What's your process for recording/balancing/mixing instruments?

[lr11here]

I find myself all the time doing a bit of "mixing" while I record my instruments in my DAW, midi or real instruments. It's quite often I spend a good amount of time changing the levels in the mix and balancing the instruments after I record something (lets say all the strings), and then I go and do other instruments (lets say brass sections) and spend more time messing with my mix again, and so on. I already tried to just record everything and only then start messing with levels, but it's hard because as soon as I record some instruments, I feel that I need to balance then so I can hear those instruments properly with all the other instruments already recorded. But I feel that it can be unproductive, so I am thinking in create a process to follow.

Do you have a process for recording/balancing/mixing? How do you guys do it?

Click to read more...

 

[Replicant]

S'all about the arrangement and composition.

I just consider the notes the voices are playing, the dynamics, etc.

Most I tend to do is adjust volume with CC7 or 11 if I really must.

 

[Jimmy Hellfire]

I think it's important not to get too OCD about these things. Especially when working on computers all day. These things by default box your brain in in certain ways (it can even be scientifically measured, by the way). That's something to keep in mind.

Personally, I believe that composing is a very different process from mixing and/or producing. In some genres of music, the lines might blur a bit more (electronica etc.) But I wouldn't say so for orchestral music. I believe that both "disciplines" stress different parts and areas of your creative apparatus. It's easy to get lost and disrupt your own flow - or hinder yourself from getting into it in the first place.

With writing/composing, I think it's very important to learn to keep a momentum going while developing ideas and milking them. There's a window of opportunity for this, and with increasing experience, one can learn to keep this window open for longer periods of time. But getting sidetracked is no good. I therefore generally write first, mix afterwards. I don't really obsess over "balancing". It's all just samples, and a bunch of diffrerent ones (different devs, product lines, rooms, dry ones, wet ones, etc.) at that. It just needs to sound OK enough so writing is possible. I just make sure that stuff is gain-staged in a senseful manner and that everything is somewhere in the ballpark of what is expected in the arrangement. I have my favorite reverbs already set up, but might fiddle with the settings during mixing anyway.

 

[aaronventure]

1. Make an instrument sound good on its own.
2. Make an instrument sound balanced within the section.
3. Make the section sound good (e.g. Brass only)
4. Continue adding sections and balancing accordingly.

If your instruments are balanced within sections, you'll only need to do work on the section when adding it to the overall mix.

As you keep adding stuff, keep making small changes to the sections if you deem them necessary. As to what "sound good" means, refer to other recordings.

I've developed this workflow quite a while ago because I would take too long and go down rabbit holes that were way too deep. This makes it much more streamlined and I can go from shit to sounds nice! in a few hours.

Nowadays I don't even think about it, I just go on autopilot. It definitely helps to make targets and smaller goals that you go about checking. Don't worry about master EQs and stuff like that until you're there - at the very end. Once you balance it all, you can do with the whole as you wish. Because it will always be in balance.

The first instrument I go and polish is the very first thing I hear in a piece. If there's a tutti or the piece starts with a lot of stuff playing, I do the focus instruments first.

For people who are inexperienced in this area and are looking to improve: the learning process is the same as everywhere else - break it down into smaller goals and just go about it. Start with just one instrument. Write a solo. Composition doesn't matter. Now go and find a recording of a solo you like. Try to get the sound on that level. You're listening for frequency balance, dynamics and room.

You've done it! Good job! Now add accompaniment. Is it another instrument or a section - that's up to you. Keep working up and comparing to good recordings.

For sample libraries: libraries of sections - Brass libraries, strings, woodwinds - are usually all balanced within themselves (at least the high profile ones are). Which is one of their selling points. Take OT for example; you don't need to do much work if your template is Berlin Series. So I'd advise trying to mix instruments from different libraries. CineBrass Trombones with Spitfire Trumpets with Adventure Horns, at least for practice.

You just gotta do it a zillion times. Just like composing takes place in your head, mixing does as well (sort of). I always have a final ballpark where the mix will land and work towards that. That will come naturally as you work. Constant A/B-ing will engrave the "good sound" in your ear and some of the stuff you always notice yourself doing while comparing you'll start to do automatically - because you always happen to do them anyway.

The most important part: be very self critical. I guess you can say this in any area in life where you want to improve, so yeah. Take a listen to your mix the next day, the next week, the next month. Compare it to other recordings. Note down the differences. Frequency balance, dynamics, room, loudness compared to other, etc. Try and go back to your mix and fix these things (even if it's already done and send or whatever - do it for practice).

 

[JonAdamich]

It's just the nature of mixing an orchestra. To do a realistic mock-up, you have to do adjustments constantly. It's a bitch. Can it affect your composing flow? Of course. Though once you do it enough, and really get to know the ins and outs of the vst's you are working with, the process becomes quicker. Just takes time, as anything else. But let me reiterate: really get to know your vst's. I've heard terrible mock-ups with amazing libraries. Learn your tools.


I agree that you should listen to each section of your orchestra and make them shine, as others have said. Though, every once in a while you have to bypass that when working with samples. Maybe you want some fast staccato notes on the french horn in a part of your piece. When you solo your brass, it sounds too choppy and fake. But with the orchestra playing around it, that fakeness disappears and you achieve the sound you want? That's ok. Do what you must so it sounds real together.

Lastly, some people mix/balance later, some people mix as you go. Do what works best for you.

But as the guy above me perfectly said "be very self critical."

 

[Chris Richter]

[...] For sample libraries: libraries of sections - Brass libraries, strings, woodwinds - are usually all balanced within themselves (at least the high profile ones are). Which is one of their selling points. Take OT for example; you don't need to do much work if your template is Berlin Series. So I'd advise trying to mix instruments from different libraries. CineBrass Trombones with Spitfire Trumpets with Adventure Horns, at least for practice.
[...]

This is so very wrong that I can't let it sit there without comment. Berlin Series is all over the place. @NoamL posted a video about a Harry Potter mochup. You can see the effort it takes to make Berlin sound good (from a balance point of view).
Lately I am working on a Spitfire template and the spiccato and piccicato are always way to loud. Horns close mics sound awful in comparison to tree mics. So lots of work to do.

 

[NoamL]

Unfortunately yeah, I have not found Berlin series to be balanced.

All of their instruments have a dial in the middle that states whatever dynamic level is being played back, which provides a nice placebo effect. However once you try to write with them, you find that the dynamic values are not the same at equivalent modwheel values (this is, bewilderingly, by deliberate design) and more importantly, the dynamic range is not really commensurate to the dial, it's considerably narrower.

Here is the timestamp in the video where I show a (pretty balanced I think!) mockup of Berlin Brass.



You can see that the modwheel values are all over the place in order to achieve that balance. Particularly the Bass Trombone, that's the instrument with the radical dips. The advantage of Berlin Brass is that you do get that nice sound of a dozen unique musicians spread across a real stereo field.

With regard to "mixing as you go" I've had terrible experiences with it. It's just too tempting and easy for me to "force" a new element into a composition with added gain or drastically shaped EQ. Then I come back to the piece a few days later and think "WTF is this layered crap."

Computers can liberate us to be "producers" but only if we have discipline and great ears and are really making creative choices.

I think a mockup based template (i.e. find a piece you like, mock it up, and there's your template) will free you because you already did the hard work up front. You will find it is more work than you think, in other words instruments need more drastic EQ, panning, etc. than you would probably think to create during a mixed composing-mixing process.

But in the end this is really good, and in fact liberating. It's liberating because you can give yourself the permission to make these radical EQ and spatialization moves because you already decided you love the mix that you're referencing. Whatever moves get your libraries to sound like that must be the right moves. Then it's liberating again during the composition process because, since you know the template is balanced to real life, you remove the temptation to make mix moves that "correct" bad composition or bad orchestration.

You should want to get to the point where your "virtual orchestra" IS a virtual orchestra. You can't turn up the oboes in real life!

The one criticism of the template mockup approach is that it's "inflexible" but it doesn't have to be that way. If you mock up a relatively dry piece you now have an orchestra that can be "re reverbed" into any other space you want. If you are diligent about using sub mix busses for the different orchestral sections, and doing good routing practices for your wet/dry signals, it can be really easy to change your mix without changing the balance within the orchestra.

 

[Chris Richter]

Btw I highly recommend Mice Verta's Class on Orchestral Template Mixing. It's awesome and quite helpfull. Well invested 30$.