain it a bit in here?



Hej..

So there are a lot of different views on that subject, means I know people who use eq a lot, eq a little and some few even not. So..whats the best? It can be confusing when trying to find answers especially knowing that people have so many different approaches. Let me answer your question still a bit: Try first to fix things which are "before" touching eq. I think at least some of the problems can be solved prior using eq regardless substractive or for even for boosting frequencies. One point could be check your natural balance of the sampled orchestra. Are the relative volumes cohesive to each other? You can spent a lot of time into that subject and balancing a sampled orchestra to the real thing can take weeks, sometimes month depending how big your template is. Next thing: check your orchestration. Is your orchestration causing problems? That point is fairly often overlooked and people start to use eq to fix bad orchestration. So what is bad orchestration..answer: learn good orchestration from the great composers in history.
But there is another point: What kind of music are you doing? Is it classic soundtrack stuff or are you in that more modern aspects of movie soundtrack? Very different disciplines and they demand partly very different skillsets in mixing and production. With modern orchestral music you have a lot more of low percussions to mix and due to the way of the nature of that music you have to fight more low frequencies constantly on the lowend because the percussion often is the foundation with the low strings / brass for the driving pulse.
However you used the term "lush" and therefore I get the impression that you seek for a specific "situation" sound. What sounds lush to you? Maybe its not only a production thing but also a way of style and orchestration? Ever thought about that? I can tell you that the way how you orchestrate is inherently linked to "the way how it sounds". One little tip: Use sounds which sound good "out of the box". Some things can be fixed with eq but imo you should watch out for a lot of things before touching eq.


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## vegetadbz (Jan 7, 2019)

AlexanderSchiborr said:


> Hej..
> 
> So there are a lot of different views on that subject, means I know people who use eq a lot, eq a little and some few even not. So..whats the best? It can be confusing when trying to find answers especially knowing that people have so many different approaches. Let me answer your question still a bit: Try first to fix things which are "before" touching eq. I think at least some of the problems can be solved prior using eq regardless substractive or for even for boosting frequencies. One point could be check your natural balance of the sampled orchestra. Are the relative volumes cohesive to each other? You can spent a lot of time into that subject and balancing a sampled orchestra to the real thing can take weeks, sometimes month depending how big your template is. Next thing: check your orchestration. Is your orchestration causing problems? That point is fairly often overlooked and people start to use eq to fix bad orchestration. So what is bad orchestration..answer: learn good orchestration from the great composers in history.
> But there is another point: What kind of music are you doing? Is it classic soundtrack stuff or are you in that more modern aspects of movie soundtrack? Very different disciplines and they demand partly very different skillsets in mixing and production. With modern orchestral music you have a lot more of low percussions to mix and due to the way of the nature of that music you have to fight more low frequencies constantly on the lowend because the percussion often is the foundation with the low strings / brass for the driving pulse.
> However you used the term "lush" and therefore I get the impression that you seek for a specific "situation" sound. What sounds lush to you? Maybe its not only a production thing but also a way of style and orchestration? Ever thought about that? I can tell you that the way how you orchestrate is inherently linked to "the way how it sounds". One little tip: Use sounds which sound good "out of the box". Some things can be fixed with eq but imo you should watch out for a lot of things before touching eq.



Thank you guys.
I will try to answer your questions the best I can.

I am trying to have a good balance between melodic things and harmonic things, without any eqing, i usually don't even do any eqing yet, because i am still not good to create some great orchestral tracks.
I usually do the modern style, but not hybrid things, it is kind of heavy or many instruments orchestra, with epic percussion, sometimes just normal percussion,a nd usually one or two bars long, because I like to play the biggest parts (lazy to create intros or full tracks).

Yes, you stated good thing here, *I do have a problem with percussion messing my bass, tuba, or anything in low end*, I would usually cut very low end on percussions to make it more punchy but not that deep so deep freqs gets trought from string brass or woodwinds low end.
*If you have advice on this, you would do me a great favour.*

Also, I usually have weird feeling in my ears when I am listening to flute, piccolo or any higher *woodwind *instrument, despite adding reverb i think there is a way to cut some freqs in them to *make them more pleasant to ears*?

Problem comes also when I am having *sustain chords on strings patch, and I want rhythmic ostinato on spiccato patch*, *it becomes muddy*, or *listener cant distinguish things in a track*, so that is one more problem I would like to solve.

My definition of lush sound is like when you have chords on strings, brass and woodwinds, and in such way it gives wide and warm sound that sounds like one instrument, but not crispy to hurt your ears.

This is crispy
-

-

(All so crisp, crunchy, even name states lush strings)
-
and this is lush
-

(Soundtrack all around is pleasant to ears)
-

(This part is so pleasant)
-

(nice and lush without this melody on top)
-
So basically this 3 situations is what I am struggling with for a long time.

My orchestration technique is not good.
It's not that I don't know basic theory, or that I am not familiar with instruments, but its kinda ideas what to use and when is what makes me being very bad at orchestrating, and usually sounding repetitive.

In this example
https://soundcloud.com/user-966745986/example-1
You can find all the problems I counted (except for spiccato, because for some reason velocity didn't worked when i exported this project, and it sounds very bad and static on all of the notes)


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## Dietz (Jan 7, 2019)

All good advice, Alexander, but I wouldn't completely subscribe to your last sentence:



AlexanderSchiborr said:


> Use sounds which sound good "out of the box". Some things can be fixed with eq but imo you should watch out for a lot of things before touching eq.



Yes, watch out for "a lot of things" before processing, that's true. Composition, arrangement, dynamics, context, and so on.

But if you ask me, it's one of the most widespread misunderstandings that individual components have to sound "good" when mixing music. More often than not an instrument that seems to be perfectly fine when listened to in solo mode will use too much space in the mix, or sound too weak, too sharp, etc. Sometimes, instruments which found their place in a mix can sound surprisingly bad on their own, actually. 8-P

Stuff that sounds good "out of the box" has been treated in a previous production step already anyway, most likely, so why not keep _all_ the options intact and optimise a signal source according to the individual needs of a given piece of music and its arrangement (and according to the taste of the involved people)? There's nothing wrong with developing style. 

_EDIT: Sorry, the OP's message has been added while I was typing._


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Jan 7, 2019)

Dietz said:


> All good advice, Alexander, but I wouldn't completely subscribe to your last sentence:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Let me rephrase that: they have not to sound good, but they have to sound the way that you don´t need tons of processing to make the sound how you intend them to sound. Good is anyways a bit of subjective thing.


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Jan 7, 2019)

vegetadbz said:


> Thank you guys.
> I will try to answer your questions the best I can.
> 
> I am trying to have a good balance between melodic things and harmonic things, without any eqing, i usually don't even do any eqing yet, because i am still not good to create some great orchestral tracks.
> ...




Okay, you are going into that epic music, and without going too much into the examples, I listened to your example, and most of the things you can fix are prior eq imo. First your strings sound a way more upfront and dry in comparison to the 2steps stuff. You have to mix them first different, using more ambient micings and using the close micings just for adding a bit of definition. Also your midi programming and use of the same kind of articulations could be improved. When you listen closely to the references you will hear that the strings tend to have not only short notes but also longer notes, they are also using more accents. Programming ostinatos in a convincing way could be one discipline which you should then practise. The reference has also a lot more Z-Depth and panorama. Man, maybe you should check out some of those "epic modern music" courses? There are quite a couple of those. I can´t recommend you any, because I am simply not hailing that music and never got any of those courses, but I know there are quite a bunch of useful course for that stuff.


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Jan 7, 2019)

A little side note: While I think it is completely fine that you do that kind of music, keep in mind that people like Thomas B. learned classic orchestration and you can hear that also in his epic music that he utilizes classic orchestration techniques. So by saying that: there is nothing wrong to learn classic orchestration because imo lots of those epic composers lack of fundamentals understanding the voices in the orchestra and how string instruments sound like. So Thomas has 2 worlds of experience: While he writes that epic music he maintains understanding the principles of classic and effective orchestration, correct voice leading and in addition he mastered production value which makes his tracks sound that good.


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## Manaberry (Jan 7, 2019)

Happy to see a thread like this one! This is so hard to mix/eq orchestral instruments to me. I've been trying so many things and I finally found a way that fill my needs.

I spend a lot of time in the mix. I assume that's the most important part of the job.. I try to have every single instrument in a dedicated place to ear them correctly without raising the volume. I try to work with the lowest dynamic and volume possible. Not like TSFH hehe.
The little trick I do is in the mastering process (the very last part). I use a multiband compressor and I tweak the mids to raise the overall "bright" sounds of my instruments, and then passive EQ to bring some life and presence to my track.

It's not perfect but here is a sample:


A track with more "punchy and higher instruments volume" but also dry.


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## vegetadbz (Jan 7, 2019)

AlexanderSchiborr said:


> Okay, you are going into that epic music, and without going too much into the examples, I listened to your example, and most of the things you can fix are prior eq imo. First your strings sound a way more upfront and dry in comparison to the 2steps stuff. You have to mix them first different, using more ambient micings and using the close micings just for adding a bit of definition. Also your midi programming and use of the same kind of articulations could be improved. When you listen closely to the references you will hear that the strings tend to have not only short notes but also longer notes, they are also using more accents. Programming ostinatos in a convincing way could be one discipline which you should then practise. The reference has also a lot more Z-Depth and panorama. Man, maybe you should check out some of those "epic modern music" courses? There are quite a couple of those. I can´t recommend you any, because I am simply not hailing that music and never got any of those courses, but I know there are quite a bunch of useful course for that stuff.


If I understood you well, sustain patches or instruments that create harmonic or atmospheric sound should have more reverb than other things in a track, in another words wide mic, and very little close one.
Melody on sustained notes should have morr of the close mic so it pass trought atmosphere.
Spiccato or other short patches should be more close dry to avoid conflicts, to melt down sustains in background with lower volume and dynamics than ostinato.
I do have valhalla teverb plugin, but also yes i can manipulate mic positions too.

Now the thing with sounding good is what is the dry mic starting point for shorts, and start points of wide mic.
Or fir sustains the same thing.
Lets take it in precentage, so as sustains should be more wide we add 70% wide mic and 30% of close.
Melody legato 60% wide 40% close.
Shorts 50% wide and close.

Or

Sustains 90% wide
Legato melody 70% wide
Shorts 50% wide
Percussion 30% wide

Zhis isassumption of how i hear two steps tracks, i know we can do as we like, but as i want to get more lush sound, i would need to have more wide sound than close mics, now it probably also depends on the library...
In case i am dealing with library that doesnt offer mic positions, i would use the reverb plugin.
Is valhalla good enough?
What preset is usually used to acomplish this type of sound?

Thanks for your time and helpfull answers.



480 custom large hall


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## vegetadbz (Jan 7, 2019)

Manaberry said:


> Happy to see a thread like this one! This is so hard to mix/eq orchestral instruments to me. I've been trying so many things and I finally found a way that fill my needs.
> 
> I spend a lot of time in the mix. I assume that's the most important part of the job.. I try to have every single instrument in a dedicated place to ear them correctly without raising the volume. I try to work with the lowest dynamic and volume possible. Not like TSFH hehe.
> The little trick I do is in the mastering process (the very last part). I use a multiband compressor and I tweak the mids to raise the overall "bright" sounds of my instruments, and then passive EQ to bring some life and presence to my track.
> ...




You have great reverb in tracks.
How do you do it?


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## Manaberry (Jan 8, 2019)

vegetadbz said:


> You have great reverb in tracks.
> How do you do it?



I try to use most of the "base sound" from my instrument. Usually I do the first mixing in the patch panel with available mics positions.
When I need to more reverb or reverb on dry track, I send those tracks to a return track with Altiverb. I have a return track for "instruments reverb", "choir reverb", "large reverb" (more than 6s tails), and "algorithm reverb".


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## AlexanderSchiborr (Jan 8, 2019)

vegetadbz said:


> If I understood you well, sustain patches or instruments that create harmonic or atmospheric sound should have more reverb than other things in a track, in another words wide mic, and very little close one.



No, I didn´t say that. _Try to read what I said!_

I said that in order to come closer to the reference (which you posted) you have to use the micings differently (e.g. dial in more tree / or ambient micings or wha ever you have there available!). But that has nothing to do with sustain and harmonic (what do you mean here?) and atmospheric (heh,what?). My tip: Go and learn _to understand the natural seating and z-depth of the orchestra. There are a couple of courses I am pretty sure. _

But just one example: Strings are normally to the listener the nearest instruments, then comes winds, brass, and the last row is the percussion or choirs (which are sometimes even seperated on a stage).

I feel that you don´t quite understand the basic of orchestral seating and depth and therefore I advice you to build that orchestral z-Depth correctly. Also what I said in my first post: Learn to programm your string section better, it sounds very robotic and has no drive whatsoever. It is just doing that "dadada, dadada..." use different articulations, try to work more with accents and dynamics. _Your problem is imo not that reverb thing and eq the LEAST._


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## j3tman (Jan 9, 2019)

I was JUST going to post a thread like this-- I'm dealing with a similar problem. I'm using a couple of libraries together (EWQLSO, EW Hollywood, CSS, SCS, etc) and I run into the same problem of unwieldy mid/high frequency range and muddiness with sustained + moving parts. I'm also having issues getting the EW winds to sit in the mix and generally not sound fake.

I'd like to think I have enough VERY good libraries at this point and suspect a good number of these problems are coming from my lack of solid orchestration skills. I admittedly avoid multimic mixing because these libraries are still bringing my maxed out iMac to its knees sometimes (never got around to figuring out the multi-computer slave setup thing).

A bit confused about adding more ambient / tree mics to create depth when part of the problem is muddiness. Won't doing that (and effectively introducing more reverb) create an even washier sound without definition?


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## Orkpack (Jan 10, 2019)

Korsakoff makes a different between Orchestration for Harmonys and Melodys. I somtimes think ist se same with eqing. Mostly i whant my Harmonys soft. And The Melody should brak through. So you Need different eqing especaly with the 2k range.


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## AllanH (Jan 10, 2019)

vegetadbz said:


> Which frequencies do you usually manipulate with to get more cripsy, or more lush sound?
> 
> I noticed right now that if I take out some of the 2k on violins which are playing melody, I am getting more pleasant sound for ears, same for horns and trumpets.
> 
> ...?



Just a few thoughts: Start by listening for the 2k effects on at least a few sets of monitors, headphones, and consumer stereo equipment. I've never had to EQ my orchestral instruments that way, and I suspect you have some sort of resonance in your system that exaggerates what you hear. 

Secondly, you may have more sensitive hearing in that range than e.g. me. Ask a friend what they hear and think.

Moving forward: make a notch filter but inverse it and sweep through the instrument frequencies. This is a simply way to identify any strange resonances that you may need to remove. I tend to notch out a narrow band around 3.5k for some of my solo violins to remove a "boxy" sound I don't like. 

Ultimately, maybe "your desired sound" requires you to remove 2k in the violins; that's fine as well.


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## Beat Kaufmann (Jan 11, 2019)

Bear in mind that the sample producers record their samples as naturally as possible with a great deal of effort. Unfortunately in many mixes the good library sound is destroyed by too much or a wrong use of EQs. 
As a tip: At the end of a mixing session you should switch off all EQs and compare your mix with a reference (real orchestra). Then turn on the EQs ... and maybe ...hopefully not ... you know what I mean. 


All the best
Beat


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## JohnG (Jan 11, 2019)

Other than reverb sends (or the reverb itself), I don't haul out the EQ and start torturing mixes unless I hear something I don't like.

Mixing is a house of cards -- pull on one and it affects everything. The minute you EQ one thing you start hearing other effects of the first change that impact the sound and you end up digging around everything else.

If I don't like the sound of the violins, I use a different violin sample. Sometimes that's more edgy, sometimes sweeter and more beautiful.


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## PeterN (Jan 11, 2019)

Yea, took me long time to understand the low end mud was there bcs I had not eq:d the reverb there. The rest I hardly care about - I mean thats personal opinion - but I use some plugins that do eq:ing.

I can see on Internet these nearly perfectly eq:d four chord meaningless compositions, personally couldnt care less for the "perfect sound" on some composition even a three year old can make. Maybe I shouldnt have said that, but couldnt help it. Anyway, depends on if u looking for "perfect sound" maybe.

(sorry I didnt really answer the question, got focused on reverb eq)


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## Serg Halen (Jan 11, 2019)

When i compare my raw mix (writed by libraries) with other mixes TSFH, or solo Bergersens, i hear that my mixes just dont have any of high frequencies and have very heavy boost on the mid freq. So i just boost high and for mid i'm using multiband compression. That gives me more clear mix.


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## Henu (Jan 11, 2019)

One thing which cannot be punctuated enough is that all these libraries are already pre-mixed to sound as good as they can when played standalone. 

When you start to mix your project where all these sample libraries are used, no matter the genre, you should be able to sound pretty good already out of the box without much EQ'ing. _Don't do stuff just for the sake of it_. I remember when I started to fiddle around seriously with sample libraries, I overEQ'd and tweaked the living shit out of them, only to realize later that they need a fraction of all that corrective stuff. Don't be like me!

Also, what I've also noticed during my learning is that the better the orchestration, the less you actually need (corrective) mixing.


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## Blakus (Jan 11, 2019)

Mixing sample based compositions is quite difficult for a few reasons.

1. Most libraries are just not recorded well in the first place. This is an uphill battle from the start. Many developers come from a technical perspective, and often record material with more detail, closer. When played in isolation, this can feel more satisfying, but in context, combined with other instruments, it falls apart. Libraries recorded in this way are also more friendly to program/script. You would be surprised to know how many developers place the Decca tree at lower than necessary heights for these reasons.

2. The way samples blend is different from the way players sound when sitting next to each other on a scoring stage. For example, layering smaller sections or solos together does not accurately create the sound of a larger section, despite many who say otherwise. In the same way, playing violin and cello samples together does not quite combine in the same way they would if recorded together. Some frequency buildup also occurs that doesn’t happen in a live recording. Yes orchestration obviously helps, but it doesn’t solve the issue. Common midi tricks like layering articulations adds even more complexity to this issue.

3. The nature of crossfades and other programming/scripting devices interferes with the integrity of the original recordings. Phasing issues, temporarily disappearing rooms, altered dynamics, noise reduction (shudder) etc. etc.

It’s best to use your ears. Don’t assume the library comes in its finest form, it most likely doesn’t, and even if it does it will need some work to fit into your mix. Mock up existing works, match within reason to the recordings, train your ears to hear differences inside the mix, and good fricken luck.


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## Henu (Jan 12, 2019)

Henu said:


> all these libraries are already pre-mixed to sound as good as they can when played standalone.





Blakus said:


> Most libraries are just not recorded well in the first place



The feeling when someone you consider way more knowledgeable on sample libraries comes and contradicts your opinion. :D

Anyway, I completely agree on what you wrote, but I'm talking about a bit different angle. 
While you speak of basically "advanced" stuff (which is 100% on the spot), my point was to give only the starting instructions for someone who needs to be struggling getting the basic things not to fall apart.
When someone asks for a rule of thumb for EQ'ing sampled orchestral instruments in general, my first advice would definitely still be that don't EQ anything that doesn't need it. I'd say first that only take out the resonances you find unpleasant for starters and cut sub frequencies out from things where they are not needed.... and _then_ advance to everything you wrote and take all those to consideration. And naturally, for all this, using your own ears is definitely the way to go.


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## bengoss (Jan 12, 2019)

I feel like I have this muddy problem mostly with convolution reverbs... Anyone else? When I replace it to Lex or Valhalla, somehow the mix seems thinner but cleaner. 

B


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## markleake (Jan 12, 2019)

bengoss said:


> I feel like I have this muddy problem mostly with convolution reverbs... Anyone else? When I replace it to Lex or Valhalla, somehow the mix seems thinner but cleaner.
> 
> B


This is why I've moved away from using Spaces as my go-to reverb (that and the high CPU it uses). It sounds great by itself, but then I start fighting the build up of its own sound that it adds. I use Valhalla Room and send any instrument to that which needs more reverb. I only use convolution when I absolutely do need it. That way I find I have a cleaner sound, and don't have to start EQing the reverb.


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## markleake (Jan 12, 2019)

vegetadbz said:


> Which frequencies do you usually manipulate with to get more cripsy, or more lush sound?
> 
> I noticed right now that if I take out some of the 2k on violins which are playing melody, I am getting more pleasant sound for ears, same for horns and trumpets.
> 
> IS there any reference on internet, tutorial or anything which explains what freqs and when to cut them, if not anyone has a time to explain it a bit in here?


I completely agree with @AlexanderSchiborr on this one. When I first started I used some of the libraries you are using (especially the East West libraries), but really struggled with tone and muddy sound. I had versions of those libraries that didn't give me any mic positions, or it turns out didn't have a good out of box tone, and it was beyond my capabilies to mix them. That was bad for learning.

I slowly moved over to different library vendors (mostly Spitfire, OT, and Cinematic series) where I could get more mics and better sounding rooms which I found easier to use. That helped me a lot, as I was able to learn how to mix using libraries which needed less treatment for tone and reverb. Plus it taught me the natural sounds of the instruments at their normal orchestral seating depth. I found their libraries so much less demanding to get a good tone when mixed, because I no longer needed to fake the room so much.

Then I slowly learned orchestration by experimenting, watching heaps of YT, reading on here, listening to other works, etc. I learnt how to get a LOT better at making lush / wide / "crispy" sounds as needed. It helps a lot having libraries that give you flexibility with mics and articulations, or even just having many libraries that you can pick and choose sounds from.

The main effort is really all the orchestration and mixing. You need to have all the instruments sounding like they are in the right spot in a similar sounding space/room, and you need to get them playing/sounding typical to how they naturally would play/sound. That orchestration and natural playing component takes a lot of time to learn. Without those components it will never sound right, whatever you do.

Only the last 5% for me personally is EQing and such, in most situations anyway.

I still have a huge amount to learn of couse. I tend to naturally not write anything that requires any heavy EQ or other processing, so that makes life easier.


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