# Template - Stereo Delay on Orchestral Tracks and Reverb on this Track?



## milesito (Jan 4, 2014)

Hi all,

Looking for your sage feedback...I've been going at the template for a few weeks now and went back to the drawing board yet again, after learning you can add depth and space to a mix using delays even for orchestral music...this time I added a stereo delay to my aux mix buses (winds, and brass). Depending on whether it was winds (left) or Winds Right, I added a bit of delay to it and timed it out to my ear based on the position of the instruments on the stage. I also did it for brass. I did not do it for percussion or strings but am thinking maybe it would be a good thing eventually. I would need to create more mix buses for strings left and strings right (instead of strings hi and low) and break out my sable instrument tracks into more kontakt instances (which I don't really want to do unless it sounds better) and bus them to the different strings left and right busses etc.... Also, for reverb, instead of sends to a short ER with no tail, I decided to use 4 QLSpaces reverb presets for each instrument part (why recreate the wheel I suppose since they have the instrument pre-delays and everything already made)...and I used a reverb instance for each of the 4 sections of the orchestra...and put a subtle Valhalla reverb tail on the end (even though the QL spaces reverbs have a 3.3-3.4 sec tail.

My questions are - at 1:20 sec, when the winds come in and state the melody - do they sound good to you - well spaced, present, etc..? Do you think it is worth applying the stereo delay to the strings and percussion? 

Secondly, is the mix too dry or wet?

https://soundcloud.com/verosound-1/tusc ... to/s-PTvaB

Thanks for the feedback and for listening.

Libraries:
BWW, Sable, Spitfire Harp, Friedlander Violin, Blakus Cello, Fluffy Piano, Cineperc Celestia, Cinebrass (solo fr horn).


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## dryano (Jan 4, 2014)

Basically it makes no sense to add a Stereo Delay set up for room placement to samples, that were already recorded in a room. That Stereo-Delay Trick came from a time, where orchestral samples were recorded in dry rooms. I also cannot hear any benefits of that idea in your track here. In fact, this track has so many problems in terms of composition, arrangement, and midi programming, that its really not a good case-study for mixing. 
My suggestions would be: Delete all Delays and stuff from your template - instead for dry instruments, you want to place spatially. Also don't worry about the reverb too much. Especially with SF stuff, you should use as least as possible, because its already recorded in that AIR church. BWW needs more reverb, than SF and also more than Cinebrass. The piano is the biggest problem in this track (sound-wise, not in terms of music). It has its completely own, intimate space and does not blend well with the orchestral instruments. I cannot judge the solo strings, you are using, because they are drown in the mix. But the most important thing here is the midi itself. Its by far not as good as it can be, which also influences the mix, as we talk about balances, frequency spectrum etc.

By the way... you wrote in another thread about some hardware waves emulations, you use and like. Certainly not a bad idea to use them, but maybe a bad one, to qoute marketing phrases like "breath life into..." "add shimmer without being obvious..." blahblah, if you are on the skill level, your piece shows here.

Please note, I don't want to insult you. I want to give you something to think about. With your Stereo delay topic you are making the 3rd move, without making the first one before. That should be a solid composition and arrangement. Then comes the midi programming and then the audio engineering.


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## milesito (Jan 4, 2014)

Hi Dryano,

I appreciate the feedback on the effects on this mix. So basically, you do not hear any benefit regarding the stereo imaging made by stereo delay on the winds and solo instruments. 

I understand there are midi and arranging issues with regard to the composition. In the future it seems to make sense to spend a lot more time ironing those things out first. My intention was to throw something together extremely quickly with the settings of the template to just show the blending of the instruments, but your point about those other issues inhibiting your ability to discern what is going on in the mix makes sense to me...

As you stated, the SF stuff has quite a bit of reverb in it already, so does that mean I should not mix all of my string libraries (solo strings, or cinematic strings 2) to the same bus and apply reverb to that bus? In your opinion, should all of my reverbs be applied to the individual instrument tracks via sends versus the aux buses?

Thx!


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## germancomponist (Jan 9, 2014)

dryano @ Sun Jan 05 said:


> Basically it makes no sense to add a Stereo Delay set up for room placement to samples, that were already recorded in a room. That Stereo-Delay Trick came from a time, where orchestral samples were recorded in dry rooms.



Huh.....   

It makes no sense to add a delay or even more delays?

Adding delays are one of the most important things when mixing! o/~ o=< o-[][]-o


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## muk (Jan 9, 2014)

In my opinion you are misguiding your efforts here. At this stadium it doesn't help you to think too much about reverb and eq and such things. This distracts you from making the piece sounding better at the moment. It would benefit much more from investing your time into the composition first, then into more detailed midi programming. 
For example, why do you use a whole string orchestra first, then solo violin and cello after that? (another problem would be that these solo instruments, including the woodwinds, completely drown out the string sections, which is unrealistic and sounds bad) The means are not in balance with the content. This piece doesn't - in my opinion - need a string orchestra. It's a chamber piece. 


Even if you are working with samples and can have 500 virtual musicians playing together: ask yourself first if and what for you really need them. Try to write for real musicians even if it's only gonna be a mockup after all. Give every single one of them something meaningful to play, or cross it out as you don't need it. If you're unsure what you want to do with a certain instrument: don't use it. Start small, but give equal attention to every instrument.

Next step after that would be to try to get more out of your tools. You have incredible tools at hand (Sable, Embertone, BWW, Cinebrass...). All the libs you list are high class, and they can sound better if you learn them more and spend more time programming the midi data.

All the reverb/mixing pp stuff is really just the icing on the cake. Right now you have just a rough cake batter and want to apply the icing already. You have to bake it first. (ok, now I'm hungry).

I hope this all doesn't sound harsh, it is not meant to be. You have a good piece of music there and it has very beautiful moments. Also I don't think that the mockup sounds bad, I'm just of the opinion that it could sound even better if you spent a bit more time on it.
So, good work so far. And now don't let yourself be distracted too soon and go as far with this mockup as you can. Everything else would be a pity.


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