# Orchestral Mixing with Jake Jackson - NOW ON SALE!



## ThinkSpace Education (May 27, 2015)

*Our brand new orchestral mixing course is now live, and we’ve got a fancy trailer for you!*

Our Orchestral Mixing course featuring *Jake Jackson* is another one of our streamline course options (like our popular Composer Blueprints Training course) that offers vast amounts of content for a very small price tag, but more on that later!



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WHAT WILL I LEARN?
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Working with both sampled and live orchestral tracks throughout the videos, Jake shows you how to:

Get a professional sound from your own music.
How to set up your DAW for mixing
How to use reverbs 
All about track routing
Level adjustment and sweetening individual tracks
The right way to use automation
How to apply compression and EQ

Best of all, he mixes entirely *“inside the box”* so every tip and trick he uses you can use at home in your own DAW.

As part of your course materials you’ll receive exactly the same tracks and audio files that Jake’s mixing with, so you can follow along at home and try out his techniques for yourself.

The tracks will come pre-loaded inside:

Logic
Cubase
Pro Tools
Digital Performer

…or if you use another DAW, we give you the multi-track WAV files ready to load and mix.

We’re also giving you two more bonus tracks, one sampled and one recorded with a 70-piece live film orchestra so you can try out your new skills on yet more professionally recorded material.

To top it off you can share you own mixes in the tutor-lead Orchestral Mixing forum, getting feedback on your work and offering your opinion on other student’s work.

*---------------------------------------------
WHEN WILL IT BE AVAILABLE!
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The course will go *on sale from the 29th May* for an introductory price of *$249/£162/€228*. You’ll also have the option of paying in two instalments of *$125/£81/€114*.

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INCLUDED IN THE COURSE
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So, to recap, this is what you’ll be getting…

Over 4 hours of over-the-shoulder mixing lessons with the one and only Jake Jackson covering a whole host of topics and techniques!
4 different orchestral tracks to practice you mixing skills on.
A detailed course text with mini-projects throughout to test your knowledge and help you improve your mixing skills.
Tutor lead forum to share you mixes for feedback and peer review.


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## stonzthro (May 27, 2015)

Looks interesting!
Is the 4 hours broken up into 1 hour of Logic, 1 hour of Protools, etc... or is it 4 hours applicable to all DAWs?


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## CDNmusic (May 27, 2015)

Looking forward to it.


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## TimJohnson (May 28, 2015)

stonzthro @ Wed May 27 said:


> Looks interesting!
> Is the 4 hours broken up into 1 hour of Logic, 1 hour of Protools, etc... or is it 4 hours applicable to all DAWs?



Tim here from ThinkSpace!

Jake works entirely inside Pro Tools for the full length of the video tutorials, but the concepts that he discusses are applicable to any DAW. 

We provide all the audio that Jake works with in the videos for you to follow along with, as well as two extra tracks - one MIDI mock up and one live recording with a 70 piece orchestra for you to practice on afterwards.

We have even imported all the stems into Cubase, Logic, Pro Tools and Digital Performer to save you some time!

Anyone that signs up will also get access to the ThinkSpace support system, and the student forums.

There may even be a very special treat for early sign ups :wink:


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## guitarman1960 (May 29, 2015)

*Re: Orchestral Mixing with Jake Jackson*

This looks great!

Can I ask if there is a list of the plug-ins used during the mix?


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## Kralc (May 29, 2015)

Enjoyed Jake's video on SOS a week or so back, so this should be great. Looking forward to checking it out.


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## ThinkSpace Education (May 29, 2015)

*Re: Orchestral Mixing with Jake Jackson*



guitarman1960 @ Fri May 29 said:


> This looks great!
> 
> Can I ask if there is a list of the plug-ins used during the mix?



There is not a definitive list as such, however Jake uses a range of plugins, mainly from UAD, Softube and SoundToys.

The process that he goes through can be applied to most other (cheaper) plugins though.


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## vicontrolu (May 29, 2015)

What styles cover the 4 tracks included? Film scoring is too generic. Would be nice to narrow it down a tad.


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## ThinkSpace Education (May 29, 2015)

vicontrolu @ Fri May 29 said:


> What styles cover the 4 tracks included? Film scoring is too generic. Would be nice to narrow it down a tad.



Jake looks at two tracks and we follow him every step of his process, from Pro Tools set up to final export.

We first look at a fantasy style orchestral MIDI mock up.
The second track is from a film scored by ThinkSpace Director and composer, Guy Michelmore. The film was Jackboots on Whitehall, which was recorded with a 70 piece orchestra. The style is a contemporary cinematic take on traditional British war time music. It includes a wide variety of subjects to get your teeth into, including electric guitars, synths and of course the orchestra itself.

We provide you with all of the materials for these tracks, including the actual pro tools session we took for Jake to work on.

The other two tracks we give you are for you to practice what you have learned.

1. A MIDI mock up of a trailer track that was used in the computer game World of Speed
2. Another track from the same film, Jackboots on Whitehall - there is a good reason for this which will become clear as you watch the videos!

You can share these on our private forums for your peers to listen to, give and receive constructive criticism. ThinkSpace staff and tutors will also be listening. You will also have limitless access to our student support system - so this doesn't end with a few videos. 

*
I can also now announce that for early birds we will be hosting a webinar with Jake Jackson! So you will have a chance to ask him any questions you like face to face. Surely that is worth the price of entry alone!*


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## The Darris (May 29, 2015)

Maybe someone can help me with this. I am getting an "SSL connection error" whenever I try to go to Thinkspace's store to buy anything. I've followed quite a number of troubleshooting fixes but can't seem to get it to work. I've gotten this error on multiple different browsers and computers in my house. Anyone has some advice to help remedy this situation?


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## guitarman1960 (May 29, 2015)

*Re: Orchestral Mixing with Jake Jackson*



ThinkSpace Education @ Fri May 29 said:


> guitarman1960 @ Fri May 29 said:
> 
> 
> > This looks great!
> ...



Ok, that's cool, thanks!


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## EastWest Lurker (May 29, 2015)

Nevermind.


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## ChristopherDoucet (May 30, 2015)

Bought the class and took it immediately with my mix engineer! 

Very informative and insightful!!!

Would definitely recommend! Jake Jackson had a host of tips, each one seemed wort the price of admission. It was extremely useful and pertinent for me personally! 

My only hope for a future tutowial would be seeing the exact same thing but in surround! 

Seems like the mixing of orchestral music in 5.1 is an even more mysterious art! Would gladly pay for that one!!!

It's pretty amazing timing that this was released today my business partner who is my mix engineer is leaving this morning to go study with Alan Meyerson in France for the mix with he masters series and so it was REALLY awesome to take this course the day before he left to get different points of view!!!!


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## Kejero (May 30, 2015)

Got this immediately because finding any resources on orchestral mixing seems to be nigh impossible. This is as close as gets to actually sitting in the room with a professional mixer, watching him go through the entire process, and explaining why he's doing what he's doing. Very cool stuff.

Two technical notes on these videos though, both on the audio coming from the DAW output:
- There's some really nasty distortion in some of the first videos (mostly B, some in C I thought as well)
- The DAW output seems to be panned quite a bit to the left (while Jake and Guy's voices are correctly smack in the middle where they should be, so I'm pretty sure the video's at fault, and not my hardware). If this is intentional, I'm not sure that I understand the reasoning behind it? Gives a very skewed impression of what the stereo mix is supposed to sound like, and definitely makes no sense watching Jake spend all this time panning the instruments...

Would also be nice to maybe include the two final mixes as audio files in the package?


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## ThinkSpace Education (Jun 1, 2015)

Kejero @ Sat May 30 said:


> Got this immediately because finding any resources on orchestral mixing seems to be nigh impossible. This is as close as gets to actually sitting in the room with a professional mixer, watching him go through the entire process, and explaining why he's doing what he's doing. Very cool stuff.
> 
> Two technical notes on these videos though, both on the audio coming from the DAW output:
> - There's some really nasty distortion in some of the first videos (mostly B, some in C I thought as well)
> ...




Thanks for your feedback!

We will certainly look into the video quality and panning issue asap and update any thing we change within the downloadable content on our website. 

I have also just uploaded Jake's final mixes to the course for you to listen to, including section stems for the live orchestra so that you can listen in isolation.

Further to this we will shortly be adding full projects with Jake's effects rendered onto the track, so you can listen to individual lines in isolation, even if you don't have Jake's plugins.

Always remember that you have access to our online help system too, so if you have any issues whatsoever just drop us a support ticket and we will respond within 24 hours (often faster).

All the best,

Tim


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## ThinkSpace Education (Jun 1, 2015)

The Darris @ Fri May 29 said:


> Maybe someone can help me with this. I am getting an "SSL connection error" whenever I try to go to Thinkspace's store to buy anything. I've followed quite a number of troubleshooting fixes but can't seem to get it to work. I've gotten this error on multiple different browsers and computers in my house. Anyone has some advice to help remedy this situation?



Hi Christopher,

I can see from our website that you managed to get this sorted out. Drop us a support ticket if you have any further issues of questions!


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## Richard Wilkinson (Jun 2, 2015)

Does Jake go over the specifics of decca tree & section/spot mic panning & mixing? Just about to buy this!


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## Mike Marino (Jun 2, 2015)

> I can also now announce that for early birds we will be hosting a webinar with Jake Jackson!


When is the cutoff to be considered an "early bird?"


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## ThinkSpace Education (Jun 4, 2015)

wilx @ Tue Jun 02 said:


> Does Jake go over the specifics of decca tree & section/spot mic panning & mixing? Just about to buy this!



He certainly does!



Mike Marino @ Tue Jun 02 said:


> > I can also now announce that for early birds we will be hosting a webinar with Jake Jackson!
> 
> 
> When is the cutoff to be considered an "early bird?"



Up until the day of the webinar, which is currently scheduled for the 23rd of June.


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## Richard Wilkinson (Jun 4, 2015)

Should've answered my own question - I bought the course and am going through now. Brilliant stuff so far. 
Might be worth mentioning some alternatives to the plugins in your documentation - the logic compressor in FET studio mode is heavily based on an 1176, for example, which would be a good match for Jake's compressor.
And for the Neve 1073 - there's a few alternatives about, including the cheap & fantastic DDMF 6144.


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## Harry (Jun 9, 2015)

i'm making more hybrid tracks with some orchestral elements in there but not orchestral as such. Would this course still be useful / appropriate?


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## RiffWraith (Jun 9, 2015)

Harry @ Tue Jun 09 said:


> i'm making more hybrid tracks with some orchestral elements in there but not orchestral as such. Would this course still be useful / appropriate?



I don't have the course, so I cant answer you directly, but this might be of use to you:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqqUXsuq1ew


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## Harry (Jun 9, 2015)

Thanks - I saw this, and its very interesting stuff. On this ThinkSpace course though, I would expect to see more exact detail, for example plugin settings etc. Is this the case?


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## Kejero (Jun 10, 2015)

EXACT settings not so much, but he does explain what he's doing to each track while he's doing it, and why he's doing it, most of the time. The HOW is mostly clear enough by seeing the plugins while he's manipulating them, but you're still required to know at least how your own plugins work, and what each knob does. And as every engineer will tell you, and as is evident from these videos: most plugins are used very subtly. There's no one big magic tool with a magic set of settings, it's all just figuring out what an instruments needs, what it's missing, what the entire mix is asking for, and then very subtly applying that change. It all boils down to experience and spending years honing that skill, but what these videos provide is a peak into a workflow that works for at least one professional, successful engineer. Some clues as to what a mix may need, things you may have not thought of yourself.
The focus is not on hybrid music, but I have no doubt that the principles mentioned in this series all apply perfectly fine to hybrid music too. On the other hand, hybrid music definitely requires some additional treatment that's not touched on. I know I find this series has valuable enough information to help me with hybrid mixes, but I 'm sure other people may disagree.


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## Harry (Jun 10, 2015)

Kejero @ Wed Jun 10 said:


> EXACT settings not so much, but he does explain what he's doing to each track while he's doing it, and why he's doing it, most of the time. The HOW is mostly clear enough by seeing the plugins while he's manipulating them, but you're still required to know at least how your own plugins work, and what each knob does. And as every engineer will tell you, and as is evident from these videos: most plugins are used very subtly. There's no one big magic tool with a magic set of settings, it's all just figuring out what an instruments needs, what it's missing, what the entire mix is asking for, and then very subtly applying that change. It all boils down to experience and spending years honing that skill, but what these videos provide is a peak into a workflow that works for at least one professional, successful engineer. Some clues as to what a mix may need, things you may have not thought of yourself.
> The focus is not on hybrid music, but I have no doubt that the principles mentioned in this series all apply perfectly fine to hybrid music too. On the other hand, hybrid music definitely requires some additional treatment that's not touched on. I know I find this series has valuable enough information to help me with hybrid mixes, but I 'm sure other people may disagree.



Thanks you Kejero, that's just what I needed to know.


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## valyogennoff (Jun 17, 2015)

I signed up! Thanks a lot!
I hope I'll get the most out of it!

Cheers!
Valyo


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## markwind (Jun 19, 2015)

Ill sign up myself too. A very welcome course.


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## Will Blackburn (Jun 20, 2015)

Hi guys. How much does he focus on stage placement/panning ? (I mean does he really go into it or just touch on it?)

Or does he focus more on 'these are strings - i will put this compressor on here for this reason' etc etc

Also how long is this on early bird price for and how does the two installment payment method work? 

Many thanks.


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## Richard Wilkinson (Jun 20, 2015)

wcb123 @ Sat Jun 20 said:


> Hi guys. How much does he focus on stage placement/panning ? (I mean does he really go into it or just touch on it?)
> 
> Or does he focus more on 'these are strings - i will put this compressor on here for this reason' etc etc
> 
> ...



Both, really. Some really useful stuff on how to use tree/outrigger/spot mics as well as the processing.


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## tokatila (Jun 24, 2015)

If you buy this after the webinar (which was supposed to be held yesterday 23th). Is the webinar recorded and included in the package?


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## chrysshawk (Jun 24, 2015)

Yes. Overall very good course! Hope the will repeat something in the same vein.


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## spiralbill (Jul 12, 2015)

Hi guys!

About to pull the trigger on this course, but just one question!
Does Jake touch on surround mixing at least just a little bit at all?

Even something like "If it were to be done in surround these are the things I would consider......"

Thanks a lot!


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## synthpunk (Sep 19, 2015)

Anyone taken the course and have any feedback ?

I am thinking about asking for this for Christmas.

TX


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## Hannes_F (Sep 20, 2015)

@Aes-thete I found it very instructive.


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## Killiard (Sep 20, 2015)

I liked it too. If anything it helped speed up my workflow in Pro Tools (which I already know very well anyway). 

I recently had to revisit some sessions I worked on before I took the course and I definitely think my mixes are sounding better now than before.


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## Jackles (Sep 29, 2015)

I'm using Cubase, yet, I found this course very instructive. 
It's great to have the opportunity to see a professional to work in "real" conditions and in real time.
I would love to see more of these, I really think it's worth the price.

Also, as a Cubase user (and also, as a newcomer in the mixing universe), I've always wondered why Pro Tools was such a big deal. Well, now I understand better why... 

About surround mixing, it is mentioned once or twice, but I wouldn't say he talks about it. It's definitely a stereo mixing course.

And yes, the webinar is included.


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