# Starting Over



## leitmotif (Sep 7, 2010)

Thank you, _vicontrol_, for the lovely orchestration of disregard.


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## lee (Sep 7, 2010)

leitmotif @ Sun Aug 22 said:


> I've made it deliberately hard by having almost everything at a high velocity with virtually no change in volume, but to my way of thinking, if I can comprehend how to mix this, it will greatly advance my mixing skills.



The way I see it, there´s one thing you should work on. Try not to have everything play at equal velocity and volume. Experiment. Some tracks might sound better if they´re not completely up in your face. Some people like to think of foreground, middleground and background in their music. What do you want to attract the listeners attention, and when? The melodic lines could use some velocity and /or volume automation if you want them to sound like phrases and not so static.

Then there´s also eq, that you can use to avoid many instruments sharing the same frequencies, and reverb, to give them different depth. But my advice is to play with velocity and volume first.

/Johnny


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## lee (Sep 7, 2010)

And btw, welcome to vi-control!


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## rabiang (Sep 7, 2010)

i didnt see your thread until now.

i am a bit confused about what you describe: the process of composing, or the process of mixing? when u compose: forget about processors. when u mix: forget about making melodies fit (they should already). processors are for fine touching. you cant fix a composition in the mix.

generally its smart to work with composers when your expertise is more heavy in other areas. its just really hard to be good at all things. some can but not many.

sorry if i am way off. gl!


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## rJames (Sep 7, 2010)

Hey Leit...
Some topics aren't as interesting as others. And yours is coming at music from a strange direction.

You're not a composer but like to make music tracks for movies. Sounds like you are the anti-VI. BTW I would be the first to defend your right to do that but as it says on the front page... It's a community of composers.

The purpose of mixing is to bring out what you want brought out of the waveforms emanating from your speakers. If you just create some random loops, there is nothing to mix.

I listened to a bit on my iPad (the tiny,tiny built-in speakers) and could hear e everything. Well, at least I heard a bunch of things!

When all the sounds are quite discrete, like a snare and a bell... The listener can hear everything. When you are mixing a full orchestra, it might be a bit harder to make out the flute from everything else. So, you mix it the way you want it.

One final generalization about mixing is that you Pan things so that they can be heard. You can also use eq to carve a frequency out so that it doesn't interfere with another.


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## P.T. (Sep 7, 2010)

The first place to look when wanting each instrument to be clearly heard would be the choice of instruments.
If they have sound that are distinct from each other you are most of the way there.

Even with more or less the same instrument, say guitar, if there are 2 guitars then use 2 different sounding guitars, say a Fender and a Gibson.

A well arranged and orchestrated piece will pretty much mix itself.


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## leitmotif (Sep 9, 2010)

Thank you for your responses and views, I really didn't expect any after three weeks. All the responses seem to be in agreement with each other, so that carries a lot of weight and I consider them credible.

Let me briefly respond to each reply, as I appreciate your time and effort.

Johnny: Yes, I agree, if this were a piece of music, naturally the different voices would have to come forward at different times and have a more musical flow to them, as well as many other musical considerations, such as harmony, development, not looping, etc, but giving each voice equal volume and velocity was deliberate to exaggerate the exercise.
I was hoping for some tips on how to place each voice in it's own space, but still be equal. It's probably my own erroneous reasoning that led me to this exercise and it's probably illogical that I could find a short cut using this method. Welcome to my fuzzy understanding of mixing. And thanks for the welcome.

rabiang: Obviously, I'm a bit confused too. I admit I'm out of my element here, but trying to learn. Your advice is well taken, thanks.

rJames: I think you nailed it with "And yours is coming at music from a strange direction." I felt that too and alluded to it in my post when I said, "to my way of thinking". 
I was hoping my exercise would get a response of some specific eq or other settings to give the individual voices their own space. That would give me some ideas to build on.
I suppose that, like anything worthwhile in life, hard work and individual experimentation are the best teachers, so I'll have at it.
As I try to keep up with the 1000's of posts here on my google reader, the one piece of software I've heard about, that seems to fit "my way of thinking", is WIVI, where you can drag your instruments anywhere on the stage. I don't know if you can also process the instruments in that software, but I want to check it out further.

P.T.: Yes, this is why I chose to use instruments of a different timber, so each voice could be easily identified from the beginning. I was imagining putting each sound in it's own little box on a stage, thinking that this would give me an idea how to apply that to larger groups.

Thanks again for the responses and advice.


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## rabiang (Sep 9, 2010)

Are you wanting to add EQ etc to a template? i get the feeling what you are partly asking is for EQ, reverb settings one should use for different instruments. if so: this is not possible. eq, reverb etc interact with each other and the instruments in A SPECIFIC SONG. 

my advice is first and foremost to find a composer to collaborate with. with your background you should be able to find your place in the chain, but it probably will not be as a composer. i dont mean that as a negative. I compose sometimes, but i am not a composer, i work with composers. it is a big difference.


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## re-peat (Sep 11, 2010)

leitmotif @ Thu Sep 09 said:


> (...) if this were a piece of music(...)


Strange you should say that, Leitmotif. I actually do like very much what you've got here. No kidding. Been playing this at least once a day for the past week or so, believe it or not, and I've enjoyed it every single time.
It's unfinished, obviously, and a bit all over the place perhaps, and some of its appeal may have happened entirely by accident (it does sound a bit like that at times) but even so, I think this is a great piece in the making.

As for the mix, yes, it's a little rough of course and all the sounds tend to fight desperately to be heard, at the expense of the other sounds (the biggest victim of this being the oboe which never manages to find the spotlight even though its melodic contribution certainly entitles it to), but I don't hear anything so problematic that it can't be solved with just a little bit organisation.
The trick is, I think, to imagine yourself one single (virtual) space in which this music is supposed to happen — a room, a chamber or a hall, whatever you happen to like — and then stick to that one space consistently for all the instruments.
It might also help to listen for any frequency content in every instrument (or instrumental section) which doesn't really help define its timbre and then trim some of that away, thereby making room for other instruments which do rely on that particular frequency range to sound their best.
Also: don't overdo the reverb. If everything is bathing in similar amounts of reverb, you deny yourself the option of suggesting depth.

I think however that there's a much bigger problem than the mix causing this piece not to sound entirely satisfactory and that is: the performance or, more accurately, the complete lack of it. All the instruments simply seem to start one after the other, all of them exclusively focused on their own part, and none of them seem to be aware of, or interested in, what the others are doing. There's no real sense of an ensemble performing, it's merely a sum of different parts. And that does get a bit tiresome to listen to after a while.
I'm convinced that, if you could somehow make your instruments perform as part of a group rather than as isolated individuals, this music will improve tremendously ...

... making it even much more enjoyable than it already is.

You wouldn't mind sharing the midifiles of this piece, by any chance? I'd love to have a go at this, one of these weeks.

_


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## leitmotif (Sep 12, 2010)

re-peat

First of all, let me express how much I'm enjoying the fact that you enjoyed my little exercise and also extend my appreciation to you for taking the time to give it an analytical listen.

Other than that, you've read me like a book. Yes, the whole thing is a deliberate accident, if that makes any sense. I pretty much jammed on the bass line, trying to add different timbers with lines that would have their own distinct direction, while filling in the available spaces left by what was already there.

And yes, "the sounds tend to fight desperately to be heard", which is my main concern. I did try to imagine a space, but couldn't match reality to my imagination. I think I should try to imagine a smaller stage.

Your advice to, "listen for any frequency content in every instrument (or instrumental section) which doesn't really help define its timbre" switched on the proverbial light bulb and I'm inspired to listen from a broader perspective and try again. As far as reverb, there's only a very small amount, but a lot of hall sound in the sample themselves. This I don't know how to deal with.

Of course you're right, there is no performance, but in the back of my head I was thinking there might be enough raw material for possibly a big band or a small chamber orchestra arrangement. I've been fiddling in my head, a melody that uses parts of each line to form one main theme, but haven't recorded anything yet.

I wouldn't at all mind sharing the midi files and would appreciate hearing your interpretation. I will however feel obliged to compensate you for your time and effort.

Thanks so much,

l


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## d-dmusic (Sep 14, 2010)

Mixing is an art like any other and takes a lot of experimentation over a longer period of time.

If you're a "mix engineer" and your given a bunch of tracks to mix you would approach it differently than if you are also the composer.

Being also the composer, you're also the arranger and this gives you tons of power to "mix" right from the beginning.

Your choice of instrumentation, blending instruments, layering, the emotion/performance is huge and I suggest that this is the place to start. If you've succeeded in your arrangement, you will definitely succeed in the mix. 

But, if you're arrangement sucks, well....there isn't any amount of mixing that will bring that patient back to life. It's DOA.


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## leitmotif (Sep 16, 2010)

d-dmusic,
I agree with everything you say, except the "definitely" in


> If you've succeeded in your arrangement, you will definitely succeed in the mix.


It certainly makes it more of a possibility though - for me anyway.

rabiang,
Sorry for ignoring your response.
I'm not looking from a template perspective and I'm very aware of where I belong in the food chain. I've found my niche and I'm sticking to it. If this makes me mr. anti vi then I'll quietly go back to trying to decipher what all the acronyms used in this forum mean.


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## Mike Greene (Sep 16, 2010)

That's a pretty cool track! Very quirky, which is what I hope you were going for. If this track were part of a music library, I could definitely see it getting used.

I don't mind the mix at all. About all I'd change is raising the pizzicatos a bit and raising the brass as well, at least in the middle. Towards then end, the levels of both seemed like they might be okay. Other than that, I'd call it done.


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## leitmotif (Sep 17, 2010)

Mike Greene @ Thu Sep 16 said:


> That's a pretty cool track! Very quirky, which is what I hope you were going for. If this track were part of a music library, I could definitely see it getting used.
> 
> I don't mind the mix at all. About all I'd change is raising the pizzicatos a bit and raising the brass as well, at least in the middle. Towards then end, the levels of both seemed like they might be okay. Other than that, I'd call it done.



Thank you so much for your kind comments, they make me feel really good.

Personally, I can't fathom this track being used for anything commercially.
Maybe that's because the whole time I worked on it I was just looping the five bars. I stretched it out for clarity purposes, but I admit once I strung it out I thought I was being clever - for me anyway.

I think with a rhythm section playing an 1/8 note groove and the sections being developed and harmonized this _could_ be massaged into something sellable. I should probably try to make this happen and then come back with a piece of music, which will enable me to ask about mixing with a more real world example.


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